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That's just, like, your opinion man. I prefer HN's indented approach to a typical forum listing where it's just a firehose with quotes. But the best approach is

That's just, like, your opinion man. I prefer HN's indented approach to a typical forum listing where it's just a firehose with quotes. But the best approach is to allow the view to be switched as desired.

eterm 4y ago
HN's model is bad for high volume. Sometimes on HN you only get one top level reply on the whole page because once it puts the top top-level reply it then puts all the replies to that above the next top-level reply. So you get a vast amount of low quality replies above the next high-quality reply. For low volume it works okay because you can manually collapse but for high volume once it starts paging it breaks down and you just get further into the top level comment without properly being able to escape. Reddit's model of auto-collapsing so you get a mix of threads and top-level replies is much better for picking out the better responses.
- httpete 4y ago
  I made a reddit-like comment system for HN if you are curious: https://www.hackernewz.com/item/33153152 https://www.hackernewz.com/item/33153152 (link to your comment: https://www.hackernewz.com/item/33153152?commentId=33155112 https://www.hackernewz.com/item/33153152?commentId=33155112)
  - rakoo 4y ago
    The style is very neat. Mind sharing the source ?
    - httpete 4y ago
      Yes, I will post it on HN and Github as soon as it's finished!
  - aabbcc1241 4y ago
    It seems you only show top 3 levels by default, then allow manual toggle to show/hide nested replies? Also for long list of replies, you also only show first few. This design may helps "smaller comments" to surface when the conversation is relatively "mature".
JasonFruit 4y ago
The problem with letting users choose the view is that the chosen view affects how they write. If I can see it's obvious in my tree view who I'm responding to, I won't point it out, and then someone who uses the firehose view won't be able to follow the conversation.
- taink 4y ago
  I feel the main problem wouldn't be this (if you handle quotes to show in a tree view then surely you can handle replies in a tree view to show quotes in a firehose). However, the main issue is that when you can quote multiple comments (when you are in a firehose view) you tend to send a single post for multiple replies; I have no idea how that could be shown in the tree view. Essentially a firehose is a superset of a tree structure, if your unit is a post.
  - MetaWhirledPeas 4y ago
    There's really two concepts: parent, which is how hierarchy is achieved, and quotes, which are stylized text linking back to an ancestor. The potential for problems would arise when everyone Replied using a root-level post to the firehose. This could be mitigated with prominent Reply links on every post in the firehose, with the root-level contribution form deemphasized. So you can quote multiple people but you still chose a parent by choosing which Reply link to click.
  - iggldiggl 4y ago
    > then surely you can handle replies in a tree view to show quotes in a firehose One problem is that when people are manually quoting a post, they can edit that quote down to only include the relevant portion of the post they're replying to, and depending on the forum culture unnecessary full-quoting is actively being discouraged. Automatically added quotes on the other hand don't have such a luxury, so you'd get a big bunch of full quotes, which wouldn't really be ideal, either.

eterm 4y ago

HN's model is bad for high volume. Sometimes on HN you only get one top level reply on the whole page because once it puts the top top-level reply it then puts all the replies to that above the next top-level reply. So you get a vast amount of low quality replies above the next high-quality reply. For low volume it works okay because you can manually collapse but for high volume once it starts paging it breaks down and you just get further into the top level comment without properly being able to escape. Reddit's model of auto-collapsing so you get a mix of threads and top-level replies is much better for picking out the better responses.

httpete 4y ago
I made a reddit-like comment system for HN if you are curious: https://www.hackernewz.com/item/33153152 https://www.hackernewz.com/item/33153152 (link to your comment: https://www.hackernewz.com/item/33153152?commentId=33155112 https://www.hackernewz.com/item/33153152?commentId=33155112)
- rakoo 4y ago
  The style is very neat. Mind sharing the source ?
  - httpete 4y ago
    Yes, I will post it on HN and Github as soon as it's finished!
- aabbcc1241 4y ago
  It seems you only show top 3 levels by default, then allow manual toggle to show/hide nested replies? Also for long list of replies, you also only show first few. This design may helps "smaller comments" to surface when the conversation is relatively "mature".

JasonFruit 4y ago

The problem with letting users choose the view is that the chosen view affects how they write. If I can see it's obvious in my tree view who I'm responding to, I won't point it out, and then someone who uses the firehose view won't be able to follow the conversation.

taink 4y ago
I feel the main problem wouldn't be this (if you handle quotes to show in a tree view then surely you can handle replies in a tree view to show quotes in a firehose). However, the main issue is that when you can quote multiple comments (when you are in a firehose view) you tend to send a single post for multiple replies; I have no idea how that could be shown in the tree view. Essentially a firehose is a superset of a tree structure, if your unit is a post.
- MetaWhirledPeas 4y ago
  There's really two concepts: parent, which is how hierarchy is achieved, and quotes, which are stylized text linking back to an ancestor. The potential for problems would arise when everyone Replied using a root-level post to the firehose. This could be mitigated with prominent Reply links on every post in the firehose, with the root-level contribution form deemphasized. So you can quote multiple people but you still chose a parent by choosing which Reply link to click.
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  > then surely you can handle replies in a tree view to show quotes in a firehose One problem is that when people are manually quoting a post, they can edit that quote down to only include the relevant portion of the post they're replying to, and depending on the forum culture unnecessary full-quoting is actively being discouraged. Automatically added quotes on the other hand don't have such a luxury, so you'd get a big bunch of full quotes, which wouldn't really be ideal, either.