it’s helpful to know what I’ve already read. if it’s not a shit reply, it gets a bear. ofc, this means I read shit replies multiple times and get angry all over but at least I know what’s probably new (to me).

you get a bear, and you get a bear, and you get a bear, and everyone gets a bear.

  • QuietCupcake [any, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    5 months ago

    Only on the news megathread, really.

    Here’s my breakdown as one who mostly lurks, for whatever it’s worth: Aside from the news mega, I would guess maybe around 70% of threads I only give a once-over, or maybe twice, so there is really no point or need for a “read/unread” mark.

    Some interesting ones, maybe 20% I’ll come back to to refresh and see what’s new, but usually not more than a few times and I can remember at first glance what I’ve read. Also there will still be lots of upbears on the stuff that was good or that I agreed with (I hand out upbears pretty uh… sigh… “liberally”) so it’s not hard to tell if I’ve read through a thread. I don’t usually sort by “new” so when I see the thread for the first time, it’s usually already been up for a bit.

    On maybe 9% that are very interesting or are struggle sessions and whathaveyou will I keep refreshing. On those, using upbears as an “already read” marker would be helpful, but I still don’t want to just give them out totally freely, especially in struggle sessions for obvious reasons. And the very last 1% are ones I comment in which I will also refresh a lot but will depend on the context, where sometimes I will upbear nearly everyone especially if they respond to me, or in other cases if it’s argumentative, commenters definitely gotta earn it.

    But the newsmega, when I read it, I almost want to be a completionist about it and will do exactly what you describe. When shit is going down, I will scroll through multiple times a day, even several times an hour if it’s hopping. I will upbear everything simply to know if I’ve already read it so I can scroll through it fast for anything new without having to even re-read at all. Only comments I really don’t like and would feel angry or dirty if I did, don’t actually get one. But I also go through phases where I don’t read the newsmega, or much of any news, just as a mental health break. And sometimes those breaks last longer than they should, and I feel bad for not keeping track of what’s happening, but that’s a different topic.

    Thank you for reading my dissertation on my upbear habits, I’m sure you found it deeply enthralling.

    • QuietCupcake [any, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      5 months ago

      Oh! One more thing to add. Back when the hexbear code made it so comments and upvotes updated in real time without needing a manual refresh, I would sometimes upvote and de-upvote a comment multiple times over like 10 or 20 seconds right after it appeared. If the comment was freshly made as I was reading the thread, I knew the person who made it was probably still looking at their screen with the comment they just made. I always hoped they’d see their upvote count flashing up and down repeatedly, and it would be like my way of saying “hi! I see you there! I’m here rn too. Nice comment.” I kinda miss that.