Take me straight to my last post please!

Dear ATS, the problem I have is posting a reply to a thread and then coming back days later trying to have a sneaky five minutes internet time at work and I can't find my last post as it has been lost amongst pages and pages of newer replies.

The perfect solution would be a function which allows you to go directly to your last post rather than the first page of the thread via 'my ATS'. I don't know how possible this would be but it would allow me to participate more often with limited time as I'm sure it owuld a lot of other people.

Who agrees?

50/50

agreed, this has been risen before! i would be another that would like to see this happen.

I have been trying to tell people that we need such a feature, but nobody seems to understand what i have been trying to say. This particular missing feature annoys me as well. A lot. I just don't have the time to search for my posts from a 30 page thread.

Originally posted by theflashor
agreed, this has been risen before! i would be another that would like to see this happen.

Yes it has! Here is a thread of mine from a couple of months ago - I would love to see this feature added!

If you click on Profile at the top, then "my posts" it will take you to all of your last posts in reverse order

reply to post by Acidtastic


Yeah but it doesnt take you to the actual position in the thread, you can only get to the single post or all the posts that you have made in a thread. Both aren't much help IMO.

I agree with the OP. A button saying "Find my last post" would be useful.

ahh thx i was just looking for that ...
no wonder i could't find it...

so..I agree...

Originally posted by 44soulslayer
reply to post by Acidtastic

 

Yeah but it doesnt take you to the actual position in the thread, you can only get to the single post or all the posts that you have made in a thread. Both aren't much help IMO.

I agree with the OP. A button saying "Find my last post" would be useful.

aah ok, fair enough, i missread the opening post. Sory for the mixup fiftyfifty, and thank you 44soulslayer for the clarification.

Too true, it makes you lose interest in a thread.

Definately would be a helpful feature.

Unfortunately, there are a great number of features and options on a typical "discussion board" many users have become accustomed to using that become difficult, if not impossible, to implement on ATS.

Consider that 99% of all discussion boards are rather small with low traffic... at that point, the "cost" in database load and processor load for complex features is almost negligible. But once a site is at the level of millions of posts and a hundred or so simultaneous users, the "cost" begins to be prohibitive.

ATS hit that milestone of millions of posts and hundreds of simultaneous users years ago. We began cutting back on complex features...
- we once had a "your last post" button for threads you replied to
- we once had a "last read post" for threads you viewed
- we once had a thread views counter
- we once had a site-wide mood meter
- we once had individual mood meters for members
- at one time, guests saw full-thread views with avatars and signatures

And now, we have over 6 million posts in our database (the tally is officially 5.8 million, but that only counts the publicly viewed posts) and average nearly 800 simultaneous users at any given time. With our currently cut-back feature set that includes lots of semi-static auto-generated pages (to reduce database calls for guest users) and the lack of thread-view tracking, our database averages over 200 queries a second.

Long ago we made the decision to pull-back on some features so that the entire site would run efficiently and smoothly for everyone. It's unfortunate, but since we don't have an endless budget for technology (we're currently on a cluster of five enterprise-class servers, one with 16-cores), it's necessary.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Is there any way this storage could be delocalised to each users' own computer?

For example a complex cookie that stores the "location" of each post the user makes (on their hard drive), and can take them back there at the click of the button. It wouldn't be a "live" adaptive system, but rather a simplistic one which just records the last post made in any thread as a function of location... ie the user's computer logs the post using some sort of geographic map like "post made in thread xxxx, page 13", and autolinks to that page when the button is clicked.

Just an outlandish suggestion, not even sure if what Im saying makes much sense considering my total lack of an IT background

reply to post by 44soulslayer


The more you mess with the plumbing , the more leaks you will find. Im quite happy with things as they are, although an indicator of what page your last post was on would be handy , I dont mind the effort of then finding the post amongst others on the page. And to be honest, regards the idea of putting the processing in the hands of my pc... no thanks, my computer has enough cookies to fill the fattest twins on earth twice over with some left over for ethiopia , sudan , and George Bush (because lets face it, we have to keep him occupied somehow!).

