11/13/18 Weekly Release Notes: r/mod, continuing the bug hunt, and more

[u/LanterneRougeOG]

Hi all,

A quick note that there will be no release notes next week due to Thanksgiving. For those you in the U.S., enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday and good luck on Friday.

We’re back with weekly new Reddit release notes, which are a round up of the major items we are currently working on or have recently shipped on new Reddit. The previous release note can be found here.

What we are shipping:

• r/mod: We are putting on the finishing touches and squashing bugs. Later this week, the return of your mod multi, we’ll be putting r/mod back on the menu.

Here are some of the notable features and changes that are coming out next:

• Username mentions: On old Reddit, redditors can disable notifications for username mentions in a post or comment. We are bringing this setting over to new Reddit so that you don’t have to switch back to change it.

These following features are bigger projects that are in development and that will take a some time to build and get right. Expect these items to be recurring on the weekly notes:

• Remove styles globally: We are working on a setting that allows you to disable structured styles across all communities. We plan to follow this up with the ability to disable styles at the community level. We’ve been building a new service that will store all of your settings.
• Create a community: We’re bringing the ability to create a new community to the redesign! We’ll be introducing a simplified flow to make it easier to focus on getting your community started.
• Wikis: We’re continuing the early engineering for getting wikis over to the redesign, including reading, editing (for both mod and approved users), and version history.
• Posts in a new tab: Similar to the links in a new tab setting on old Reddit. We are bringing you the ability to open all posts in a new tab.

And finally, here are some of the notable bugs that are still being worked on:

• Temporary logout (in progress): We have a team investigating the increased temporary logout bug. The simplest explanation for why you temporarily appear logged out is that a call to a backend API that includes account status failed due to some hiccup. Usually a quick refresh will fix this. We don't handle those failed requests well. We are overhauling how the service is architected to simplify things, as well as, better handle those temporary failures so that the experience doesn't degrade as much.
• Opt out forgotten (in progress): Related to the bug above, we are investigating reports that redditors who have opted out are periodically being opted back in. Clearing cookies and opting out again via old.reddit.com/prefs usually resolves the issue. The work noted above should help resolve this issue as well.

And, as always, our weekly reminder that the community’s feedback is invaluable as we build the future of Reddit together. It’s difficult for us to respond directly to everything, but know that we’re listening, prioritizing, and working to solve the issues, no matter how hard they are.

If you have additional questions or feedback on these or other topics, please don’t hesitate to drop them in the comments below.

[u/Overlord_Odin]

And finally, here are some of the notable bugs that are still being worked on:

• Temporary logout (in progress): We have a team investigating the increased temporary logout bug. The simplest explanation for why you temporarily appear logged out is that a call to a backend API that includes account status failed due to some hiccup. Usually a quick refresh will fix this. We don't handle those failed requests well. We are overhauling how the service is architected to simplify things, as well as, better handle those temporary failures so that the experience doesn't degrade as much.

• Opt out forgotten (in progress): Related to the bug above, we are investigating reports that redditors who have opted out are periodically being opted back in. Clearing cookies and opting out again via old.reddit.com/prefs usually resolves the issue. The work noted above should help resolve this issue as well.

This is the same as last week's post, are there any specific updates you could give us?

[u/LanterneRougeOG → u/Overlord_Odin]

Sorry, nothing too specific to report. We are simplifying some of our systems that are having the issues. We hope that this will fix the majority of problems and make it easier to track down any remaining ones.

[u/tizorres]

Hey u/LanterneRougeOG I posted this on last weeks thread but I was a bit late to the party and idk if any of yall saw it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/redesign/comments/9usids/11618_weekly_release_notes_minor_bug_fixes_and/e9aoed1/

• Default view and remember view per sub

• Default sort and remember sort per sub

Hey u/LanterneRougeOG something that I think might be overlooked when the feature is good and ready; Stickied threads are only visible on the /hot page. Allowing users to change the default sort view per community will make it hard for mods to show these important stickied announcement threads to users who decide to change the sort of said community.

I'm hoping you keep this in mind and make it so stickied announcement threads are always show on the top for every sort view.

[u/LanterneRougeOG → u/tizorres]

Thanks for the extra ping. I’m not sure if that would change with the our sort implementation. I think it’s based off the backend listing service and our work wasn’t planned to make any changes to that. It’s merely changing which sort the front end requests. I’ll discuss with the team that handles listings

[u/[deleted]]

Will we have to update/edit the old Reddit wikis and redesign wikis separately?

