Suggestion to improve Watchlist

[LoyceV]

Forum rules require editing the last post in a topic instead of creating a new post if it's within 24 hours.
When the last post in a topic I've read gets edited, it shows up as NEW on the board list, and I can click the NEW button to go to the edited post. This works okay.
But when the same topic is on my Watchlist, editing the last post doesn't make it appear as NEW. I think this can be improved.

Example: this post was edited. I had read the post already, so when I clicked the topic on my Watchlist, I was sent to the next post. I only noticed the added information when it got quoted.

Suggestion: Watchlist should behave the same as the board index: when the last post in a topic gets edited, act as if it's a new post.

[EarnOnVictor]

That's a good suggestion, especially for those who prioritise the watchlist. But my concern is the kind of editing that occured on the post, whether it will be worth it or not, as wouldn't this cause a lot of false/unworthy new flags, just because someone corrected a typo right after posting or later, making it look new, despite an insignificant change? I believe the current system somewhat prevents a lot of notification spam if thought through, even as some edits do not happen once.

[LoyceV]

wouldn't this cause a lot of false/unworthy new flags, just because someone corrected a typo right after posting

The first 10 minutes after posting aren't registered as "edited".

[ibminer]

Does anything happen in the watchlist when the OP of a thread is edited?

[LoyceV]

Does anything happen in the watchlist when the OP of a thread is edited?

Nope.

[pandakitty]

If this behavior applies only to the last post in the thread, I'm on board.

My concern is that editing a post on page 3 might take me there instead of the last page (30), making me lose the last "checkpoint".

[ibminer]

Does anything happen in the watchlist when the OP of a thread is edited?

Nope.

I think it makes sense to get notified on an OP change, and it doesn't seem like a bad idea to have it happen on the last post as well. It's not really a "bump", but do you think it would need to fall under similar rules for various sections?  I'm just wondering how it might be abused around here.

[Cricktor]

From my perspective the expected behavior of the Watchlist should be what LoyceV suggests as improvement of current behavior:
if I "see" the most recent post of a topic in my Watchlist at time A and an update occurs at time B later than time A, then the last post should be "new" for my Watchlist.

An update of the first post should not trigger to put it on focus for my Watchlist. That feels counter-intuitive to me. I agree that the first post of a topic has an obvious significance, but later edits are already recorded as last edit timestamp when they occur 10min after the initial posting time.

I wouldn't mind if we had the following behavior: any newer edit of posts in a topic compared to my last view of that topic in my watchlist highlights those edited posts in some meaningful way.

I would probably like to use this when I can open a topic in "All" list mode, having the whole topic on one page, to easily spot newer edits of posts compared to the last time I visited and watched the topic from my Watchlist.

I'm pretty sure this is rather niche and likely data structures of the forum wouldn't allow an efficient display without putting to much stress on the forum's server and database.

[LoyceV]

I think it makes sense to get notified on an OP change

I barely re-read the OP of a topic, so that would make sense. But it shouldn't be under the "NEW" link: that link is reserved to jump to the latest new post.

[joker_josue]

I had never noticed that before, even though I use that forum feature a lot.

The problem will be managing to adjust this when both situations occur simultaneously: an edited post/OP and a new post in the topic.

Either way, if it's possible to adjust things to start notifying edits, that would be positive.

[ibminer]

I think it makes sense to get notified on an OP change

I barely re-read the OP of a topic, so that would make sense. But it shouldn't be under the "NEW" link: that link is reserved to jump to the latest new post.

Holy crap, well this is a little embarrassing. After 13 years of being here, I never even registered that little "new" icon as a separate link, smh. I've always used the "last post" icon on the far-right of my watchlist, even on board lists, and just scroll, sometimes going one page at a time, to where I last read. I always took "new" as just an extra goofy little indicator SMF had to distinguish a new post on a thread, on top of the bold title.

I was basically saying here that the thread should just pop back in the watchlist when the OP has an edit, and then I'd be able to determine it was an OP edit because there would be no recent last post. Now I wonder if a new icon could be there with "op edit" to show it was an edit which takes you to the OP.


edit: Just saw joker_josue's post and am glad I'm at least not the only one!