Recent topics pie only?

This is a really bad idea. I get that the forum has costs, but I think this will really cut down on activity..

The division of the forum into a bajillion subforums has upsides and downsides; the recent topics option balances out the main downside, which is that people must spend a ton of time clicking through forums to see if anything has been posted..

I have also used "recent topics" as my main entry page to permies.

If you go here https://permies.com/forums
There's a drop-down menu on the top right.  Play around with it and you'll see some options that resemble (only work better) recent topics.
Then go to your profile and set the one you like best to default.  
I believe this option will remain available

The thing is, Recent Topics has been buggy for years.  Every few years we say it's going away, people scream "NOOOO!!!" and someone caves in and the buggy page stays. Because of the bugs, it's quite a hassle to maintain.  
Instead of finally turning it off, we found a way to keep it.  That is to make it a PIE feature.  

I'm just happy that instead of hiding a bunch of awesome content behind a massive paywall of $20+ a month, Paul has decided to keep all the content free to read and is putting some of the shiny buttons behind the paywall of only a few dollars a month (half the price of a cuppa coffee at the local cafe.).

Yes, this took me by surprise as well.
Now I'm feeling sad and confused.

This is pretty much the same list as 'recent topics' if once you go there you set the 'view' for 'recent topics as table'. https://permies.com/forums

I don't see where we need pie to use?

EDIT...now I see R's post above explaining.

r ranson wrote:If you go here https://permies.com/forums
There's a drop-down menu on the top right.  Play around with it and you'll see some options that resemble (only work better) recent topics.
Then go to your profile and set the one you like best to default.  
I believe this option will remain available

The thing is, Recent Topics has been buggy for years.  Every few years we say it's going away, people scream "NOOOO!!!" and someone caves in and the buggy page stays. Because of the bugs, it's quite a hassle to maintain.  
Instead of finally turning it off, we found a way to keep it.  That is to make it a PIE feature.  

I'm just happy that instead of hiding a bunch of awesome content behind a massive paywall of $20+ a month, Paul has decided to keep all the content free to read and is putting some of the shiny buttons behind the paywall of only a few dollars a month (half the price of a cuppa coffee at the local cafe.).

where do you mean? top right is my name or alerts or messages I can't see anything under any of them for viewing anything other than already bookmarked threads. I don't use the forum bits it's so huge and unwieldy one can never find the area that something might be in.
EDIT I found it, but which particular bit is going? The recent topics as a table, or the basic forum homepage?

Success!!! Assuming you have not messed with this feature in the past, here are the instructions that worked for me...

Click on your name and choose "Edit Profile" from the menu.
Scroll down the page to find the "Site Personalization" tab. Click on it.
Find the first time the page lists "Default view on the home page"
The box to the right on that line should say "Default View". Click on the arrow beside that, and choose "most recent topics as table".
Now, click the submit button at the bottom of the page.

Done!

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Success!!! Assuming you have not messed with this feature in the past, here are the instructions that worked for me...

Click on your name and choose "Edit Profile" from the menu.
Scroll down the page to find the "Site Personalization" tab. Click on it.
Find the first time the page lists "Default view on the home page"
The box to the right on that line should say "Default View". Click on the arrow beside that, and choose "most recent topics as table".
Now, click the submit button at the bottom of the page.

Done!

Thank you! I didn't know how to do it. I followed your directions and got screenshots!

This workaround is how I'm already configured; it works exactly as shown on desktop, but in chrome on my android phone, I get a list of allll the subforums, instead..

So, it will work for some people, some of the time. Is there any way to make it work on mobile devices?



If the output of this configuration tweak is the same as the 'recent topics' button, why would it be more buggy to have a button for it?

I'm thinking mobile view might have gotten overlooked here. I'm looking into this!

The old recent topic was supposed to be replaced by the new https://permies.com/forums view. The forums view was supposed to be a lovely way to customize how you interact with recent topics. Someone noticed glitches in recent topics recently, so it made sense to encourage people to use the newer forums view.

But, I don't think there was ever any intention of taking away recent topics on mobile, since there's no newer replacement for it.

D Nikolls wrote:So, it will work for some people, some of the time. Is there any way to make it work on mobile devices?

I don't know if this is helpful, but some people probably don't know this option. If you scroll to the bottom of any page, you can manually switch to "desktop view" by clicking the words "desktop view." This might be a bit maddening to use on smaller mobile devices, but will hopefully work great on larger devices that default to mobile view.

I use Permies mostly from a small phone screen.

The best solution without needing pie is to switch to desktop view, and then up the top of the 'forums' screen just above where the topics start there is a drop-down menu and a button to change forum view - it can then be changed to 'recent topics full width', and the menu on the left can also be minimised.

There's still some horizontal scrolling needed sometimes this way, but it's still much easier than the default view.

Hopefully there will be a more mobile-friendly solution in time. There's probably a lot of work involved in making that happen though.

