The August release included some new features, bug fixes and an update to the Forums NNTP Bridge Beta.
New Features
Related Threads
This feature was implemented initially in the answers brand forums last month and we are going to turn this on soon for the rest of the branded forums, likely early next week. This feature gives users more helpful options when landing at a thread page from an external search engine.
"Need an Answer" (answers brand only)
This feature is implemented only on the Answers brand forums, focusing on the consumer forums. The feature allows users to declare they also need an answer to a particular question. The feature is intended to enable a few key scenarios.
- Allows users to quickly subscribe a question so when an answer is provided, they receive a Live Alert
- Increments a value to help enable teams to gauge the impact of a particular answer
- Enables answer providers and markers the ability to filter and sort by questions that the most users are waiting on
- Informs forum owner which questions impact the most users
- Help reduce duplicate questions by enable users to get answers to existing ones
The feature is one of a few changes to enrich the experience for users landing on a forums thread from a search engine, giving them additional options to participate.
Identicons
The drab default redundant user avatars are now random images.
Forums NNTP Bridge August Beta
The Forums NNTP Client Bridge is a .Net client application a user can install to configure their NNTP Reader of choice to read and post to forums. The August beta is the latest beta update, prior betas were only made available to MVPs and Microsoft affiliated users. More information on how to get up and running on the client bridge can be found in a Microsoft Connection here: http://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=927 Users can download the bits, try them out and log bugs at the connection.
Bug Fixes
Below are some of the bug fixes in this release.
Fix for live alerts failures when moving threads (in some scenarios)
Database Job Fixes: Fixes to the aggregators to address outages and latency issues in My Threads, My Alerts and Recognition Point updates
New Windows Live Account Creation bug where new users are not properly redirected
Incorrect redirects for some merge thread scenarios
Forums post order is changing when a post is marked as helpful
Flat View::When “Always Show Answers First On Thread Page” is checked in My Settings. Then Answered post should be shown in Answers and All Replies section
IE6::problem with posting reply (other than root post) using IE6
IE6::Forums UI is disturbed on IE6 Browser
Splitting a thread throws 500 error under some scenarios
Marking a post as helpful, deleting a post and undeleting a post is taking some time
IE 6::UI::Medals, User Avatar, Display name on message view are not aligned displayed
Users who don’t have access to Private forums Category URL fall back to Forums Home page after Signing In using Private forums Category URL.
Forums: Posting takes users to their recent posts
On Clicking Reply or Quote the bottom scroll bar on message view page is moving to right side (Only on IE 7)
Vote icon should not be dispalyed in the Edit window
Unmarking a post marked as Abusive doesn't display unmarked text in message view of the post
Related Threads: Box container for related threads title should be “Related Threads” instead of "Related Topics"
IE 6: UI issues in Expression brans
Forums UI: 404 error returned in UI when clicking on Italian Breadcrumb
Forums: Live alerts failing silently
IE 8 & FF::Forums: Post Ordering: Thread Page View : Answered posts are not dispalyed above all replies for Unauthenticated User
UnMarking post as Abuisve display's the text "Flagged Abusive by" in the message history of the post
Moving a thread to another forum (Across different shards) resets view count
IE6:: Feeds are not dispalyed properly on feed results page where OutputAs = Atom is passed in feeds URL
Forums: Message history for delete adds mark as abusive flag unecessarily
Expression Brand : Display names are cut off in thread preview and browse users page
UnMark Abusive post is failing results in error message
Change type thread fails for Thread starter with error message "You are not authorized to perform this action"
Mark As Abusive::Mark as Abusive posts are displayed as red for normal users
Abusive Posts should show "already reported" label
Community Forums Program Manager
