Exclude threads from the Spy feature.

[SL89]

I know you can't / won't use mute, but just like IRC, just cause Mu doesn't want / use / need it doesnt mean we can't explore the option of having it for the rest of us.

[Muirium]

Aha!

Caching was enabled on request: http://deskthority.net/post123588.html#p123588
This caused the effect on the spy, because you'll get the initial page view, not the updates by javascript which you got after that.
But this is about caching on the entire site, I can probably disable it for the spy.

Please do. That still feels flaketastic to me and many others. (see page 1)

[Muirium]

Here's the Spy just now after 12 hours away from my desktop:

Screen Shot 2015-11-24 at 12.27.22 p.m..png (566.38 KiB) Viewed 2511 times

That's pretty usual looking, when I've been logged in on a second machine for a good long while. Whether all that chaotic repetition looks like a feature or a bug to you, ah, now that's the question!

I can live with it. Just seems icky to me. The individual threads aren't grouped, so all I really see is the jumble.

[bhtooefr]

Personally, I'd like both the ability to mute threads I don't care about, and spy deduplication. I'm not continuously watching the spy, typically, but rather checking it when I check for activity on Deskthority.

Therefore, seeing one thread dominating the Spy means I have to refresh to clear the junk, and find other threads that have activity.

[Muirium]

Exactly.

There's a direct tradeoff between breadth and depth in the Spy. I'd prefer more breadth — deduplication of threads, so more can fit in the same space — as the kind of depth it gives is pretty lousy. Anyone trying to follow a thread entirely from the Spy is doing it wrong. Look at all those ellipses…

If the counterargument is to be able to glance at how busy each thread is: I can't tell from just a glance. My eyes wind up scanning the whole table, trying to spot the nonexistent patterns. A badge or some other numeric indicator would work much better. Once, per thread.

[bhtooefr]

Of course, there is the counterargument that View active topics exists... but, it doesn't auto-load threads like the Spy does.

[Muirium]

I actually discovered that one first when I got here, and used it before I tried the Spy. The Spy's much better though, as the peek at message content is enough to screen out all those uninteresting bumps in the marketplace. Which are a symptom of another problem entirely…