So much of what is online these days is behind big paywalls or with heaps of annoying ads, it's lovely to have so much quality content for free on Permies. The cost of PIE is hardly anything compared to a lot of places, so I personally don't mind supporting Permies with PIE and getting some extra features this way.

Nicole Alderman wrote:I'm thinking mobile view might have gotten overlooked here. I'm looking into this!

Thanks!

Thank you Joylynn, Nicole and Kate.  I use the site almost entirely from my smartphone, but thanks to you three I can still visit recent topics in desktop mode.  A little more scrolling, but glad it still works!

Hi,
Is it possible to redirect https://permies.com/forums/recentTopics/list to the workaround above? Because I'm not always logging in when I visit the website, only when I think I can bring something in. I find the whole "pie" stuff annoying.

r ranson wrote:If you go here https://permies.com/forums
There's a drop-down menu on the top right.  Play around with it and you'll see some options that resemble (only work better) recent topics.
Then go to your profile and set the one you like best to default.  
I believe this option will remain available

I have just done this and it looks and works great. It seems to have remembered my settings in my profile. Essentially the same functionality as the recent topics page, just in a different place.

hans muster wrote: I find the whole "pie" stuff annoying.

Hans,

It costs a lot of money to keep this site going.  PIE is one of the ways we are exploring to mitigate this.  

Here is a link for $100 so you can help with the bills without bothering with pie:

https://permies.com/pp/100/hans-pie



This recent change really doesn't have much to do with PIE.  The "recent topics" has been on the way out for about seven years - and has been announced as such several times.   So now it is being depricated in a way that a few could still use it until it is utterly gone.  




I would like to take this moment to thank all the people that have helped with the bills here through PIE, or kickstarters or patreon or the many other small ways we have cobbled together to keep going.  Thanks to your contributions, this site is not a place that is 95% ads, including ads that start playing some video when you arrive.  And I like to think that the small ads we do have are somewhat interesting to permies and maybe even a little funny.

Permies.com now has about 150,000 threads with over a million posts.  A good month has us serving 1.8 million people 25 million pageviews.  I think we have helped fill more than a thousand events, and supported hundreds of fledgling permaculture businesses.  It has been a massive expense over the years, and we are at a sensitive time where things need to shift a little.  The codebase needs to shrink a little before it can start the next round of growth.  And, at the same time, we are near a tipping point on some fronts, so we need just a little more push.   This decision is "stacking functions" combined with "try 100 things, 2 will work out and you never know in advance which 2."  

Paying bills is annoying.  Paying a lot of money to make the word much better and to dramatically improve the lives of millions ....  stings a bit, but is worth it.   99% of rational people would point and say it is stupid folly and that I'll regret it.   But maybe, in time, it will get to the point that PIE + advertising > expenses, and then the sting will be gone and those rational people will find something else to point at.

paul wheaton wrote:

hans muster wrote: I find the whole "pie" stuff annoying.

Hans,

It costs a lot of money to keep this site going.  PIE is one of the ways we are exploring to mitigate this.

I think he was just mentioning that it was difficult when he was logged out--having PIE wouldn't help with that, and that's why he was hoping the Recent Topics would lead to https://permies.com/forums recent topic, especially when logged out.

Maybe what we could do is have a link on the no-pie Recent Topics that leads to a tutorial on the newer way to access Recent Topics, and maybe a link that directly takes them to forum's Recent Topic view on ? That way, when someone new comes to our site and clicks the "Recent Topics button" (which is always my first button to click when I arrive on a forum), they see that there are options for accessing recent topics...just not on that link. I like the idea of it being easy for new people finding permies to easily find more info, stick around, sign up for the dailyish, etc.

I would be willing to make that tutorial page (I oddly like making tutorials :D), if it would be helpful.

r ranson wrote:If you go here https://permies.com/forums
There's a drop-down menu on the top right.  Play around with it and you'll see some options that resemble (only work better) recent topics.

Thank you. I had tried this and found a view that satisfied me, but was frustrated that every time I visited the page it was default view again. Then I saw this:

r ranson wrote:Then go to your profile and set the one you like best to default.

Now it's so much like recent topics that I don't think I'll miss it. After this I just need to change my bookmark.

Am I understanding correctly that in order to see the forum in a way similar to recent topics, I need to be logged in? I don't usually log in, since I pop in for five or ten minutes at a time and don't want to wait for the log in process to load on my phone.

I just checked, and it looks like you're right. There's no little drop-down menu on the forums page when you're logged out. That's probably never been there when someone was logged out, and we're just now realizing it. I'm not sure how much programming it would take to have it added to the logged-out view.

Thanks, Nicole.

I could see not having some sort of recent topics like page available for those in mobile view being a problem for a new or occasional visitor. Being looped back to the same wall of text (list of eight zillion subforums) all the time might be pretty unwelcoming for some. I doubt very many people would think to switch to mobile view and scroll around the screen looking for options.  Plus, I was just on desktop view for the first time in I don't know how long and found it kinda busy and overwhelming on my phone screen. That could very well be just me, though.

