User Control Option to Subscribe to Threads One Starts

I’ve looked at User Control Panel and found the options for subscribing but I did not find one for automatically subscribing to threads in which one has posted. Is there a way to have the forum automatically subscribe me to any threads I start or respond to? If so, please point me to it.

I posted here because I could not find a place to post forum related questions and issues. Did I fail to find it or does it not exist?

Also, is there a means to report problems to moderators and/or developers? I’ve dealt with computers since the mid '60s when the interface was mostly punched cards or paper tape. I was an IT professional for 40+ years and some of the issues don’t seem to be related to my unfamiliarity with Audacity but seem to be inherent in the software. I had a problem with a selected track not deleting with I clicked the X to delete it and I’ve had problems not being able to Cut selected portions of a track. I’ve used Audacity enough to have learned how to select and to cut but could not resolve these issues. A means to report them to appropriate people without having to waste forum bandwidth would be nice.

Click the link at the bottom of any page to “Delete all board cookies”.

Then in UCP, click “Board preferences” at the top then “Edit posting defaults” at the left.

Make sure “Attach my signature by default” and “Notify me upon replies by default” are both set to Yes. This might (possibly) solve the problem with your signature not appearing.

It’s at Maintaining / Improving this Forum . I’ve moved this there.

First, please see the further responses to your topic from Koz ( Is There a SEARCH Function for the Manual? - #10 by kozikowski ) and me ( Is There a SEARCH Function for the Manual? - #11 by Gale_Andrews ) .

The bug reporting address is our feedback e-mail address . But you will almost certainly only get Steve or me answering you if you write there about tracks not being deleted. Developers would probably assume you are not using the software correctly.


Gale

I did as instructed with Cookies and then Board Preferences. The notify me button was not selected. I changed that.

The appropriate threads are duly noted (but I my age I cannot guarantee that I won’t forget). I think that the problem I experienced as an ID10T problem, but it is good to know where to post suspected bugs.

Maybe we’ll eve see if the signature thing is fixed.

Whoops! No signature still.

The group permissions for using signatures is set to “never”. That will override the permissions set for an individual user.
Given the amount of time that I waste every day dealing with forum spam, I’m not keen to make it any easier for would-be spammers, so I’m not in favour of changing that permission setting. Personally I think that the benefit of a spam-free forum outweighs the benefit of allowing signatures to all users. It’s sad that a small minority of people want to abuse the forum, and through their selfish actions, spoil things for the majority of users, but that’s the kind of world we live in.

That figures. I recalled that the signatures permission for the group was on “no”, so possibly allowing a “yes” to override.

The issue seems to be, what is the best/safest way for users to post their Audacity version, OS and computer specs.

We can add those fields to the UCP profile, but unless we allow that information to be seen under the user name in posts, it’s hard to find. If we allowed information under user names in posts, it would be very attractive to spammers.

An alternative would be to try setting the registered user group’s signature permission to “no” and see if nothing else overrode it except an individually allowed “yes”.

A perhaps better way would be to create a new standard user group who had one extra permission of being allowed to use signatures. That should definitely let the user edit their signature in UCP, whereas I’m unsure if individually allowed “yes” against group “no” would do so. Against that, it’s not discoverable by users that they can ask for a signature to be enabled. But if moderators turned this special group on for trusted users it would be seen and encourage people to ask. I think this might be the best way with the constraints we have.


Gale

A simple and safe way would be to use the “Avatars” feature.
That would require that we have a bunch of small image files, one for each supported OS. The user could then select the appropriate one in their profile settings. The “Avatar” appears above their user name in posts. To avoid abuse we can allow only avatars that are on the system (no custom avatars or avatar uploads).

Do you know the exact way to do that? On my test forum I can’t seem to choose the avatar I want in my UCP unless I at least “Enable avatar uploading” in ACP. And if I do that I can upload an avatar from my machine.

In any case, this seems a whole stack of work managing image files, and does not allow user to post Audacity version (unless you plan new images for the three platforms each time there is a new Audacity release). Also it won’t allow display of computer specs (which is useful and I know some users will want to do). And what if users are on more than one OS? I’m on six OS’es.

So I still think at the moment that creating a custom group with signature permission is the better option, then the only issue is letting users know about it (and granting access to the new group wisely).


Gale

Yes, easy, but I’m just on my way out.

It falls short of giving Audacity version information, but the advice for all is “use the current version” (for Linux “currently available”).

A signature would not help in that case either. We want to know which system you have the problem on, so you would need to give that info in your post and not use an Avatar / Signature.

Yes but many do not use the current version (at least until pointed out to them that it’s the cause of the problem). Knowing the exact Audacity version is often crucial.

And there is still the point that Avatars can’t display computer info, recording interface, mic and so on, all of which could be in a signature.

OK, but we may also need to know the computer and other hardware (as above).


Gale

You guys are far ahead of me on this matter; but it seems that if you could agree on the information that would be useful most often if associated with a member’s data, you could create data elements for it and mandate their entry on sign-up. You could control content with drop down lists and small text boxes. One place that might serve to display the data on posts is circled in red in the pic:
aud 2.gif

OS and Audacity version at sign up would be very useful but it would be like mandating spam at sign up unless the required information was forced to one of a number of fixed choices from a drop-down. I think we’ve looked at this before but it means hacking the phpBB software or installing somewhat hacked “mods” to the software.

We already hide profile information under the user name in posts, as I explained elsewhere (due to spammers). Profile information can be seen by clicking the user name.


Gale

We could use both an “OS Avatar” (for all registered and newly registered users) and signatures for “frequent users” (a new group that the “regular users” can be promoted to, same as “Regular Users” but with the addition of being able to use a signature).

Yes I still like the idea of a “Regular Users” group that can add and edit their own signature. I think we can add such a group as soon as we have time to do that.

I don’t think we necessarily have to wait for a user to request “promotion”. We could promote a user ourselves, for example if they posted frequently outside the Help Forum and never gave OS and other information until asked. That would save us time.

I’m still not convinced the avatars are worth the effort. I think so few occasional users go to UCP that we would have to heavily promote the feature for it to be used much. But if you want, can you set it up sometime on your test forum so we can try it out?

Thanks,

Gale