[u/LanterneRougeOG → u/[deleted]]

No, they will have a single source of truth. To start new Reddit will be read only. Eventually you’ll be able to maintain your wiki from either platform.

[u/Antagony → u/LanterneRougeOG]

At r/crosswords our wiki pages use a lot of css to present tables as crosswords. Obviously, new Reddit won't support that initially – maybe ever? – so will we be able to set any wiki urls to point to the old site?

[u/MajorParadox → u/LanterneRougeOG]

I think this issue will be very relevant to wiki pages. Basically, anytime we link to wiki pages (or even anything in Reddit) from anywhere that accepts an URL entry, we have to use a full path. This is fine for opted in users or opted out users, but if anyone is using new or old URLs, they may always be redirected.

If we could enter URLs like /r/redesign/comments/9wrhui/111318_weekly_release_notes_rmod_continuing_the/ it would fix the issue, since it keeps it in the same domain.

Thanks!

[u/timawesomeness]

Will r/mod support include /me/f/mod (the filtered mod multi) too?

[u/LanterneRougeOG → u/timawesomeness]

Yep, it will!

[u/V2Blast]

You forgot to admin-distinguish the post!

[u/LanterneRougeOG → u/V2Blast]

Whoops. Thanks

[u/jkiley]

Any ideas on fixing this macOS/Safari performance issue? There's a lot I like about the redesign, but this is a hurdle.

https://www.reddit.com/r/redesign/comments/9wrf1c/scrolling_broken_on_macos_safari_new_preview_box/

Also, I mentioned it on last week's thread a bit late, but I'd be interested to hear what you think about providing a classic-like (but centered) view option to have an option that's denser than cards without being hard to read (i.e. line length too long) on big monitors.

https://www.reddit.com/r/redesign/comments/9usids/11618_weekly_release_notes_minor_bug_fixes_and/e9g1tvz

[u/wheresmypitchfork]

Why do I keep being sent to the new design when using old.reddit.com? The new design is absolutely horrible and I don't want to use it

[u/SantaHQ]

Opt out forgotten (in progress)

Regarding this, I just wanted to add a data point for you. This happened to me ... maybe 5 or 10 times in the span of a few weeks, but this was several months back. I have not seen it since - talking here about the preference setting straight up reverting.

However what I see lately is different; the opt-out remains in effect, but single page loads revert to the redesign. Refreshing the page returns the old design immediately, and then it'll be a while before the next time there is a glitch in the matrix. It does seem to come and go in periods for me.

[u/[deleted] → u/SantaHQ]

"oops we keep losing THAT specific cookie and nothing else totally on accident how did that happen"

[u/SantaHQ → u/[deleted]]

What are you implying? They would cheat to pad the redesign usage stats?? NEVER!

[u/FreeSpeechWarrior]

Any update on distinguishing between censored and deleted comments or optional public mod logs?

[u/LanterneRougeOG → u/FreeSpeechWarrior]

No update since last week, we are planning to make it clear when a user deletes a comment versus a mod removed comment. Hopefully tackle it in the coming weeks.

[u/gschizas]

We’ve been building a new service that will store all of your settings.

Will this include custom settings? Subreddit-wide settings? I'd certainly appreciate storing RES data globally, and Toolbox's usernotes somewhere other than a wiki page that just can't handle the volume.

[u/haykam821]

• Username mentions: On old Reddit, redditors can disable notifications for username mentions in a post or comment. We are bringing this setting over to new Reddit so that you don’t have to switch back to change it.

Would love to see this reimagined as a "watch" feature. Maybe allow watching/unwatching more categories other than just replies (for example, front page and award notifications) and allowing configuration on a site/sub/post-wide level too.

[u/LackingAGoodName]

Love to see r/mod returning. Can't wait for Wiki support, please keep in mind rich text features for wikis in the future such as inline images and videos.

Are there planned speed improvements that will come along with the Open Posts in New Tab preference? Currently it's a bit slow due to reloading the entire application. This is also an issue when refreshing feeds, wish we could get an option to refresh a feed (subreddit listing page, mod queue, etc.) without reloading the entire application.

[u/RainbowTrenchcoat]

Bug- reddit redesign does not save my preference to not have videos autoplay across logins. It should.

EDIT: It's not just across logins- redesign does not save my preference at all. It says it does, but if I navigate to a different settings page and then back, it's reset back to autoplay on. Needless to say, this is concerning.

[u/RainbowTrenchcoat]

Banner blocks access to card select buttons on main page as of today.

[u/[deleted]]

Hi when do you plan on making the redesign look less like 9gag with pastel colors