Possible alternatives to comment threading
Danyl Strype
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Seen by 141
No doubt the Loomio devs will hate me for saying this, but I think comment nesting in Loomio significantly breaks the UX. I'm guessing it was implemented to allow direct responses, but in practice, comment nesting seems to encourage web users to break a thread into many diverging subthreads, rather than start a new thread to explore a tangent. Just as we were doing in the thread this one has forked out of!
I have found comment nesting makes threads much larger, less focused, load more slowly, and harder to browser. Before anyone points out I can switch to chronological views, I have to do this per-thread, resulting in additional clicks and a bunch of waiting time while the JS hits the database and totally rebuilds the page. Besides, it doesn't solve any of the first three problems, and only partially solves the third.
I think the Loomio use case is more like Issues in GH than like blog comments or web forums. You'll notice GH have made a decision not implement comment nesting in Issues. I think the Discourse approach would work better for Loomio threads, where comments are only chronological, but anchor links are auto-added allowing users to click back and forth between replies and the comments they are replying to.
Another possible interface option goes back to conversations we had right at the beginning of Loomio dev about "forking" threads. The 'post' button could have two options:
* Post here: the comment appears as a new comment in chronological order, with a link back to the original and vice-versa, like Discourse as described above
* Post as a new thread ("fork"): the comment appears as the starting text of a new thread in the same group, with a link back to the comment it forked off, and vice-versa
This provides for a way to do brief, direct responses (eg "where is the film screening on Friday?", reply: "at Paramount Cinema") that is visually tied to the original, even after other comments have been added to the thread. But it prevents threads becoming confusing super-threads covering multiple topics. While only one decision can be made at a time per thread, super-threads de-emphasize the decision-making workflow that makes Loomio different from a web forum (like Discourse) or email list web archive (like GroupServer).
Robert Guthrie Tue 19 Jun 2018 9:46AM
It's worth mentioning that nested loading experience could be improved so nested views don't need so many clicks - and recently there was a bug so you had to reload multiple times just to see unread content, which was bad. I think this is something you've experienced as normal behaviour.
I agree hashtags would be a useful tool. And I agree we need to improve search, we used to have comment level search but removed it because we couldn't support it properly at the time.
I'm going to make (chronological vs nested) a user preference some time shortly. So it at least remembers what you like to see.
Robert Guthrie Tue 19 Jun 2018 9:51AM
Actually I'm still seeing broken unread behaviour.. On this thread I had to load it twice to see both pieces of unread content. The intention with the loader code it is displays everything that is new, and it's parent context in one view. I'll look into the bug.
mike_hales Wed 20 Jun 2018 10:06AM
@robertguthrie I had an email exchange with @gdpelican early this year, where he explained the position regarding comment-level search. See my comment here. Glad you agree that a deeper search function is called for :)
Leo Sammallahti Thu 13 Sep 2018 11:12AM
Here's two ideas for new, simple comment section mechanisms that could foster more constructive disagreement.
Connor Fri 14 Sep 2018 6:37AM
I hesitate to suggest it, but if the textbox for top-level commenting were simply always at the top of the thread instead of the bottom right after the most recent reply, all the problems with people thinking of their top-level post as a reply to the last comment will evaporate...
I understand that may not be where some people want it, but it seriously does obliterate this issue - and it's exactly what YouTube currently does. If you see a comment you want to reply to, there's a big reply button that's hard to miss; if someone is mistakenly looking to reply to a comment with a top-level post, that person will feel far less certain that the two are connected by the time they scroll up to the comment box.
An intuition argument can also be made that the textboxes will then always be closer to the thing they're replying to - the reply under the relevant comment, and the top-level post right underneath the main content/title.
As far as desire the supression of back-and-forths, collapsing of nested threads should suffice, no? People can have their conversations without necessarily bothering everyone else.
mike_hales Fri 14 Sep 2018 8:45AM
Way back in this thread I suggested that a proper-sized, orange button, at the bottom of the comment, would help avoid people mistakenly responding to the thread rather than the comment. Instead of the current easy-to-overlook inexplicit back-arrow. Still feel this is a simple useful step to take.
Danyl Strype Mon 17 Sep 2018 12:26PM
Putting the comment box at the bottom was a conscious design choice, intended to encourage users to read the existing discussion before diving in, and potentially pulling the discussion backwards rather than taking it forwards. I still think that's useful.
BTW @lukeflegg you can still discuss multiple related issues in a chronological thread, but it discourages comments that go off on tangents to the point where they become new issues. In my experience Loomio works best for making decisions when threads are treated as short-term, disposable work spaces, not long-term, open-ended conversations (like a web forum thread).
Connor Tue 25 Sep 2018 8:10PM
@mikeh8 Yup, you did. I was agreeing with you. That's a good first step; I was just saying that making the right option more prominent is best complimented with making the wrong/overused option less prominent.
@strypey That's an interesting idea! It makes sense in theory, but do you have any data to suggest it works in practice? I have a feeling it turns out to have negligible effect (i.e., users read if they're gonna read, ignore if they're gonna ignore).
Even if so, perhaps you can at least require tapping a "Reply to Thread" button (to go with the Reply to Post button) to reveal the textbox and start typing - so that one method is not given more prominence than the other. Number of the taps is the same (1), but the visual is more informative.
Danyl Strype Wed 26 Sep 2018 4:11PM
do you have any data to suggest it works in practice
Well ... the plural of anecdote is not data :) But before threaded comments were introduced, I generally found each comment would proceed from the one immediately before it, maybe with some referring back to earlier comments. So there was one discussion per page. Now I notice people (myself included) tend to respond to the first comment they have something to say about, without reading the rest of the thread.
That said, I agree that making it clear in the UI whether a user is replying to the comment or the thread could reduce confusion. But how does that fit with the idea that the context box would be edited over time to be a summary of the thread so far? I guess it does. Not that this seems to happen very often, sadly ...
mike_hales · Tue 19 Jun 2018 8:19AM
Hi @lukeflegg I do find it hard to come into a balance over this question. I know what you mean about nesting. When Loomio didn't offer nested subthreads I felt it was essential. Now it does, I note that very often folks new comments rather than and create a sub-thread. So lack of discipline or literacy or just hasty commenting (or unclear UI) are everyday facts of life.
I even found myself ing this comment! :laughing: But was able to turn it into a instead, when I noticed :)
When a thread gets more than a few comments, Loomio collapses the display, extra clicks are needed to see hidden content . . and we may not know which is the relevant hidden section to expand. So sometimes, switching to Recent/Chronological seems the only way to quickly discover who's saying what. It can be hard to rediscover the original context within the thread, which a current comment is responding to - it may be months old. So improved really is called for - at comment level. Alongside an automatically embedded link to the replied-to comment.
I do value the tools for making explicit the cross-weaving that occurs . . @mentions, block quotes, explicit forking, cross-links to individual comments. Just a shame there are no hashtags. But in any group, only some of those participating will be working at this level of self-conscious thread-weaving. It takes time and attention.
Given all this, my four suggestions above are focused on providing a fuller set of tools for managing the weaving of topics when writing, assuming the flexibility to use Nested/Chronological and Recent/Unread as required when reading.