[wallyb]

This is a bug I've noticed for a couple of weeks now. There is a bug in all of the forums, but most notably the "SLR Lens Discussion Forum" as that's where I spend a lot of time, where in subforum page with all the thread titles and links, it will show threads in order of the last post. But, the last post is often at the wrong time in this subforum page compared to when it was really posted. See pictures I took a few days ago:





This shows that the last post in "Poll: What is your dream lens" was by Blue at "Today at 4:03 AM". However, this is not actually the case. This next screenshot was taken just seconds after the one above, and shows the true posting time of the most recent post:






As you can see, the actual posting time of that post was "Yesterday at 9:14 PM". Many, many hours difference. This error also has the unwanted side effect of bumping threads to the top of the page, by manipulating what their most recent post time was. In this way, it can even put threads from many pages back right up to the front page, and make it look like there was a recent post in there.


Any idea what the problem is? I hope my explanation was clear. It happens all the time, and is currently happening in that forum, and probably other ones as well.

[Adam]

It's not a bug, but rather an intended behavior by design. Perhaps it's a bit unconventional, but poll threads are automatically bumped whenever a new vote is made.

[wallyb]

It's not a bug, but rather an intended behavior by design. Perhaps it's a bit unconventional, but poll threads are automatically bumped whenever a new vote is made.

Thanks for that information, it's news to me. It certainly is unconventional, but I can see its use. However, I would still call it a "bug" that it says the last post was made at a certain time. Can't there be a separate notification that there's a new vote in the poll?

[Adam]

That would be overkill! The way it works here is that there's a switch, and you can either have it update the last post time, or not update anything at all.

[wallyb]

That would be overkill! The way it works here is that there's a switch, and you can either have it update the last post time, or not update anything at all.

Shucks. Okay Adam, thanks for the clarification. At least it won't drive me crazy anymore

[Adam]

I figured the way it is right now (the change to the last post system was made late last year) will allow threads with pointless poll to get a little more love

[Adam]

I've removed that entry; looks like someone was clueless when submitting a lens.