A real Forum for D

[Walter Bright]

On 11/27/2011 11:55 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> On 2011-11-27 23:30, Walter Bright wrote:
>> Those are all desirable properties. But the forum software I've seen
>> throws out what's good about NNTP news forums:
>>
>> 1. Threaded view
>> 2. Being able to mark messages as "read"
>> 3. Being able to quickly scan read vs unread
>
> Just because this may be true for most of the forums doesn't mean it needs to be
> true if d-p-l.org gets a new forum.
>
>> BTW, most forum software is pretty much unreadable on small, mobile
>> screens because all the real estate is consumed by the borders, avatars,
>> decorations, gee-gaws, etc. Even text-only reddit blows on the small
>> screen because the text refuses to reflow.
>
> Then that's just bad design. If the forum is designed correctly there won't be
> any problem.


Here's a typical example:

http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=72850.0

Check out all of the vertical space consumed by a 2 word message. No threading 
view that I can find. There's a "Mark Unread" button, but that applies to the 
entire thread, not individual messages.

Here's another:

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/615737-concave-polygon-to-convex-polygons/page__pid__4887554#entry4887554

Same problems.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?source_id=2016875109&source_name=mbase

Note the teeny tiny amount of the screen that is for message text.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/11/28/0050228/muslim-medical-students-boycott-darwin-lectures

At least it's got a real threaded view. But no way to tell what you've read, so 
if you come back to an active topic after an hour or two, it's a real pain 
trying to figure out what you've read and what you haven't. I rarely bother to 
load a topic more than once because of this. Same goes for reddit.