I have a solution, Whenever i make a post i click on ADD TO FAVORITES in whatever browser i am using.
Then when i want to check up on the thread i just click on it and it takes me to not only the page but to my actual post as well.
When you have finished with the post you can just delete it from your favorites.

Works for me

Hit 'My ATS' and BAM! There are all 50 of the posts you have made or posted on last... to the right of your screen.

Thats the way I roll!

reply to post by fiftyfifty


I've asked for some such as many years as I've been on ATS.

It's dreadful with all this fancy computing power that no such function is still available.

www.freerepublic.com...

does it best with their COMMENTS page that lists

ALL the posts to you and all the posts from you in different colors in either header format or the full posts listed from most recent at the top to less recent at the bottom.

IT MAKES IT VERY TIME EFFICIENT, USER FRIENDLY and just a pleasure to use.

This system has always been the pits by comparison. Sigh.

Seems like, also, the feedback on this always gets an exhortation to go to the "MyATS" page where there's merely a listing of the threads one has posted on that have been active in the last 30 days.

HELLO? THAT IS NOT any great-time-efficient-help compared to what's being asked for!

Then the excuse has been given that the softward overhaul would be too time consuming and expensive.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I thought that there had been an infusion of helpful money? Why can't some of it be spent making this place more user friendly in ways that would save thousands of man-hours per week!

ISN'T THE TIME OF US SERFS WORTH SOMETHING TOO???

Sorry for my tone, a bit . . . but it's getting discouraging and a bit exasperating to see such suggestions and requests come to absolutely nothing year after year.

Otherewise, I love the leadership and the site. It has a LOT going for it. But this horrid lack of a time saving, ease of use feature as outlined above is dumb, horrific, and a huge waste of valuable time. And at 62, time is an increasingly precious thing to me.

reply to post by Little One


No. THAT'S NOT ACCURATE UNLESS THEY'VE DRAMATICALLY CHANGED THINGS RECENTLY.

MyATS lists THE THREADS you've posted on--NOT the posts you've posted, exclusively.

One still has to wade through all the pages and all the posts to find their posts and replies thereto.

Originally posted by Acidtastic
If you click on Profile at the top, then "my posts" it will take you to all of your last posts in reverse order

No. It does NOT.

It takes one to the last THREADS one has posted on.

One still has to waste tons of time searching through all the posts and every page of that thread to find one's own posts as well as replies to one's posts.

Still a horrific waste of time.

And time is one of the most pricless parts of our lives.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Thanks for the candor, at least.

I would like to see this made a higher priority for whenever funds might be made available.

I realize that FREEREPUBLIC.COM's founder and son are programmers and have written their own software.

However, it handles a LOT more posts than ATS and very efficiently.

They have over 30 MILLION page views per month and 1-2 million users on average . . . usually between 1-1.5 million unique users.

They operate on $300,000/year donated funds.

I haven't been able to quickly find the size of their data base but I'd assume that in numbers of posts it's probably more than 20 TIMES the size of ATS's database in terms of the number of posts.

And the response times are typically much better.

I still think that ATS can do much better on this issue and a lot sooner than you seem to think. You, however are the boss.

I'd just like to remind you that my time is valuable, too.

reply to post by 44soulslayer


That at least sounds better than the status quo.

How much local disk space do you think that would entail for the average active user?

Any other probable complications with that?

I would love something like that too, but unfortanetly that apparently is out of the question at this time.

As SO said, Money is prohibitive. Running and maintaining a website that is this active costs losts of money and adding that feature would cost an amount of money that is not readily available to ATS at this point.

Mabye one day this feature will be available but it probably wont be anytime soon.

I am sure SO and the rest of the ATS staff knows of our wishes and are keeping them in mind for the future incase there is ever room for expansion.

Peace and love