On Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:06:06 +0200, Unknown W. Brackets
<[email protected]> wrote:
Walter,
Well, having authored web forum software, I suppose I'll make a few
remarks here. I seem to have gotten hit by a stray "forum software
writers (that's me) just don't get it."
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 don't see how you can objectively say that linear conversations are less
"artificial" than threaded ones.
I'm not alone. Tons of other people have abandoned this artificial
communication format, not because they're stupid or "the masses" or they
don't get it, but simply because the cost benefit is not, generally
there.
What cost? Perhaps this is all about suboptimal UIs?
Nevertheless, I'll point out that vBulletin does, in fact, have this
feature, although I can't even remember that last time I saw someone use
it. Instead they often try "hybrid" mode, which is a joke. If you saw
that, you'd assume no one gets it.
I just tried the threaded mode. Compared to a real newsreader, it is also
a joke.
2. I can't speak to all forum software, since several years ago I'm
pretty sure they just remembered the latest timestamp of the latest post
when you last visited.
But the forum software I was involved in, SMF, absolutely stores more
detail than just the topic being read or not. And I'd imagine
vBulletin, as well, stores it per post in threaded mode.
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.
3. Ignoring the comments about email replies (since they are easy
fodder), and returning to the original: many forum softwares (including
my own) due indeed provide a way to easily see which posts or topics you
have or have not read.
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.
I'll note that I use Gmail proudly and often these days.
Be careful with that pride. They say it blinds.
--
Best regards,
Vladimir mailto:[email protected]
