New Related News module

**Mr.Bishop** · 11-22-2011

Hey guys!

We're going to launch out a tiny little feature that we whipped up today, which is a related content module in the right sidebar of the forums. So underneath the 160x600 ad, there will be news articles related to the content of the thread you're currently browsing.

We want your feedback on this, but please give it a chance. If a few of you absolutely hate it, we can disable it for your account. I'd really like it if we can give it a shot though, as there is a TON of super good content that our news guys do up all the time, and we want people to see more of it!

Let us know, should be live in 20 minutes or so.

**Cuguy** · 11-22-2011

yeah, let's give this a go as it is an attempt to bring our homepage news to the forums so that it is easy to see and click through to.

They are not ads, this is OUR content guys so let us know what you think!

**SchaffinOSX** · 11-22-2011

Users have been asking for further homepage / forum integration for years. Shouldn't be too many riots.

**Rapture** · 11-22-2011

Sure, fire away I say.

Just tell your writers to finish writing articles centered around the Elder scrolls series that was going on a while back. They never finished it and I actually enjoyed it.

**Soldier 95B** · 11-22-2011

I look forward to it and by all means welcome it! Thanks!

**Mr.Bishop** · 11-22-2011

FYI Its launched now. Check it out!

**Mr.Bishop** · 11-22-2011

Whoops never mind, we launched it out to admins, mods first to test it.

We'll get it out to the rest of you tomorrow.

**Rapture** · 11-23-2011

I can see it.

The icons are a little too big, grossly big, actually. Maybe have them switch out when you go to a new page so it's not repetitive?

**Mr.Bishop** · 11-23-2011

Originally Posted by Rapture

I can see it.

The icons are a little too big, grossly big, actually. Maybe have them switch out when you go to a new page so it's not repetitive?

Those are the standard sized news icons that we use on the homepage. We could look at different ones, or even no icon at all.

They will change with every thread you're reading, because it is contextual to the content of the thread.

**keefy** · 11-23-2011

I seems to be bugged, if there are no replies in a thread it pushes the reply button and box far down the page causing excessive scrolling and doesn't always work correctly I assume its designed to stay in the same position as we scroll down the page but it just doesn't look right.

Using Firefox 8.0

Doesn't do it on threads with 1 or more replies it has to be fresh thread with zero replies.

Anyone that played the BF3 beta for PC and use the batlog would have experienced the same thing more or less.

I turned of adblock and no script to make sure they were not causing the issue.

**Rapture** · 11-23-2011

Why didn't you just post this in the actual thread?

Also, it's not doing it for me. Ctrl+F5?

**keefy** · 11-23-2011

Moomins are cool.

**Rapture** · 11-23-2011

This thread.

**keefy** · 11-23-2011

Didnt see it.

**keefy** · 11-23-2011

It has some bugs which i posted elsewhere. you can lok at them here

http://www.psu.com/forums/showthread...10#post5716910

**Blacksite** · 11-23-2011

It's an interesting idea. I don't see the advertisements anyway, since I use AdBlock Plus. But I think you guys should go with smaller icons for the Related News module.

**Fenix** · 11-23-2011

Will say pages below the ad look better now

**Gregorious** · 11-23-2011

I don't mind it, I've been skipping right to the forum lately anyway. I would prefer the space being used internally, than having another ad thrown at my face.

**Mr.Bishop** · 11-23-2011

Originally Posted by keefy

I seems to be bugged, if there are no replies in a thread it pushes the reply button and box far down the page causing excessive scrolling and doesn't always work correctly I assume its designed to stay in the same position as we scroll down the page but it just doesn't look right.

Using Firefox 8.0

Doesn't do it on threads with 1 or more replies it has to be fresh thread with zero replies.

Yeah we just noticed this at the end of the day. Anthony is out for the evening and will fix this bug early tomorrow morning.

**Blacksite** · 11-23-2011

That was weird.

It didn't block any posts for me before, but it's doing it now. :/

**Tutankhamun** · 11-23-2011

EDIT: Just saw you could disable it in general settings, thanks for that option. No problem now.

**Soldier 95B** · 11-23-2011

I like the news links as well as the icon size. Thanks for the update. My only question is, is there an article cut off date so nothing too old is presented?

**adamdolge** · 11-23-2011

Originally Posted by Soldier 95B

I like the news links as well as the icon size. Thanks for the update. My only question is, is there an article cut off date so nothing too old is presented?

I think it's cut off at 365 days.

**Mr.Bishop** · 11-23-2011

Originally Posted by Tutankhamun

EDIT: Just saw you could disable it in general settings, thanks for that option. No problem now.

No prob.

If possible, could you snap a screen grab and let us know OS/Browser/Version combo?

We'd like to fix that issue!

**Tutankhamun** · 11-23-2011

Originally Posted by Mr.Bishop

No prob.

If possible, could you snap a screen grab and let us know OS/Browser/Version combo?

We'd like to fix that issue!

It's a problem when browsing the site on an iPad running MobileSafari iOS 5.0.1 - in both orientations it looks like this after you scroll:

And when you continue to scroll in either direction the whole thing disappears and automatically you are jumped to about the middle of the thread. I was not able to reproduce them displaying over the text so maybe that was just a cache issue or something? I'll grab a screenshot if to happens again.

Seems to work fine under Mac OS 10.7.1 and Safari 5.1.1 though. Again, I'll take a screenshot if I notice anything but it is possible there are issue there as well since both browsers are based on Webkit and uses much of the same code.