4 ms·

Threaded comments are a good thing. This seems like a UI problem. One suggestion: 1) Put the thread reply text field at the top of the comments and show new re

by aneth4 13y ago

Threaded comments are a good thing. This seems like a UI problem. One suggestion: 1) Put the thread reply text field at the top of the comments and show new replies at the top, at least for the user who made the comment. 2) Replying anywhere else should require clicking on Reply under that comment. This makes it intuitively clear that thread replies are not replies to a thread comment. This would take users some time to adjust to, but should fix the problem. I know at least one site that does this. Ahem. EDIT: Looking more carefully at the second screen shot, it looks like they did this. Seems like a non-issue in that case. The first screenshot for some reason doesn't have that change. Who knows if they are A/B testing or what. Strange that the OP did not notice this difference.

staltz 13y ago
Threaded comments are a bad thing. I've gone through this thoroughly in a blog post (http://blog.iroquote.com/post/45908133231/5-reasons-why-threaded-discussions-stink-and-a http://blog.iroquote.com/post/45908133231/5-reasons-why-thre...), but here is an overview of why: 1. Screen width limits the depth of threaded replies. 2. Indented replies look horrible on mobile screens, and make the depth of reason (1) even smaller. 3. We (typically) lose chronological order. 4. A complex comment tree makes it cumbersome to track who replied to what. 5. Non-techy users don't get it well, which eventually leads to a inconsistent tree. I think the search for an ideal comment system is a problem worth solving. IMO it is best solved by: 1. A single thread in chronological order. 2. Quote feature, like in forums, to allow direct replies. 3. Some summarization technique to highlight relevant comments. That's what I'm doing at my startup, and I would like to see other approaches too, because it's about time we figure out how to do an intuitive and powerful comment system.
- deadairspace 13y ago
  I find that 4chan's comment system is surprisingly effective, especially being able to mouseover a link to a comment and have it pop up.
  - raymondduke 13y ago
    That is a nice feature, but not possible on mobile.
- antihero 13y ago
  I have to say, having used newsgroups, forums, and reddit for years and years, I totally disagree - conversations by their nature are threaded, not linear - people need to have the freedom to break off and discuss tangents without impacting the main thing. With the quote feature you just end up with giant quote pyramids and impossible to track discussions. That said, with Facebook it seems they have a) broken the chronology, which is insane, and b) not made it damned obvious that it's a threaded system, hence the confusion.
  - staltz 13y ago
    Giant quote pyramids are a big mistake of old forum systems. But imagine quoting without quotes-in-quotes. Combine that with "click on quote" to see the post. BTW, HN also breaks chronology.
    - aneth4 13y ago
      HN only breaks chronology on sister threads, where it doesn't matter. In 8 years (or whatever) of reading HN comment, I've never once had an issue with chronology of comments. If there were no threads, it would be such a mess, it wouldn't be worth reading.
    - antihero 13y ago
      Well the chronology is following a branch :)
- aneth4 13y ago
  I completely disagree. Single threaded conversations are hijacked by the loudest and often most annoying commenters, don't allow interesting diversions, don't allow recovery from dead end conversations, don't organize information naturally, and are just generally horrible. They quickly follow Godwin's law, and there is very little chance for recovery. A few comments by idiots and the thread is lost. Hacker News without threaded replies would be a disaster. The most interesting discussions are often thread branches, and I'm very thankful much of the uninteresting stuff and endless self-important debate is isolated where it belongs - in a thread. In simple cases, as with a few comments on a photo by someone with 500 friends, threads are overkill and likely to degrade the conversation. On large board with hundreds of commenters, threads are essential. Your points are either wrong or symptoms of bad UIs, not threaded comments. Understood only by programmers? Have you tested that theory? It's wrong. Threads are all over the internet and used competently by all kinds of people. Even my mother understands threads. Hard to follow a thread? I can't even describe how much better threaded comments are than Iroquote, even if horizontal scrolling is required. So yeah, I disagree 100%.
  - staltz 13y ago
    You're free to disagree, as I disagreed with you. A few more defenses to my opinion: single threaded conversations can be saved from annoying idiots through a highlighting feature. I'm talking Slashdot comments (which are threaded but what I refer to is hiding vs highlighting according to karma). Threads are not the only way of filtering relevant content. It takes just one commenter to make a thread inconsistent, and the theory is easily tested: just pick a topic in Reddit and soon you will find one. Also the limit in reply depth causes inconsistencies: once you get to deep into a reply tree, the narrow space left by the indentations eventually forces someone to reply to a higher level in the tree (specially mobile). It's just a technical limitation, not a social theory. If a discussion ends up diverting considerably from the OP, just start a new discussion. That's what Branch.com focused heavily on. They are single threaded, but work slightly like multi-threads. It works nicely. Note also that they have a highlighting feature, and another mechanism to suppress spammers. You have good points defending threads, but I'm not alone against them. I'm sure even Facebook carefully considered threads for their comment system. Many Facebook groups have intense activity (not your normal 30-comment on a friend's photo), I've even witnessed one with over 700 comments. The OP shows us they seem to be experimenting with threads, but they are not going for it 100%. Even Google+ is single-threaded for large discussions. Why?

