In response to the emails from Jon and Rob… my thinking was that the Board suggestion was to have a small group use Discourse instead of Google Groups for posting thoughts on some interesting topic like “great ideas”.
That small group would ALSO provide feedback on whether they liked using it better than Google & what improvements would make more attractive. If Discourse helped turn the content of the discussion into a useful document, that would be a nice demonstration of added value.
Hi Bob & Jon,
Yes I would like to have some conversations using Discourse to get to know it better.
My first question is… I’m looking at this post and see a hyperlink that says 2 views. When I click on it a pop-up opens and reports a view on 1/7 and one on 1/8. It is 9:30 on 1/7. I’ve uploaded a screen shot. How should I interpret this ?
I asked the question to http://ask.discourse.com
It seems that date arithmetic can be messed up in some cases by the servers time zone setting.
The problem of dates appearing incorrectly (e.g., showing as “tomorrow” instead of the correct day) could often be related to time zone discrepancies either on the server or user preferences.
For example, an issue like this was discussed regarding how birthdays were inaccurately displayed in the “Tomorrow” tab of the Cakeday plugin. It was fixed with adjustments in the plugin: GitHub Patch.
A related cause might occur in the Discourse site globally (not just plugins) due to:
1. Timezone Mismatch:
The server operates in UTC while the user expects local time adjusted view.*
Is there a way we can fix this or is this something we have to accept as a quirk of Discourse ?
We ought to keep a list of quirks so when folks ask about a quirk, it is easy to respond. Also, part of the reason we are leaving GG is because of it’s quirks.
I guess quirks are kinda like bugs that you can live with.
This is why we want our key contributors to engage. GG is the devil they know and Discourse is the one they don’t know… yet.
It seems misplaced, because when I leave and return after visiting the topics that were changed, they are still listed above the red line. What are the rules being used to draw the red line ?
It looks like it sorts things into today/tomorrow by picking a time zone. If Bob posts something late in the evening, it’s going to be in his today but it will be my tomorrow. If we tie things closely to local time zones, then my count of postings on 01/08/25 will be different from Bob’ count.
The time stamps on the postings are reflected in local time.
We can submit a request to “fix” this if we can tell them how it should work. They may submit a ticket or just respond that they decided not to do it that way for the reason above (consistent stats).
This is a known issue that affects some sites. I found a discussion on meta and posted a comment that it is still happening.
This is the ask.discourse reply:
It appears that some users have reported issues with the “Last Visit” marker not functioning as expected. Specifically, previously read posts are appearing above the “Last Visit” line even when they were read in prior visits. Based on discussion on a related bug report, here are a few observations:
Possible Causes:
The issue might be due to a recent Discourse update, as certain users pointed out that the behavior began around the time of an update.
Plugins or theme modifications could potentially interfere with the functionality, but no definitive pattern was found in cases involving standard themes or minimal plugins.
Behavior Details:
The “Last Visit” line does not always refresh as expected, even after reloading the page.
Other external factors such as caching issues or session handling might also contribute.
Recommendations:
Check your Discourse version and update to the latest release to ensure any resolved bugs are fixed.
Temporarily disable any third-party plugins or custom themes to rule out their involvement.
Refreshing the page should typically adjust the “Last Visit” line, but if it doesn’t, it might indicate a broader issue requiring further investigation.
There are no official solutions provided in the linked discussion, but you might want to check this related topic on meta for future updates.
If the issue persists and you are a hosted customer, you could also contact Discourse support for assistance, especially if it’s a recurring problem after updates.
