• Members 7 posts
    Dec. 13, 2017, 2:11 p.m.

    Hi,

    I am new here. Misago looks great and promising, great work rafalp!

    However, I have a question about the display of threads. Normally in Misago, the comments to a thread are displayed at the bottom of the list which is hard for me to follow conversations. In my opinion, it would be much easier if the comments to a thread are displayed right after the concerned thread. So the user would be able to follow conversations each thread easier like in facebook without having to use the quote feature. The users would be able to see the whole context of the conversation instead of scrolling down and up.

    It would be nice if in the future admin can choose different thread views as options in the settings (threaded view or recent view). It's just a suggestion :).

    Cheers
    Manny

    fb-comments-threaded-view.png

    PNG, 82.5 KB, uploaded by manuel on Dec. 13, 2017.

  • Dec. 13, 2017, 10:54 p.m.

    Hey Manuel, thank you for taking time to register and chime in ;)

    The threaded view request comes up once in a while, and I've spent quite some time discussing this feature, and the answer is no. There won't be threaded mode in the Misago.

    To put this short, forum threads and posts are different beast to submissions and comments from social media sites. On forums, the posts are the content, and it makes sense to to present them in a way that sort of forces your users to see most of them (or at least first and last page of thread). On social media the comments are here to build user engagement within the posted story/submission... and nothing more. That question from your screenshot about needing anything to use proPhoto 4? The answer to it will be gone pretty much immediately, discovered only by few users to cared enough about original submission to skim the original content, and then lost in the archives of social site, pushed by newer comments and then impossible to find even by discussion's participant. I remember reading some extensive response from cancer researcher under the "cancer cure!" post on one of science trivia pages on FB. This response was impossible to find even next day, because it was already buried in 3000 new comments. If this was to happen on internet forum, I would be able to find it via search or skimming posts history on author's profile.

    Jeff Atwood provides some additional content on the matter. And if you are looking for more food for tough, consider that originally internet forum softwares were all about threaded discussions. The vBulletin 1 had it. The UBB Threads had it. Some other nascent forum softwares from the era had those. And users demanded those to go away and absolutely hated them. I've hated them too. And I hate them to this day ;)

  • Members 7 posts
    Dec. 14, 2017, 11:58 a.m.

    Thank you for informations!

    I've checked out the discussion created by Jeff Atwood. I agree totally that the threaded view like in reddit is horrible. There are too many levels and indents which you could lose yourself in the discussion. However I was not detailed enough and gave a bad example about the threaded view.

    What I meant actually was only using one level for a threaded view like this user quoted in the discussion:
    discourse.codinghorror.com/t/web-discussions-flat-by-design/23/98

    Interestingly, Discourse is also using threaded view, but only one level right after the original post. Discourse also shows those answers at bottom of the list with links to original post: discourse.codinghorror.com/t/web-discussions-flat-by-design/23/100

    Yes, there are duplicate posts, however, in this way the positive sides of flat design and threaded view are used.

    I still believe in minimalistic threaded view for easier (well, what does easy mean?) understanding of context without having to use quote feature. It would be also interesting to find out in an user experience testing (I used to work in an UX agency) how new users and regular users interact with threaded view and flat design of discussion. Just because we don't like any threaded view or flat design, it does not mean it's the same for all :). By watching user interacting with both versions of discussion styles, we can collect facts and results what user think of those versions instead of discussing who is right.

  • Dec. 14, 2017, 12:28 p.m.

    Discourse is not really threaded forum, they simply track direct replies to posts and provide UI to check them out (as well as to check out original reply) without having to navigate whole thread... which is something I actually like and would like to land in Misago eventually.

    I used to work in an UX agency

    This is really cool. I'm currently redoing Misago's frontend using Bootstrap 4, ReactRouter and Reactstrap and I would love to have UX folk around to discuss and early feedback UI design.

  • Members 7 posts
    Dec. 14, 2017, 5:49 p.m.

    Cool that you would like to have similar feature like Discourse in Misago too :)

    I would love to support you in your forum developement! I am also going to learn react.js and django so I can implement any fancy website with a touch of good UX.

    Let me know, if you need any certain help or feedback.

  • Dec. 29, 2017, 5:58 a.m.

    One of sources of inspiration for me are official game communities, because those tend to use homebrewed software that integrates with developers infrastructure and player data, and thus they usually implement fancy and novel ideas not seen elsewhere.

    I've noticed recently that Bungie's forums also have onhand list of replies attached to posts:

    Zrzut ekranu 2017-12-29 o 05.54.22.png

    Zrzut ekranu 2017-12-29 o 05.54.22.png

    PNG, 180.4 KB, uploaded by rafalp on Dec. 29, 2017.

  • Members 7 posts
    Jan. 15, 2018, 10:13 a.m.

    This is a nice list of latest posts with hidden replies under the relevant post. I wonder how often the user click «replies» in order to see the content. If they, for example super users, are interested in all replies, they would need to click everytime the button which is also annoying. Maybe this is something users can change their preference in the settings about how to display replies. However I'd test users by showing them three different versions: one list showing all contents including replies attached to posts, one list with hidden replies attached to post and one list showing current posts without threaded view.
    In that way, I'd be able to understand how user read the posts and interact with the contents and which way they prefer.