by aneth4 13y ago

staltz 13y ago

Threaded comments are a bad thing. I've gone through this thoroughly in a blog post (http://blog.iroquote.com/post/45908133231/5-reasons-why-threaded-discussions-stink-and-a http://blog.iroquote.com/post/45908133231/5-reasons-why-thre...), but here is an overview of why: 1. Screen width limits the depth of threaded replies. 2. Indented replies look horrible on mobile screens, and make the depth of reason (1) even smaller. 3. We (typically) lose chronological order. 4. A complex comment tree makes it cumbersome to track who replied to what. 5. Non-techy users don't get it well, which eventually leads to a inconsistent tree. I think the search for an ideal comment system is a problem worth solving. IMO it is best solved by: 1. A single thread in chronological order. 2. Quote feature, like in forums, to allow direct replies. 3. Some summarization technique to highlight relevant comments. That's what I'm doing at my startup, and I would like to see other approaches too, because it's about time we figure out how to do an intuitive and powerful comment system.

deadairspace 13y ago
I find that 4chan's comment system is surprisingly effective, especially being able to mouseover a link to a comment and have it pop up.
- raymondduke 13y ago
  That is a nice feature, but not possible on mobile.
antihero 13y ago
I have to say, having used newsgroups, forums, and reddit for years and years, I totally disagree - conversations by their nature are threaded, not linear - people need to have the freedom to break off and discuss tangents without impacting the main thing. With the quote feature you just end up with giant quote pyramids and impossible to track discussions. That said, with Facebook it seems they have a) broken the chronology, which is insane, and b) not made it damned obvious that it's a threaded system, hence the confusion.
- staltz 13y ago
  Giant quote pyramids are a big mistake of old forum systems. But imagine quoting without quotes-in-quotes. Combine that with "click on quote" to see the post. BTW, HN also breaks chronology.
  - aneth4 13y ago
    HN only breaks chronology on sister threads, where it doesn't matter. In 8 years (or whatever) of reading HN comment, I've never once had an issue with chronology of comments. If there were no threads, it would be such a mess, it wouldn't be worth reading.
  - antihero 13y ago
    Well the chronology is following a branch :)
aneth4 13y ago
I completely disagree. Single threaded conversations are hijacked by the loudest and often most annoying commenters, don't allow interesting diversions, don't allow recovery from dead end conversations, don't organize information naturally, and are just generally horrible. They quickly follow Godwin's law, and there is very little chance for recovery. A few comments by idiots and the thread is lost. Hacker News without threaded replies would be a disaster. The most interesting discussions are often thread branches, and I'm very thankful much of the uninteresting stuff and endless self-important debate is isolated where it belongs - in a thread. In simple cases, as with a few comments on a photo by someone with 500 friends, threads are overkill and likely to degrade the conversation. On large board with hundreds of commenters, threads are essential. Your points are either wrong or symptoms of bad UIs, not threaded comments. Understood only by programmers? Have you tested that theory? It's wrong. Threads are all over the internet and used competently by all kinds of people. Even my mother understands threads. Hard to follow a thread? I can't even describe how much better threaded comments are than Iroquote, even if horizontal scrolling is required. So yeah, I disagree 100%.
- staltz 13y ago
  You're free to disagree, as I disagreed with you. A few more defenses to my opinion: single threaded conversations can be saved from annoying idiots through a highlighting feature. I'm talking Slashdot comments (which are threaded but what I refer to is hiding vs highlighting according to karma). Threads are not the only way of filtering relevant content. It takes just one commenter to make a thread inconsistent, and the theory is easily tested: just pick a topic in Reddit and soon you will find one. Also the limit in reply depth causes inconsistencies: once you get to deep into a reply tree, the narrow space left by the indentations eventually forces someone to reply to a higher level in the tree (specially mobile). It's just a technical limitation, not a social theory. If a discussion ends up diverting considerably from the OP, just start a new discussion. That's what Branch.com focused heavily on. They are single threaded, but work slightly like multi-threads. It works nicely. Note also that they have a highlighting feature, and another mechanism to suppress spammers. You have good points defending threads, but I'm not alone against them. I'm sure even Facebook carefully considered threads for their comment system. Many Facebook groups have intense activity (not your normal 30-comment on a friend's photo), I've even witnessed one with over 700 comments. The OP shows us they seem to be experimenting with threads, but they are not going for it 100%. Even Google+ is single-threaded for large discussions. Why?