4 ms·
As much as they have a bad reputation, I think the image board style of comments is the best for these kinds of discussions. Each post has a unique ID, and you
by James_K 2y ago
As much as they have a bad reputation, I think the image board style of comments is the best for these kinds of discussions.
Each post has a unique ID, and you can insert links to other posts in the text of your post. Then each post is given a set of back-links showing all posts that quote it. In this way, posts form a hyperlinked network that you can traverse relatively easily, while also being displayed in chronological order.
I've found this quite effective for long-form discussion. My only complaint would be that structure is needlessly limited. It would be better if posts simply formed a connected graph of content which you could ask the website to present in arbitrary ways.
This project reminds me a lot of Xanadu in its layout. I don't really think this complex of an interface is necessary. In fact, it might get in the way of productive discussion. I find that the constraints on other mediums (character limits, reply depth, etc.) often aid clarity. The transmission of information between people is fundamentally linear, and so you are pretty much always just going to be composing short essays and exchanging them as the basis of any real discussion. Complicated features seem like they would obstruct this.
- basch 2y agoDespite all the attempts to improve upon the basics, hyperlinks really are better than almost everything that’s come after them.
- hypercube33 2y agoHyperCards need to make a comeback
- TeMPOraL 2y agoYes, people just need to embrace the directed graph nature of hyperlinks, instead of desperately trying to flatten the graph into a tree or a sequence (chronological or otherwise). We shouldn't be too surprised it's hard to have complex discussions with modern tools, when those tools removed the possibility of such discussions at structural level.
- stainablesteel 2y agoa locally ran reddit-like forum would do wonders for any large or small company it basically takes the task of organizing and just turns it into a format
- munificent 2y agoI don't know if it's still the case, but Reddit used to be open source. Years, ago, back when I worked at EA, I convinced some people to spin up an Reddit instance to use for internal discussions. I figured it would be much better than email chains which are easily lost and don't support threading well. It was fun for a while. I have no idea if it stuck around. I left shortly after.
- ptman 2y agolemmy.ml https://lemmy.ml/post/70280 https://lemmy.ml/post/70280 Just run a private instance if you want.
- barnabyjones 2y agoI think the key part of the UX there is the instant pop-up visibility of the linked comment when you hover over it. Navigating between comments seems like the biggest barrier for most users, where even the extra couple seconds to find out what the person is replying to may be enough to deter someone's interest. And if you accidentally click the wrong place or hit back too many times, it's easy to lose your place.
- James_K 2y agoMost imageboards will show you the post if you hover over a link to it. This technology is decades old.
- metadat 2y agoBy "Image board", do you mean 4chan? Or does this also include the likes of reddit and hn?
- James_K 2y agoI refer to all the chan sites and many other sites in the same style. Reddit and HN are not image boards. HN doesn't even have images. They are link/content aggregators.
- metadat 2y agoThere are other chan sites of note? Interesting.
- xcdzvyn 2y agoThe communities are generally significantly smaller but yes. Двач, 8chan, lain, and sharty come to mind. They're rarely "nice" places though (lain is fairly pleasant).
- hifromwork 2y agoIronically, IME the smaller imageboard is the higher average discussion quality ends up. I really enjoy having anonymous discussions on smaller chans, though of course it's still not a very productive endeavor (just like reading reddit or HN).
- drones 2y agoThe downside of this approach is the redundancy of information. If multiple conversations are happening at once, it's hard to follow what people are saying about a particular one. Following a thread's history means there is a huge amount of cognitive load regarding filtering irrelevant comments and ignoring redundant quotes. By this new method, I will only ever be shown a post I don't care about once.
- 3abiton 2y agoThis also explains it's popularity and notoriarity.