How to use the Replies and Search tabs on this site

Written By: - Date published: 6:17 pm, August 31st, 2021 - 37 comments
Categories: The Standard - Tags: , ,

Some commenters here do not seem to know of some of the handy features on this site.

The Replies tab

On a laptop or PC, you will find this on the right-hand side of the home page (also known as landing page). It will look very slightly different depending on the web browser that you are using and your personal settings and preferences in that particular browser. The default setting is Comments. We will try and follow-up with another Post for iPhone users and possibly other devices as well.

This should be the first thing you check each time when you come on this site, so that you can see who replied to your comments and/or if you have Moderation notes for you.

Replies are important because this site is for healthy conversations and robust discussions, not for monologues or spray-and-walk away trolling. This assumes that you comment here with a genuine interest in listening to and engaging with others.

Moderation notes are important because they are usually to help you, e.g., with a technical issue or a typo in your user name or e-mail address, et cetera, that may cause your comments being caught in Pre-Moderation filters. These things do happen, but they require a Moderator to notice them and have the time to deal with them, e.g., to manually release your comment with a brief explanatory note as to what went wrong.

Occasionally, a Moderation note is slightly more serious, in which case it is a good idea to pay attention and take appropriate action. Failing to do so can lead to a ban – ignorance is not an excuse.

The Search tab

In the above screen shot, you can also the Search tab. Please use it, as it is not there for decoration. You can search this site for any key word, e.g., your own user name, or a topic, et cetera. The results will be shown in chronological order because that is the default setting. On this site, it is called Freshness, for some reason. You can change this setting by clicking on Advanced.

You can combine multiple key words, e.g., napoleon redlogix. (NB they are not case-sensitive)

If you have experience with other search engines, you can use those instead. They generally have better functionality than this site’s one, but you will have to leave this site and know what you are doing.

There is a lot more that could be added to the above and expanded on. Please let us know whether you find this useful or not and whether you would like more of this kind of How to posts. If so, please suggest a topic, but keep in mind that we cannot make promises as we live in the same space-time continuum as you do and have busy lives and jobs too. In other words, we are always short of time!

37 comments on “How to use the Replies and Search tabs on this site ”

  1. Anker 1
    • Thanks! Helpful…don’t know if you have any suggestions for the problem I have, which is on my I pad, once I have commented for the first time each day, I can’t comment again. Often I have to use the dot as I have
    • With this comment

  2. FAB mouse 2

    Just testing to see if the reply tab appears, as it is not currently there (Win10 Chrome).

    • FAB mouse 2.1

      Yes it did. yay

      • FAB mouse 2.1.1

        No. Gone again…

        Chrome – Win10Pro

        • FAB mouse 2.1.1.1

          And back again once I "Leave a Comment"….

          • weka 2.1.1.1.1

            have you tried refreshing the page?

            • FAB mouse 2.1.1.1.1.1

              Just refreshed now but no tab.

              It will probably appear as soon as I submit this.

              • FAB mouse

                Yes it did.

              • lprent

                You almost certainly have something running that kills browser cookies.

                Could be a privacy setting in your browser or an anti-tracking application like a anti-virus system. Generally you can give a specific site or cookie permission to get retained on your system.

                The Standard’s replies system relies on having cookies so that it can request the replies for a particular 'e-mail'.

                It actually loads the general cached page first, then requests the replies for whatever 'e-mail' your browser has stored as a cookie to fill the replies tab.

                When you leave a comment, a newly created cookie is sent from the browser to the server with whatever e-mail you to send the comment with. That allows the response page to come back with a cookie attached and to request the replies. However that cookie isn't persisted, so a page refresh in another page has nothing to ask for.

                Can't help you – no cookie persistence – no persistent replies tab.

              • Incognito

                When I was just a commenter here, I used to submit a test comment as my first one to ‘activate’ the Replies system. I would then be able to see all the Replies to my comments since last time and subsequently delete the test comment. I clear everything upon closing my browsers.

  3. McFlock 3

    testing without logging in, using pseudo&email.

    Seeing if the reply tab appears after this comment (probably will).

    • McFlock 3.1

      oh sweet, it even uses the same account so all the replies to me are still there. 🙂

      • weka 3.1.1

        I think it's tied to the email address.

        • weka 3.1.1.1

          test it with your email and McFlocky if you like and we will see (I can't, because the author logins go weird if we try that).

          • McFlock 3.1.1.1.1

            Yep the first one was email. Oh, so is this one apparently.
            I only updated the email address a few months ago – was with a provider that disappeared years ago and deleted its servers.

            Nice to know there are options if I'm on a different machine and can't remember the password for this site.

            • weka 3.1.1.1.1.1

              I meant log out, try your email and a slightly different username. That will rule out username being relevant.

              • McFlock's evil twin

                ah, ok

                yep, went to moderation queue

                • weka

                  Yep, went to moderation queue, but you've still got the same gravatar (which is tied to the email). What's happening with the Replies tab? Is McFlock's evil twin there alongside McFlock?

                  • McFlock\'s slightly more competent evil twin

                    d'oh. Forgot to check reply tab

                  • McFlock's slightly more competent evil twin

                    edited:
                    yep replies from all names are there, just had to run another check.
                    But if I refresh the browser tab or something with the previous one and it disappeared. Seems to stay after a refresh on this one.
                    Maybe i logged in and logged out and that killed a cookie?

                    • weka

                      ok, I'm too confused now, lol.

                    • McFlock

                      lol I'm eternally confused.
                      The first time I did it (McF'sE-T), it posted ok but I neglected to check the reply tab.

                      I'm 70% sure I logged in to continue reading, then saw the question about the reply tab, logged out to check, and there was no reply tab.

                      So I posted the "slightly more competent" comment, checked the reply tab and it worked fine with replies for all variants of "mcflock". Refreshed the browser and the reply tab was still there.

  4. vto 4

    oh… that would have saved me some scroll time over the years…. rolly eyes

    • weka 4.1

      lol. All those times I find some really useful feature on my laptop that's been there for years and I didn't know about it.