Bump Discussion Plugin - Need Feedback

peregrine

It updates the DateLastComment Field to current time when bump is clicked without adding a bump comment.

I don't think this will have any impact other than to cause discussion to rise, but if someone has some caveats against doing this, let me know.

It will allow people with permission to bump to cause discussion to rise. Probably best for mods and admins so it is not abused.

R_J

I like the simplicity of that plugin! And it reduces cluttered threads, too.

But I think this could irritate users, because it is not obvious why a discussion with no new comments shows up on the top of recent discussions again. Maybe adding something to the last comment or the discussion itself would be helpful?

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque ultrices sem id cursus volutpat. Vestibulum consequat purus aliquet, imperdiet orci id, mattis nisi. Duis feugiat nisi non augue convallis consectetur.
Donec nulla elit, luctus eu dignissim ut, egestas nec ante. Praesent tincidunt augue a quam auctor faucibus. Nam auctor nisl a turpis molestie pulvinar. Pellentesque ut tortor leo. In pharetra nisl eget tortor suscipit, at aliquam leo fermentum.

________________________
bumped on date by user

Also I think that the order of discussions is mostly regulated by interest and that's the way a forum should work. People who have interest in bumping a discussion are mostly not admins or mods (they would create annoncements), but in nearly 100% of the bumped topics, the discussion opener himself. Although I share your concern of users abusing such a possibility, I would suspect that it makes more sense for discussion openers than for any other "group". Maybe adding an additional setup option "Only allow discussion opener to bump a discsussion" would be enough. So a board owner can create an additional role for reliable users that have proven to act reasonable.

Zhaan

I personally like this concept quite a bit. There have been cases where I've wanted to bump threads without posting in them or using the announcement tool. That said, I wouldn't let my non-staff members use this plugin due to potential abuse.

Adding something to the last comment also seems like a good idea.

PS: It doesn't seem possible to do this from within a thread, is that intentional?

Linc

We talked about a plugin that does this the last time I was with the team in Montreal. Which is to say: you read our minds.

@R_J I wondered if entering a '/me' action for the bumping user would clarify things. Eventually we'd like to have GitHub-style actions in discussions, which would make this really slick. For now, I'm evenly split between the simplicity of a comment-less bump or a comment-as-note. @peregrine has voted with code which is the vote that counts!

hgtonight

I am not sure I agree with @R_J's assessment, but I do think there should be some way to limit bumping. Add something like a 'CountBumps' column that is incremented on every bump.

You could put a note after the last comment that the thread has been bumped by checking the last comment date with the discussion date.

I really like the idea of typing in '/me bump We need some more donations' where anything after '/me bump' is considered the "reason".

peregrine

Thanks everyone for comments. So aside from tweaks for messages of who bumped, the plugin will not cause problems with other things by altering DateLastComment, correct. @Lincoln you probably know this best.

I'll look into add some more config options. for op owner bump (yes / no) .

and an option to add a "bumped" - don't know if it would be better to add to discussion topic page or within discussion. Seems like discussion topic page would be clearer if it had an identifying icon or word that said bumped, rather than in discussion itself.

@Zhaan said

PS: It doesn't seem possible to do this from within a thread, is that intentional?

I think you are mistaken Zhaan. what version of vanilla are you using, where you don't have that functionality.
theoretically you can bump from any comment or op discussion in the discussion thread itself, as well as from the discussion topic page.

vrijvlinder

Here are some icons for your purpose

The little one is for marking the post bumped

peregrine

thanks for the icons V. I really like them.
I had to chuckle because the icon reminds me of a washing machine never mind inside joke.

vrijvlinder

Yes, it is the top view of a top loader washing machine.

peregrine

rather than tracking bump count. I was thinking along the lines, the moderator knows when people abuse things and if bump is restricted to the op and moderator and admin, then all you have do is warn op. And then there could be a config option that removes OP from bumping forever in any discussion.

hgtonight

Sorry, for not giving you direct feedback, @peregrine.

I did not see any conflicts in my test setup. I did notice an extraneous $Session = Gdn::Session(); line in the SettingsController_BumpDiscussion_Create() method.

Just a style question, is there a reason you created 'BumpDiscussion' on the discussion controller and then call it at `/discussion/BumpDiscussion/bump/{$DID}'? Considering that you do not seem to check for the 'bump' method, this seems to be an oversight.

@Zhaan It doesn't make sense to me to let you bump a discussion through a comment. I wouldn't mind seeing a link right at the end of the comment list, maybe right above the comment box. It could show the bump status or a 'bump me' link

peregrine

I'll work through some changes tonight or the next day. I'll get back to you hg. thx.

I also thought of checking dates and preventing bumps for either 24 hours by op or some selected time period. good - bad? not needed?

Linc

I think the Vanilla mentality is, "if I'm going to clutter this with knobs and dials, it better be important." So, I don't personally favor timeframe options.

hgtonight

Apparently edits to discussions/last comment don't update the discussion sort order.

Is this the intended behavior @Lincoln?

Linc

I'm not sure what you're asking. The default sort is by DateLastComment.

peregrine

hgtonight said:
Apparently edits to discussions/last comment don't update the discussion sort order.

Is this the intended behavior @Lincoln?

Lincoln said
I'm not sure what you're asking. The default sort is by DateLastComment.

I guess hgtonight was wondering if DateLastComment should be updated on an edit of last comment, but what you are saying is that your intention is not to update DateLastComment on an edit but to leave the original "Post date and time of the last comment" in DateLastComment no matter whether the Last Comment was edited or not.

Linc

Yes, that's true. The comment's DateUpdated is independent of the discussion's DateLastComment.

(ergo, a moderator editing a comment should never bump a discussion)

vrijvlinder

I think that makes a lot of sense.

Editing a comment should not change it's original post date. It should simply state "edited" and possibly the date .

So what would be really helpful is an edited date/time on it's own timeline apart from the original post.

The edited comment should not necessarily bump the discussion in my opinion. It should always be a new comment that does. Knowing when it was edited is great and having a differentiator with the original comment and then the edited part would be awesome.

Specially when those edits can render the rest of the comments irrational or irrelevant.

On some forums you can't delete original discussions but you can edit them if you created them. So a person can simply write an entire new thing or say dead thread and render that entire discussion a total waste in need of deletion.

peregrine

@vrijvlinder
So what would be really helpful is an edited date/time on it's own timeline apart from the original post.

then use this:

http://vanillaforums.org/addon/lastedited-plugin

vrijvlinder

Yes, I forgot about that lol I wonder if drafts are saved of the edited comment ? or does the draft get annulled when it is posted... one could tie into the drafts to fish out a diff of the edits no?

I can see how important it is too limit edit time. It can cause many problems.

Also, who should be allowed to Bump, maybe the OP and Mods ? Or create a role =Bumper to allow others who are trusted ?

Can there be a limit to how many bumps ? People could abuse it to bring their discussion up or their comments.

hgtonight

@Lincoln, thanks for the confirmation.