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0 pointsJasonFruit3y ago0 comments

The problem with letting users choose the view is that the chosen view affects how they write. If I can see it's obvious in my tree view who I'm responding to, I won't point it out, and then someone who uses the firehose view won't be able to follow the conversation.

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3 comments · 1 top-level

taink3y ago· 2 in thread

I feel the main problem wouldn't be this (if you handle quotes to show in a tree view then surely you can handle replies in a tree view to show quotes in a firehose).

However, the main issue is that when you can quote multiple comments (when you are in a firehose view) you tend to send a single post for multiple replies; I have no idea how that could be shown in the tree view.

Essentially a firehose is a superset of a tree structure, if your unit is a post.

iggldiggl3y ago

> then surely you can handle replies in a tree view to show quotes in a firehose

One problem is that when people are manually quoting a post, they can edit that quote down to only include the relevant portion of the post they're replying to, and depending on the forum culture unnecessary full-quoting is actively being discouraged.

Automatically added quotes on the other hand don't have such a luxury, so you'd get a big bunch of full quotes, which wouldn't really be ideal, either.

MetaWhirledPeas3y ago

There's really two concepts: parent, which is how hierarchy is achieved, and quotes, which are stylized text linking back to an ancestor.

The potential for problems would arise when everyone Replied using a root-level post to the firehose. This could be mitigated with prominent Reply links on every post in the firehose, with the root-level contribution form deemphasized. So you can quote multiple people but you still chose a parent by choosing which Reply link to click.

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