Question about posts participation.

That's a good question Marty. I know that activity used to show what you had done, but that disappeared and wouldn't even help though as it would be like looking through everything you've done. I've often wondered when I get notifications if I have taken part in it. Being that I'm following some active people it gets blurred. I recently have been holding onto a particular post that I have not been participating in, but thought I was. Finally figured that out recently. Yeah, I know that it would be easy to see if I was following, but given how many topics were sitting in my box it was hard to remember which was which to determine that.

My guess is that there probably won't be a way to figure this out as it would take some doing to get that to work. I mean, how would it be indicated you participated, some sort of marker to take you to the pages or posts at the bottom?

Can't you go to your profile and hit posts to get the list?

@hokie71 posted:

Can't you go to your profile and hit posts to get the list?

I can get a list of all posts but that would be worse than looking through 14 pages!  I just want to see if I participated in a thread I'm currently viewing. 

You can, but what if you commented years ago? It would be just like search in that regard. Take forever to find out.

@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:

You can, but what if you commented years ago? It would be just like search in that regard. Take forever to find out.

Dave I'm with you on that. I guess I could use the advanced search using the keywords from the thread and myself as the poster but that's a convoluted way of doing it.  I would figure the software could be able to tell me if I posted to a thread I am currently viewing.

@MartyE posted:

Dave I'm with you on that. I guess I could use the advanced search using the keywords from the thread and myself as the poster but that's a convoluted way of doing it.  I would figure the software could be able to tell me if I posted to a thread I am currently viewing.

Exactly Marty. I had looked some years ago for a post I had commented on which I think was at least a week old. I had deleted the email notification so figured I'd look up my activity. Well, that was a rabbit hole and got me nowhere fast. So, I tried search, that was pretty much the same. I finally found the post after about another week of looking. Part of the problem was that the post became closed so there was no more activity to pop any notification on to it. The more activity one has, the harder it gets. Mind you, I wasn't as active then as I am now, so that just shows how hard it is to find something that you'd think would be easy to do. Almost like looking up "track" in search, you're going to be overloaded.

I just took a minute and searched. You have not posted in that thread.

I switched to the 200 replies per page option bringing it down to 3 pages, and then did a Ctrl-F search for "MartyE" on each of the 3 pages, with no results.

I spend time paging all the way thru a, sometimes old, post to make sure l am not repeating comments, and, surprise!, find l am about to...like to save that time and not be redundant.

It certainly doesn't hurt to ask... and, I don't think anyone would tell anyone to pound sand.  It's not nearly as easy as one would think (I am a programmer)... it takes time and money.  Think this through... this is a nano, niche community ...how many members are there, how many are sponsors, digital subscribers, supporting members or otherwise financial contributors are there?  What is the overhead?

I am extremely grateful for OGR and hope it outlives my days.

Rock On

You would think advanced search would do it, but it does not work.

I know I posted to the 33 page GRJ thread, New Train Room Finally Getting A Layout!

I went to advanced search and pasted in "New Train Room Finally Getting A Layout!" and in the "posted by" field put in my user ID ron045.  No hits.

Then I changed posted by to Gunrunnerjohn and did not get any hits for that either.   

Ron

It could be a feature that Crowdstack already has implemented and just needs activated or what have you. Cost could be minimal.

None of this is like turning on a switch.  Features are not in the API... it has to be written, authenticated etc.  API Client/API Crowd stack... access token request, access token response, API call with access token, API call response.  What fields are you calling?  What are the if, then statements?

There are other forums I belong to that have a small green dot appear in the title of any thread that I've participated in. I'm not sure who hosts them, I think I remember one of the forum founders saying he wrote the software himself.  It was really useful.

@Dennis-LaRock posted:

None of this is like turning on a switch.  Features are not in the API... it has to be written, authenticated etc.  API Client/API Crowd stack... access token request, access token response, API call with access token, API call response.  What fields are you calling?  What are the if, then statements?

If this request has been made on another Crowdstack forum then it maybe as easy as "turning on a switch".  If not then I agree it probably isn't worth the effort but again there is no harm is asking.

Absolutely no harm in asking!!!

Even, if written somewhere else... it's not cut and paste.   Heck, if you ask around there are probably dozens of features that folks would like.  In programming it's called feature creep... considered insidious and never ending.

I will make the Crowdstack Tech Staff aware of this idea. We’ll see where it goes.

Rich,

If it doesn't work out... let me know ...when we get together.

Will do, Dennis.

In the meantime, I submitted this to the "SUGGESTIONS" forum at Crowdstack:

I'm suggesting that there should be a way to indicate to a member if has already posted in a specific thread.

When I post a reply in a thread that has many pages, I sometimes use the "copy link to reply" feature to save a link to my comment in a text document.

