Brace yourselves: @mentions are coming to NikeTalk.

In terms of presentation, and this is just my personal opinion, I'd prefer to see the @ mentions display as they do on Facebook as opposed to Twitter's implementation.  That's not how they'll start out, however.

The advantage the Twitter system has is that it's essentially self-explanatory.  If you see it, you know how to do it.  That said, video embeds are activated via button and bbcode here - and enough users know how to do that to quickly and easily answer any questions that new users may have about it.

So, if the adoption rates for the new feature are high enough, I think the case can be made quite convincingly that we can afford to streamline the feature a bit for the sake of presentation.  

I'd rather use it naturally, as one would a form of address, rather than to have the @ character stand out.  It's formatting code.  We don't need to see that and it detracts from the conversational nature of our threads.  

When you envision this, then, understand that tomorrow's update essentially represents phase 1.  If I had my druthers, phase 2 would include quote integration and would strip out the @ symbol - but we'll see how things go.  Your feedback means a great deal here.  

If you like the idea of @mentions but would prefer a Facebook style implementation to a twitter-style implementation, I'll lobby for you.  The more people vocalize their support for something, the easier it is to sell.  All I have to do is point to your feedback and say, "look, this is something our users really want and we believe it would be well worth the development time to incorporate in an upcoming release."  

Taking part in a shared platform has its advantages and disadvantages.  I don't have to pay 100% of the cost of feature development, but, by the same token, since we're running just one of several partner communities we'd have little luck requesting a feature for which there is limited demand.  It has to be something that users are adamant about.  
I like it, are hashtags a part of the near future Meth?
I sure hope not.  If you remember, they tried that on the old system and it didn't work at all.  The tag section of any given topic just became a haven for corny secondary punchlines. 

I see more value in curated tags.  

Individual products are the first step in that direction.  The vision for product pages is to have everything related to that product in one place: all reviews, links to all threads, links to all buy/sell listings, and a price comparison for trusted stores.  It's just going to take awhile to get people into the habit of tagging posts, adding products if they don't exist, and using the product pages to house reviews - and we're happy to entertain any suggestions people may have to that end.  Ultimately, it's intended to make life easier for our fellow users, so your feedback is essential to achieving that.

We can also use it for brands, but that's really of lesser value since the forums are already structured to accomplish that - unless you're just REALLY interested in searching for all things Li Ning.  

Down the road, I would like to include cities and athletes for tag pages.  The structure is already in place to use wiki-style articles for that, but a tag system would require less work to maintain.  

In terms of style, tags currently reside in a side module.  You can see the "topics discussed" unit on the righthand side of the desktop site.  It's a cleaner way to organize tags that are relevant to the topic as a whole, and I greatly prefer that to Twitter's style of tag use, which, again, is just a tacky collection of secondary punchlines and garbage.  That stuff would make the site less pleasant and accessible than it is now.  

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to keep my formatting codes hidden and I'd rather read conversational English than nonlinear machine language.  
so no hashtags? mean.gif

#NotCool
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you exhibit A.
 
Method man wat school u graduate from ?

What car u drive?

What city do u live in?

What is ur net worth?

What do u look like ?

What ethnicity are you ?

I like this feature. I can tell it's going to make NT better just like the new site and mobile.
 
Any updates on being able to hide or delete posts from others viewing our profiles?
 
Method man wat school u graduate from ?

What car u drive?

What city do u live in?

What is ur net worth?

What do u look like ?

What ethnicity are you ?

I like this feature. I can tell it's going to make NT better just like the new site and mobile.




Why you askin my manz all these questions?








Dont get cut papi
 
Can we just get a REAL delete feature. Non of that "delete my message only to be stuck in my trash folder bs."
 
Sounds cool :nthat: although just like everything new on NT users will dislike it at first, then embrace it, and then it will become second nature
 
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Good news:  the quote notification extension of this feature has already been confirmed and will be included in a future system update.  
NT has come a long long long ways. Nice.
And in a relatively short time, too.  A year ago at this time, we didn't even have mobile yet.  There were three separate system updates in September alone.  Combined, I believe they produced less downtime than moving a single thread used to cause on the old site.  

