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@Krylhos: Feedback on the "view new posts" feature

djump·10/18/2013, 2:48:20 PM·4 votes·463 views

Hi Krylhos (and anyone else whom it may concern)

I love the feature you've recently added to view new posts in a thread you've previously viewed. I do, however, have some thoughts on how I'd like to see it improved.

For those that haven't noticed this yet, you see a little oval under each topic you've previously viewed that shows how many new posts have been posted since you last viewed the thread. You can click on this oval and it will take you to the topic and show only individual new posts. Alternately, if you just go to the topic you've previously viewed, there is another "# new posts" button just below the original post which again switches the view to only show the individual new posts.

This feature is very much needed, and is quite beneficial but my main concern is this:

The individual display of the new posts is too separated from the branches of conversation. You do have the option to "show parent" which is nice, but I feel I need more than that. I want to be able to show parents of parents of parents with easy clicks to really be able to read the new post in the context of the conversation. It's also a little confusing to have all new posts shown individually and separately because you can't see their relative point in the conversation branches. The end effect is that you are still a little disoriented and confused when trying to follow the conversation, although much less so then when we just had the mass of posts/replies with no idea which were new.

I don't know how it works on the technical side of implementation, but here's the general functionality that would be ideal in my mind:

I would like to view new threads would be basically to minimize all previously seen posts, and leave the new posts un-minimized. This way you can easily click to un-minimize any of the levels of parent thread as needed to get your bearings in the conversation. And it's more immediately apparent how different new posts fit in to the same or different conversation branches.

Currently you have the view-new-posts feature as a separate display form the normal discussion with the option to "return to discussion" to go back to the normal reply branches. My above suggestion would be to not have this separate new post display, but keep it in line with the normal replies, just minimize the previously read posts.

I'm sure there are technical challenges to this that may not make it ideal, for example I would assume you don't have the ability currently to minimize a branch but leave one sub-post within it un-minimized. I'll leave figuring out the best way to proceed with you, but my general opinion stands that the current "view new post" feature feels too segregated from the standard line/flow of discussion.

Thanks for hearing my thoughts, keep up the good work!

6 Comments

RiotKrylhos10/18/2013, 6:36:57 PM4 votes

First of all, thanks!

I want to be able to show parents of parents of parents with easy clicks to really be able to read the new post in the context of the conversation.

I've given this a lot of thought, and we'll likely provide a way to show the whole lineage to solve what the "Show parent" is trying to do (which is to provide context).

The "new" view is also a bit of an experimentation of presenting nested comments in a flat view.

I like your idea of presenting them within the whole discussion, and allowing the "Return to Discussion" be no more than "Just expand the rest of the discussion".

Part of the challenges with that is the different sorting strategies presented. For example - right now we have both Best and Recent. With "Best", a new comment (especially in a larger discussion) will not always be guaranteed to be present. While we could force the presence of a comment if it doesn't belong in the existing sorted set, I can see how that would get confusing visually.

Thanks for taking the time to write out your feedback. I like these ideas.

As far as technical challenges of collapsing and representing a collapsed state for various post objects, one of the reasons we made this community platform versus taking an out of the box solution was so we can have the control of doing crazy stuff like that. It's most certainly not outside the realm of possibility, and it's really fun to think about the opportunities available :)

djump10/18/2013, 2:51:19 PM2 votes

One other thought:

Even aside from a separate mode for viewing new posts, I think it would be nice to just have the new posts visually highlighted or boxed in the normal discussion view. This would be a nice way to see new posts in the flow of conversation also.

Bubble Butt Lulu10/18/2013, 3:07:29 PM1 votes

Good idea. I would also like to see this change. (:

ploki12210/18/2013, 11:34:54 PM1 votes

Yeah, I would also love ot be able to shut down the #new on a viewed thread... something like unfollowing the thread