re: re:

[dr_tectonic]

Okay, having just been thoroughly confused detangling what was in response to what over yonder on another site, here's the new rule. Pay attention, everybody who might ever develop social software of whatever type:

If you allow comments? Thread them.

Period.

I don't care if it's more work. I don't care if it doesn't play nicely with your infrastructure. When people are saying things, they're usually saying them in response to something else that has been said, and making it easy to see how these things line up with one another is essential to the actual "communication" part of that whole saying stuff thing you're enabling. Otherwise it's all just half a cell-phone conversation in public, which is both useless and annoying.

Comments are threaded. ALWAYS.

I have decreed it! Now make it so!

Comments

Seconded!

[toosuto.livejournal.com]

I'd like to be able to 'Like This.'

[nehrlich.livejournal.com]

The one downside of threading is that it encourages people to spin off conversations and splinter discussion into a myriad of subthreads. That's appropriate for a discussion board, but if there's an option to take the conversation private (e.g. email), I'm less convinced that threading should be supported, as any remaining comments should be germane to the original subject. Admittedly, this results in the hacks like Twitter of doing @person to indicate who you are responding to.

I guess the question is, are the comments meant to enable communication among the commenters, or to provide feedback on an original piece (a news story or blog post). If the former, then threading. If the latter, maybe not.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

I think you are thinking about this a little too much and missing the bit where it is a DECREE and people are supposed to ACCEDE to my DEMANDS! *a-HEM!*

I almost agree that pure feedback doesn't need to be threaded, except that if the feedback is publicly posted, there is always communication amongst the commenters (because somebody's going to be guilty of being Wrong On The Internet), which turns it back into a conversation. And maybe things should remain germane to the original subject, but they're not gonna.

Any back-and-forth communication will always diverge and digress. I kinda think it's better to just give it up and go with the flow. Social animals will always turn communication into as discussion, no matter what the restrictions of the medium, so tech might as well support it naturally instead of forcing the evolution of crazy hacks like use of Twitter's @name notation on Facebook. Right?

[nehrlich.livejournal.com]

Yes, thinking about it too much. Writing a blog post in penance to get all those extra thoughts out of my overactive head.

I agree to some extent that we should go with the flow, but I actually agree with Joel's point which suggests that threading is the beginning of the slippery slope to the insane line-by-line nit-picking of Usenet. Forcing people to come up with the crazy hacks reminds commenters that they are doing something undesired, so they'll only do it if necessary. Supporting conversation spinoff natively encourages that behavior.

As usual for me these days, that means it boils down to a design question - what behavior do you want to encourage? Therefore, it is not decree-able, as different designs support different goals.

Or something.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

It is decree-able if all designs support the same goal of making things convenient for ME...

[nehrlich.livejournal.com]

I am shown.

[k8cre8.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Google Wave? Because it allows you to actually do both. http://wave.google.com/ It even translates, live. It's slick.

[dpolicar]

So I agree with this as far as it goes, but I would argue that in the latter case, comments are not the most useful design, either. There are much better mechanisms for allowing people to provide feedback without allowing them to interact socially with one another.

[nehrlich.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I'm curious what are the "much better mechanisms" you refer to, at least in the online medium. Polls? Feedback forms?

[dpolicar]

If you want people to be able to provide the author with feedback, and you don't want the people providing feedback to interact with one another, the simplest online mechanism for that is email, or some similar 1-to-1 mechanism. It's not a social networking problem, and doesn't need a social networking solution.

[flwyd.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I've yet to find a web forum with an interface as useful as any random Usenet client (say, trn in its ncurses goodness). And really, that's just three features (I'll give a pass on things like killfiles) -- pick a subject you want to read, navigate threads, and don't show messages I already read (unless I ask for them). Most forums do feature 1. Some do feature 2, though often awkwardly. Why the hell is feature 3 so hard that nobody does it?

I hope Google Wave comes out well. It has all three features and may even be able to impose them on sites which don't offer #3.

Re #3

[detailbear.livejournal.com]

Part of it is the need for either sign-ons or cookies to implement this. Sign-ons are considered too much trouble and cookies are considered to be evil by many.

Re: Re #3

[flwyd.livejournal.com]

From LiveJournal to phpbb, logging in is a pretty standard feature. And if you told me I can skip comments I've already logged in, I'm going straight to the sign-up link as a trouble-saving measure.

[kung-fu-monkey.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I miss how *hot* you are when you're bossy. Go put those boots on, mister...

[kev-bot.livejournal.com]

RAWR

[kung-fu-monkey.livejournal.com]

You have no idea.

[kev-bot.livejournal.com]

OMG you guys turn me on like almost no one else.

* The almost is because of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

[kung-fu-monkey.livejournal.com]

Hm. He doesn't do much for me, so he's all yours. If you'll excuse me, I have to return to my happy image of one booted Beemer, one bound Greg, and one rather excitable me.

[detailbear.livejournal.com]

Ok. Now I can't stand up for a while.

[kung-fu-monkey.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're at home, you can stand up, shake/swing it about, or whatever else gets you going.

Unless you happen to be at work, in which case, yeah, stay seated. Certainly don't think of this pile of sweaty, moaning fur. Nope. Anything but that. How about boots, smooth rope, or a gag? Oh, wait...

[kev-bot.livejournal.com]

Threaded comments also make people feel better about themselves, if they're all about letting the internet determine their self-worth!

[dpolicar]

Actually, I think you're thinking too small here.

I mean, if you're going to invoke your dom!Beemer Aspect, it might as well be for all the marbles, right?

Screw threading. Comments should be hyperlinked. With the ability to create a target point within the thing you're linking to as part of the link.

Because sometimes you're responding to more than one comment.
And sometimes you're responding to the seventeenth paragraph in a twenty-five paragraph comment.
And sometimes you're not really responding to a comment at all, but you want to refer to it anyway.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

I like the way you think!

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

I'll get right on that. Is it something I can do with sticky notes?

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

I am now imagining a UI based entirely on post-its.

Most ridiculous Best. Thing. EVAR!

[dpolicar]

Post-its aren't a bad model for a task-list application, actually.

I, on the other hand, am interpreting this comment in the context of this thread.

I should go get dressed, I think. (grin)

[flwyd.livejournal.com]

I was actually advocating for an advanced post-it UI as an improvement to my previous company's workflow process.

[detailbear.livejournal.com]

You're just OLD!

Or that's what they tell me when I complain. ;-)

[dpolicar]

When you complain, people tell you Beemer is old?
Odd.

[detailbear.livejournal.com]

He's famous/infamous!