On forum tree threading

[Bruno Medeiros via Digitalmars-d]

On 24/03/2016 19:52, Walter Bright wrote:
> DFeed handles that rather well. See this thread as a fine example:
>
> http://forum.dlang.org/post/nd1gaq$1o1g$1@digitalmars.com
>
> You may argue that there are better ways to present this, but it's
> pretty clear that NNTP is not holding this back.

I disagree. Quoting myself, it doesn't have the:
" Ability to spawn a new topic from an existing one. This is not 
something that is supported currently. Merely renaming the title doesn't 
suffice: the sub-topic still remains part of the parent thread/topic. So 
there is noise around, you can't simply follow the sub-topic, whilst 
ignoring the rest of the thread, because they are not separate. "

This means people can miss an interesting discussion - like this 
subtopic, or the "D vs Rust mindset" discussion - merely by dismissing 
the parent thread - "Females in the community." in this case, which was 
an incredibly silly discussion to start with).

Even if DFeed were to handle it well, it's just one client. Others would 
likely not handled it the same way. One of the supposed advantages of 
NNTP (multiple clients) can also be a shortcoming, because there is no 
consistent UI. And consistency is important for behaviors or aspects 
that should be preserved for any user, and not left for individual 
preference (like spawning a new topic separately).

For example, someone on Thunderbird might open this thread, "Females in 
the community.", see it's garbage talk, and press "T" which marks the 
whole thread as read, and skips to the next one. The scrolling here 
would likely make the user not notice any sub-threads.


-- 
Bruno Medeiros
https://twitter.com/brunodomedeiros