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CHAMP
Threaded comments/post
This breaks the pure "Twitter with pants" model but what would it be like to have threaded comments per post? Today's system for showing replies doesn't make threads/conversations apparent
I’m happy
2
people like this idea
I like this idea!
Tell me when this idea gets some attention.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The company has this under consideration.
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Inappropriate?Ya, I agree, but I'm really not sure the best way to do this. Should comments only show up on the original post and not in the main timeline? Or should comments appear in the main timeline but with a little more context to them, like smaller text and thumbnail of the post replied to? I am really open to ideas here.
I’m threadless
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Inappropriate?The back-end pieces are there, the trick is in how we display it. For now, we've chosen to do pseudo-threading, meaning we display like Twitter's system, but each comment reply has a true and logical parent post. Doing a truly threaded system within a non-mutual follow model is nearly impossible from a UI perspective, because you run into cases where you have two options:
1) Omit portions of the conversation for the viewer (the comments from those he or she doesn't follow)
2) Display the entire conversation, whether the viewer is following all parties or not.
The first is frustrating, but the second and lead to privacy concerns, especially after we (spoiler alert) introduce private accounts. Besides, the whole point of the non-mutual follow model is that you get to choose your own experience.
The happy medium, I suppose, is the way Facebook handles it in their status stream. Except that displaying a reply as a smaller box makes it seem diminutive, which feels wrong to me.
Another option that I like is the search.twitter.com method, where conversations display the avatars for both parties, one over the other. This could work, providing a clear visual cue that the comment is part of a conversation, while also directing any viewers who are not following both users to the part they're missing.
The way comments are displayed is very important to us, and as Jay says, we're open to ideas. But this isn't something I want to throw out there until we've very carefully chosen the right way to implement.
I’m verbose
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Inappropriate?Isn't the search.twitter.com convention just a click away from scenario 2?
I'm trying to imagine the privacy impact of a comment system implemented per scenario 2. It seems similar to a profile's wall in FB, the commenter knows their comment is visible to the public and behaves accordingly. Private comments to a poster are handled in a private medium, DMs.
Maybe without an understanding of how private accounts will work I'm missing the problem?
Have you considered the problem of multiple threads emerging from a single post? I could see this happening, as any given post could generate a discussion about shopping, brands, trends, location, styling. To support that sort of discussion it seems like a Digg or Slashdot-like comment system is required, with various nested conversations underneath the parent post. Once again, people who are interested in saying something private to the poster wouldn't find this system too useful, but they wouldn't have any reason to expect privacy either.
As far as the viewer controlling the experience, it seems like a problem to deal with later, but the solution that pops out for me is to allow a user to filter out other user input at reply to other, reply to me, or post levels. Someone's replies driving you nuts but still fit acceptable use? Turn them off in your feed. Of course, a strong community will police this sort of problem so I'd imagine filtering people would be rare. Maybe I'm an optimist.
I’m excited to see what's next
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Inappropriate?One of our core design philosophies (which will hopefully be more apparent over time) is to keep things as simple as possible. Our goal with coathangr is to reach an audience that isn't well-versed in technology. With something like the comments system, it would be very easy to take a technocentric approach and add layers of complexity that would be difficult to remove later.
I agree that *something* should happen to make the comments easier to follow, but the primary consideration when deciding which way to handle it is, "could my wife/girlfriend figure this out without any effort?" Secondary is, "if we decide this isn't working, how difficult is it to back out?" A full-blown, configurable commenting system like Slashdot's (ugh) is way beyond what my girlfriend would be interested in.
If a user's account is set to private, and they post something that generates a reply from a non-private user, we're back to square one. Anyone following the non-private user (but not the private user) is missing out on a chunk of conversation. The only other option here is to expose the original message, ignoring user preference.
As a side note, it's worth mentioning that we do have a direct messaging system. Typing "d dwiskus hi!" in the post box will send a direct message to me. Admittedly, the UI guidance for the user could (and will) be a lot better. That said, when a direct message comes in, it shows up in a different color as a cue to the user.
Maybe the best for-now solution is to color-code replies.
I’m delighted that people are so interested
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Inappropriate?Digg and Slashdot were probably a bad example. What about taking a look at how nested/threaded blog comments handle it? Intense Debate's comment model seems like it would work. Of course, this is all assuming that posts generate a ton of conversation...is that the goal?
A non-private user's reply to a private post seems like it should be viewable only by the private user's followers. The non-private user's followers shouldn't be able to see the reply to a private post because 1) they're only seeing one side of the conversation and 2) they could extract presumably private details from that one side of the conversation that a private poster may not want revealed.
Is there a strong demand for private posts and accounts? Simplicity would seem to dictate just cutting the functionality :)
I’m having fun
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