MELGAR

@Rich Melvin posted:

Will do, Dennis.

In the meantime, I submitted this to the "SUGGESTIONS" forum at Crowdstack:

---

I'm suggesting that there should be a way to indicate to a member if has already posted in a specific thread.

Some of the threads on our forum have very long legs. Many are several years old, but remain active with new ideas and photos posted in the threads daily. The record-holder is THIS THREAD which was started in January 2013 and is now 987 pages long! It still has new content posted in it every day.

Threads that grow beyond a few pages become very difficult to search. If a member could see the time stamps of his posts in any given thread when he loads it, that would be a very helpful feature.

---

Thanks Rich for considering this request.  Like I said I was eager to post a new picture to that thread but didn't know if I might have already done so.  Searching through 14 pages was "not gonna happen".  Then I thought if there was a way to see if I already posted and the software could take me or at least tell me a page it would be easier. 

@Ron045 posted:

You would think advanced search would do it, but it does not work.

I know I posted to the 33 page GRJ thread, New Train Room Finally Getting A Layout!

I went to advanced search and pasted in "New Train Room Finally Getting A Layout!" and in the "posted by" field put in my user ID ron045.  No hits.

Then I changed posted by to Gunrunnerjohn and did not get any hits for that either.   

Ron

It worked for me...

Result...

It even showed this current post about looking for the others, there was also a 4th on about cutting a hole in a redwood tree at the top.

Link to the search results page I got...

https://ogrforum.com/...agination.sort=SCORE

Not sure why yours didn't show anything.

Jerry

@baltimoretrainworks posted:

It worked for me...

Jerry

Nice Work Jerry!!!!

Thanks Dennis. Not sure if they were Rons only posts on the subject but it showed only one page. Search engines are fickle in my opinion, sometimes the most accurate inquiry gives no results and other times the most convoluted nonsensical gives  you exactly what you're looking for. A few weeks ago I was looking for an old post of mine and after going thru about 12 pages of results I gave up, you have no idea how many times I have used the word "Plasticville" since I came on board here.

Jerry

Thanks Jerry but wouldn't it be nice if while you are within the thread you could find all of your posts without going through a search?  I think that is what I am looking for if possible.

After taking a closer look a Jerry's post, they show posts in other threads as well.  Not exactly what I had in mind with it being my suggestion being limited to the thread I am currently viewing.  So while somewhat helpful, not exactly on target.

Jerry, I'm with you on the fickleness... there are a lot of ways to write the search ...and, your results may *vary*!

Marty, what color do you want the *Dot* and where do you want it?

@baltimoretrainworks posted:

It worked for me...

Result...

It even showed this current post about looking for the others, there was also a 4th on about cutting a hole in a redwood tree at the top.

Link to the search results page I got...

https://ogrforum.com/...agination.sort=SCORE

Not sure why yours didn't show anything.

Jerry

Not really.  You made it too easy.  The OP wanted to know if he already posted to a specific thread.  Try it again.  But instead of something easy like GunRunnerJohn where you will get a gazillion hits, put in the specific title of a thread you know you posted to.  Then put in your ID.

Like this thread... Question about posts participation

I've posted to it.  Why can't search find it when I use the title and my name?  And before you say it was because i typed in all caps and the title is upper and lower case.... I did it a second time just to be sure.  I just did not bother with a second screen shot.

Ron

It's not that difficult to write the code to obtain a result... it's the variables.  One variable leads to another... the multitude of if, then statements.  As Rich pointed out, one thread has 987 pages!  How many posts do you want displayed?  All of them?  How do you want them displayed?  Where do you want them displayed?  Do you want to search your posts (within the thread) by date/keyword... both?  Suppose someone wants a different result than you?

And, speaking of Gunrunner... his tag seems particularly poignant in this instance...

Nothing is so easy as the job you imagine someone else doing!

I guess if software guys aren’t up to the task...

Im sure there’s somebody out there that needs to be told to plug in their computer.

Marty,

I had to grin at this one.  For a long thread, I have a theory that 95% on the forum only read the most recent three posts on a topic, 50% read the three posts plus the previous page, and 0.001% read the whole thing. Plus, at the age of most of us, who remembers what we read?

Your previous posts will never be found and held against you!  Just sayin....

Something squirrely going on with the search engine. I copy and pasted the title as is and nothing showed up...

But remove the period and it shows up.

Similarly when I typed in Gunrunners title and his name nothing resulted...

But remove the punctuation marks and...

But it showed only 2 hits for a 33 page topic? And I still don't understand why the search hi-lites words in the post that aren't included in the search parameters.

Ain't technology wonderful?

Jerry

I guess Crowdstack didn't care for this idea as they have yet to respond to Rich's inquiry.

BTW, "no we can't do that", is an acceptable answer.