I don't need to remind the veterans here that this move was a big deal for us.  July of 2012 was just one sleepless nightmare.  Two years ago, the site was crashing on a regular basis.  Load times were measured in minutes (or, at least, whole seconds).  We didn't even have direct domain hosting.  The new site was a major investment for NikeTalk and it was a major investment for Huddler, too.  This was a costly build-out.  If it's been worth it to you, then it's been worth it to me and to our team.  

We created NikeTalk because we felt that our fellow community members at the time deserved better than they were receiving on the existing forums of the day.  We changed platforms for the same reason.
Any updates on being able to hide or delete posts from others viewing our profiles?
Posts on NikeTalk are all publicly visible, so if you really don't want people to read something you've posted, you probably should go edit it out or request a deletion.  You can just use the report button and note that it's a deletion request in the description line.  One of the staff members or I will attend to it as soon as we get a chance.  

This is the type of thing that gets processed quicker if we DON'T have to spend 90% of our time screening every single new user's posts just because CJ863/RacingStripes/younghollywood/whoever can't let go to some old grudges and insist on pasting libel and catty insults into our forums on an hourly basis.  

Help us help you. 
Can we just get a REAL delete feature. Non of that "delete my message only to be stuck in my trash folder bs."
As a general rule, the system utilizes reversible deletions to avoid accidental, permanent deletions.  The trash folder SHOULD empty itself after a set duration, as it does on other services, but I haven't tested this.  

There's no space limitations here, as there are on other webmail systems, so conserving inbox space isn't really an issue.  

Beyond that, what's the nature of your concern there?  Are you worried that somebody will see what's in the trash folder or is it just an organization/OCD thing where you want the trash folder to be empty for its own sake?
I'm guessing this won't be available on mobile
I haven't had time to test this, but you should be fine as long as you spell the user's name correctly.  The only difference is that entering @ won't bring up the autocomplete list.  You'll still be able to create the mention on mobile, if only by using the associated bbcode shortcuts.  

There are some technical limitations to mobile platforms, so we can't expect 1:1 feature parity with the desktop site just yet, but the core of the feature will still work.  You'll receive the notifications.  You'll be able to create mentions.  You just won't have the autocomplete tool.  

Again, there's no reason why it can't get better over time.  If people love using the @ button in the editor to create the mention, and @ mentions are extremely popular, that could warrant its inclusion in the mobile editor down the road.  For now, let's see how the feature works as currently constituted. 
 
It's easy for you to propose making it harder to become a new member given that you ARE a member.  You could ask that we require all new users to pass a citzenship exam and submit a pint of blood and it would cause you no stress.  


We have to try and maintain a balanced system that allows us to admit new users while at the same time protecting our community and its members from spam and abuse.  The existing system needs some tuning, to be sure, but the primary difference between garbage posts today and garbage posts 3 years ago is that 3 years ago you didn't have a slogan to shout at every single instance as a ready-made excuse.  We had PLENTY of this nonsense on the old system, and legitimate new users suffered more as a result of the membership by approval process than did persistent forum trolls.  

It's a bit unfair to ask thousands of new users to shoulder the burden because we have a small handful of malcontents with no lives and more free time than sense who refuse to accept that they're not wanted here.  

The bottom line is that ALL OF US have the power to make a difference in this respect.  

If people reported even HALF the posts they cry "waiting period" over, staff response times would be far swifter than they are right now - and if users stopped giving trolls the attention they so desperately crave, they wouldn't choose to target our forums to begin with.  

Then do what RealGM does: 90 day waiting period before posting in General (you can post everywhere else in the meantime). Beyond that, I'd suggest a minimum post count before being allowed into individual sports team threads (or league season threads). I know that's super-specific, but I bet General and team/league threads make up the majority of trolling on NT.
 
I like the Facebook @ feature moreso than the Twitter style @ feature for one, so that whenever one is quoted he/she would get a notification.
 
where is Dirty doe?

nerd.gif
 
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