I am pleased to announce a new feature: thread watching. This lets you receive notification whenever someone posts a comment in a thread of interest.

More specifically, you can get notified when someone replies directly to a specific node of interest, or when someone replies anywhere under a node of interest, no matter how many reply levels below the node. These two modes are called 'direct' and 'any'. The node of interest doesn't have to be a root node in one of the sections; it could be any reply as well, in case you're only interested in a subthread under some post.

To register for notifications, click one of the new links you'll find by each node, near the "Comment on" link. For a node you're viewing directly (that is, the 'root' of a (sub)thread you're viewing), the new text looks like:
Watch for: Direct replies / Any replies
For all other nodes in a (sub)thread you're viewing, the new text looks like:
Watch: Dir/Any

If you have already registered interest in a node in this way, you will instead see a link like:
Unwatch

To see a list of all the nodes you are currently watching, go to My Watched Nodes. Next to each watch listed, you'll see a "button" (like [X]) which you can click to delete that watch.

In addition... You can watch a user, i.e. receive notification whenever a specific user posts. To set up this kind of watch, go to the user's homenode, where you will see a link like Watch for posts by this user. When you are stalking a user in this way, you will also get notifications of whenever they submit root posts in any of the main sections of the site.

If a post happens to hit multiple criteria you have set up — for example, you're watching for posts in a certain thread and by a certain user, and that user posts in that thread — you will get just a single notification message.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: New Feature: Thread Watcher
by pryrt (Abbot) on Feb 29, 2024 at 20:38 UTC
    Interesting feature.

    When I did my recent reply elsewhere, I was surprised to see the cb told me You said "[id://1158292] posted [id://11157997] as a comment somewhere under [id://11157983]" to [MonkNameHere] . Since I hadn't yet read your message, I was a bit confused as to how I sent that message, and started investigating my cb recently-sent, trying to figure out what happened. (Also, the cb message gave the raw links as I quoted, rather than link-rendering.)

    Was it intentional that you also message the poster that someone watched them post?

    Someone making a reply might get a little annoyed at seeing a dozen notifications that they msg'd everyone who happened to be watching a popular thread.

    And moreso, [MonkNameHere] might get a little annoyed that their watching of the discussion becomes semi-public knowledge. (I know some monks value staying hidden, even when they do log in, and might be upset to find out that I happened to know they were watching a particular conversation.)

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      Thank you for the report. I've done some testing, and at this point I'm pretty sure that that message you saw in your cb was spurious, and factually inaccurate. I got it too, in my tests. But only the person who has registered for a notification will actually get it. I need to figure out why you got that message.

      Update: Fixed.

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Re: New Feature: Thread Watcher
by Discipulus (Canon) on Mar 01, 2024 at 08:26 UTC
    Hello jdporter..

    ..and thanks for this feature we expected since long time!

    > There is not yet a way to turn off a watch.

    Can I suggest to have a page under Settings where all watched threads are visible and where you can unwatch them? In my opinion this will be better than an unwatch link in the node.

    L*

    There are no rules, there are no thumbs..
    Reinvent the wheel, then learn The Wheel; may be one day you reinvent one of THE WHEELS.
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[d/l]
      Can I suggest to have a page ... where all watched threads are visible and where you can unwatch them

      et voilą.

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      One idea could be to have a search for "nodes you watch"

      The "Find Nodes" Nodelet has "nodes you wrote", that's the same link like for the write-ups number in a user's profile.

      One could parallel that in the Nodelet and in the profile.

      Update: Though in that case these lists should be private like votes.

      Cheers Rolf
      (addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
      see Wikisyntax for the Monastery

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        I have added the link to the Find Nodes nodelet. Not sure where I'd put the link on the user's profile, though. In any case, it would just be a link to My Watched Nodes, which only ever shows you your own watches, never someone else's.

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Re: New Feature: Thread Watcher
by jo37 (Curate) on Feb 29, 2024 at 20:14 UTC

    Great!

    Though the links are almost not recognisable in the "Perl-Blue" theme.

    Greetings,
    🐻

    $gryYup$d0ylprbpriprrYpkJl2xyl~rzg??P~5lp2hyl0p$
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      the links are almost not recognisable in the "Perl-Blue" theme

      Thanks! I have made an adjustment. Let me know if it's still not good.

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Re: New Feature: Thread Watcher
by LanX (Saint) on Mar 13, 2024 at 19:25 UTC
    Hi I think it's still too complicated to "unwatch" a node

    The "You are watching this node" message in the node's footer should either

    • be followed by an unwatch! link
    • or (even easier) include a link to My Watched Nodes ¹

    I was trying to provide a patch for the latter, but found the usage of genLink() confusing.

    Reading the code in the Everything modules didn't help and I didn't want to guess.

    Cheers Rolf
    (addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
    see Wikisyntax for the Monastery

    Update

    ¹) Thanks for implementing! :)

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      Thank you for the idea. Good one!

      genLink is pretty simple. genLink( 'link text', { CGI parameters for the href } )
      E.g.: 

      genLink( "<u>watching</u>", { node_id => 11158023 } )

      [download]
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Re: New Feature: Thread Watcher - Should we call it 'follow' instead?
by jdporter (Paladin) on Apr 05, 2024 at 13:55 UTC

    What do y'all think of the idea of referring to this feature as following rather than watching? I think that would make more sense in the modern context.

[reply]

      Can't say I would be overly worked up over the naming of it. Following sounds more appropriate where the object is a user and watching moreso where the object is a (sub)thread, so either is fine for the general case.

      As a hippo I'm in favour of combining watching and following so that we end up with wallowing. That sounds ideal. :-D

      🦛

[reply]

        OK. I have changed the verbiage on user homenodes only to 'Follow'/'Unfollow'. And I have moved that link to the 'For this user:' list of links. So you'll see it right after 'Search nodes'.

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