Title: Improve forum performance and add unread posts feature.
Family Name: Entropoid

Region (NA/EU): NA

Suggestion/Comments: 

1) Forum topic/thread loading is sluggish, and needs to be fixed.  This applies to anything that needs to retrieve content from the server.  Moving from page to page is tedious at best.  And this problem is greatly amplified by having people add individual "feedback" topics that effectively spam the forum. (Feedback needs a proper tool instead of this post template approach, but that's a separate topic).

2) Related to the sluggishness is forcing a topic always to open on the first page, and then requiring guessing where the latest updates are and navigating page to page.  Almost all forum software for the last 20 years or more has had features where, when a user is logged in, they can jump to the first unread post in a topic.  And also topics with no such posts are deemphasized.  This will reduce server traffic and improve (1).  A jump to last post link would also be useful.

There does seem to be some sort of read/unread feature, but it does not work consistently, if it works at all.

3) In conjunction with (2), make user login sessions last longer. Having to log in frequently to up/down vote and post responses, combined with the problems noted above, is exasperating, especially when you factor in 2FA.  The appropriate amount of time should be at least a few hours.  Is it currently at 20 minutes or something?  This could also be something for a user setting, within limits.

Really what this boils down to is using a standard forum package.  It takes a bit of authenticaion integration, but is a better option than what is used now.

4) One thing the forum does right is that topics are listed by last update.  However, anyone editing a post in a topic bumps its position in the list.  The sort order should make a distinction between the timestamps for new posts and edits.  Possibly let this be a user setting.

5) There was a purpose for the "feedback" subforum before this buglist template approach was added.  It would be a good idea to have kept the previous subforum, and then directed these new templated posts to a new subforum.  There's feedback topics that are about discussing issues, and then more formal feedback topics like these that could arise from those discussions.  For example, someone taking a discussion post with a list and breaking it down, or first refining a suggestion.  As it stands the templated topics are swamping the discussion topics, to the detriment of both.

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Feedback on this feedback about the feedback forum is appreciated :)

Other welcome additions:

1. Being able to tag a user and see tags as notifications

2. Seeing updates to ones own post as a notification

3. Seeing replies to a recently commented on post as notification

4. Following a post to see new replies

=> It is extremely tedious to click through all recent posts to see if someone replied to what was posted before, instead of being able to get there directly by checking notifications. 

4. Increase the number of topics shown on one page

5. When using the App, stay on the last visited page, instead of always going back to the first page in the subforum (same issue applies on PC, but there you can at least use different tabs)

=> Scrolling through an active board is difficult when there are many new posts

6. More reliable "Read" marker. This should get updated whenever there is a new reply to the post, so you dont have to guess if you read the post already by looking at the time it was last updated.

7. Also agree with OP on the part about being logged in for longer, especially when actively using the forum (i.e. typing a post). Currently you get logged out even while writing a post if the timeout is reached. This has led to more than one time where a long post dissapears into the void because you can no longer edit or copy it.

8. When not logged in, do not allow the "Quote" function to work. Currently, if you click on "Quote" while not logged in, you can write a reply to a post, but cannot post it. You also cannot click into the text box again to copy the post you wrote when not logged in (though this can be alleviated by clicking on quote again and using CTRL + A to mark everything). This is also quite frustrating.

9. When reloading a page, any text written in the text box should stay persistent. This adds to point 8, as currently, reloading or logging in erases everything you have typed. This can be an issue e.g. when losing connection, as in many cases, this will no longer allow you to post the text you wrote even after reconnecting (as the forum logged you out and you cannot see it).

10. Show an error when clicking on "Submit" when it isnt working. In many cases, no error is shown even though the submit button does not allow you to post (due to character limit, or being logged out, etc.)

Add an option to make a friends list.

Add an option to send PMs to another user and avoid any needless offtopics.

Add an option to also have an ignore list to block users.

Add an option to edit our avatars to something we want. Also new rules to be written about them.

Add an option to see who upvotes and downvotes.

Add an option to the report function to explain in detail what is the reporting about. The options are too limited.