A real Forum for D

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Please see comments interpolated below.

-[Unknown]


On 11/28/2011 11:50 PM, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
>> 1. Well, I get threads, I really do. I understand their usefulness,
>> and how sometimes it's beneficial to completely ignore a branch - for
>> example, someone reporting an issue with a release on FreeBSD, that
>> doesn't affect me and I don't care about.
>>
>> That said, I must say it's a relatively artificial form of
>> conversation. It's annoying, quite frankly. It's not that I don't get
>> it, I just don't *like* it.
>
> Aren't you contradicting yourself? All merits of using some alternatives
> may become fully apparent only after extended use, and attempts to
> switch back. Productivity gains are often hard to quantify, thus reports
> of such can be easily confused with bias (it goes both ways, of course).

I've definitely used threaded conversation in the past.  In fact, I used 
to think it was much better than linear, quite so.  But, then I used 
linear for quite some time and realized something simple: threaded is 
just a pain, and only barely better.

I'd rather have 90+% the utility with less than 50% the pain.  Far more 
productive IMHO.  And to be clear, I don't really like forums in general 
(despite developing them) threaded or not, neither newsgroups.  But they 
serve a purpose.

> I don't see how you can objectively say that linear conversations are
> less "artificial" than threaded ones.

Well, if I'm talking in a meeting at work, the conversation follows a 
path.  If people bring up old information, that happens in a linear 
fashion, not a branching one.  I don't think I've ever communicated in 
any non-linear way.  Even when writing letters, I do so very linearly.

I find imposing branching to be an artificial supplement to a natural 
conversation.  That's not to imply linear forum conversations in text 
are not at all artificial (intonations, etc. are a great example) - just 
that they are less so.

I've also participated in debate, public speaking, general meetings, and 
interviewing.  All of these are highly linear, or at least I think so.

> What cost? Perhaps this is all about suboptimal UIs?

Productivity cost.  The cost of dealing with it (even if it's small), 
replying in the right places, looking back in the right places for 
things you remember, etc.  Call it laziness if you will, I guess.

> I just tried the threaded mode. Compared to a real newsreader, it is
> also a joke.

Well, I haven't used it in a while, but I don't recall it being terribly 
different from Thunderbird, which is what I use for this newsgroup, in 
interface or features (and it was probably more stable, although 
Thunderbird hasn't been crashing as much these days.)

I suppose Thunderbird may also be a terrible client, I don't really 
know.  I'm not really in the market for a new one, though, since I only 
use it to catch up on D.

> It does not. Major forum software, including SMF (I just checked the
> source), store the last post ID that you've seen in a thread.

Well, given the viewing format, this makes sense.  But as I said, it's 
not "just the topic level."  Since there's no way to insert a post into 
the conversation after-the-fact, this is only a question of how it's 
stored and optimized.

> Why do you even mention topics? It's clear as day that major forums save
> which threads you haven't read in their entirety, but not individual posts.

That's not at all true.  Try this, then:

1. View a topic that is 10 pages long, but only read until page 5.
2. Close your browser or come back to the site a day later.
3. Click the "new" icon to get the next unread post in the topic.

You'll go to page 6.  I would not define this as "threads ... read in 
their entirety."  It's true that it's not marking individual posts, 
because if you go directly to page 5, pages 1-4 won't be presented as read.

I also can tell you from experience that if they were presented as such, 
people would be confused and complain.  Actually, I do agree lots is 
wrong about forum software (and also about newsgroups too), but so much 
is "set in stone" by how people are used to using it.  This isn't a new 
problem.

>> I'll note that I use Gmail proudly and often these days.
>
> Be careful with that pride. They say it blinds.

Haha, well, I mean that I'm proud of its general quality, even if I had 
nothing to do with it.  Not proud like an Apple product user (although I 
do own and use some Apple products, some of which necessitated by my 
work.)  I think it's the latter kind which has blinding hazard.

-[Unknown]