One thing we'd really love would be a responsive design, so both mobile and desktop view look fantastic and full of options no matter what size screen you have. Sadly, that would take a hefty chunk of cash to do. As it is, the income streams from permies (ads, digital market sales, pie) don't even pay the server bill, so there's no extra funds for renovating the site.

We're hoping more people (who can) purchase pie, so that we can make this site more awesome for everyone. Pie is like a "Donate to Permies + get fun perks" button. We know a lot of us are strapped for cash (I know I am). So, we're trying to balance everything to be fair and to also find ways to keep the site going.

We're also open for suggestions on the sorts of perks that people would like to see PIE offer. What sort of things would entice people to buy pie?

Sorry to see the "PIE or BYE" option enacted for "Recent topics".  

This is a very unfortunate move that will make it harder for many to engaged in this community.

I'm lazy about buying pie...I just don't think about it (and some are kind enough to give me a piece just often enough to keep the perks).
It's one of those things if I have extra I give it away but usually just give 'thumbs up' as that's handy and easy and always available.

BUT... I do 'subscribe' to a couple online things that are so cheap that I hardly notice the cost.  

One is Neil Young Archives, some of which is available for free and the extensive collection of music is $2 a month with many other perks, one of which is early ticket sales.

The other is PBS that is $5 a month minimum in order to use what they call a 'passport' to see many more things than are available without it.
and as we don't subscribe to Netflix, Amazon or another online service our total a month is $7 for 'entertainment'.

My husband makes sure to give wikipedia a donation as he uses it a lot but that is more like yearly.

My point being, I would gladly give $2 a month to permies if it just came out of my debit card automatically....I suppose that's not so different than buying a piece of pie a month though?  ...and maybe this is already an option that I haven't noticed?

As for the whole 'recent topics' thing...it has been a long long time going out the door

One more thought....I think that sometimes we think about 'donations' or 'subscriptions' being expensive and they can certainly add up.  We've had years where there was not an extra dollar to spend on anything so I get that some might not be able to afford....but maybe enough of us can that it could be a boost in the right direction?

We paid off our youngest son's broken arm when he was 12 by paying the surgeon $5 a month for years...had it covered by the time he graduated high school...small amounts add up.

I'm pretty sure the pie stuff has a "recurring charge" option.

paul wheaton wrote:I'm pretty sure the pie stuff has a "recurring charge" option.

I bought one piece to see and could not find anything that would allow me to set that up monthly.

Maybe if I actually had a PayPal account rather than using it as a guest?

Judith Browning wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:I'm pretty sure the pie stuff has a "recurring charge" option.

...could not find anything that would allow me to set that up monthly.

Ditto. If there was an obvious subscription/recurring charge option, I'd sign up.

I went to this thread:

https://permies.com/wiki/154707/Donating-permies-fun-stuff-process

I clicked on the "buy pie" button which took me here:

https://permies.com/forums/pie/list

Under where you buy how many pieces you want to buy there is a "box to check" that says

Automatically buy pie every week

I don't see any place to buy it monthly which is the option that I would like to see.

This is very strange, I don’t see any such checkbox. I went partway through the Paypal process too, and didn’t see a subscription option as far as I went.

Screenshot (page looks the same on my iPad/Safari and Win 10 laptop/Chrome)

OH WEIRD!

I went and looked at my PIE, and I did see the "Automatically buy pie every week" checkbox.

This looks like a glitch. Now we just need to figure out what's causing it so we can fix it!

Hmmm, I have a hypothosis. Maybe the automatic payment button is only showing up for people who've already purchased something on permies?

Is there anyone else who isn't seeing the "Automatically buy pie each week" option?

Nicole Alderman wrote:Maybe the automatic payment button is only showing up for people who've already purchased something on permies?

I'm pretty sure I've purchased something in the past, though not Pie.

I did a quick View Source on that page and the "Automatically...." line is not in the source code either.

ETA: switched off my adblocker and refreshed: no change.

Interesting, I have purchased pie and do not see weekly payment option either. Safari browser on iPad.

Nicole Alderman wrote:Hmmm, I have a hypothosis. Maybe the automatic payment button is only showing up for people who've already purchased something on permies?

Is there anyone else who isn't seeing the "Automatically buy pie each week" option?

I didn't see it either and was looking...and have bought pie in the past.

I would be interested in an 'automatically buy pie each month' button though
$3 a month would slip right by unnoticed...is that too small an amount to be considered?

I also wondered if PayPal is the only option? I have reasons for giving up on them long ago and don't want another account.  
Everything I buy online and subscribe to uses my debit just fine.

Nicole Alderman wrote:Hmmm, I have a hypothosis. Maybe the automatic payment button is only showing up for people who've already purchased something on permies?

Is there anyone else who isn't seeing the "Automatically buy pie each week" option?

I have never bought anything so maybe it has something to do with "Mobile view"?

I am on a desktop.  I don't use a mobile device.