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0 pointsxerophtye12y ago0 comments

Personally, i Hate reddit's UI. I am not sure why, but i just do. Comparatively, 4chan is a breeze. Sure, it doesn't have the tree structure, but it doesn't look DAUNTING. It's relatively simple. And it does allow you to follow a chain of posts (forward and backward mentions). In fact, if you think about it, 4chan actually supports GRAPH structure for comments instead of the traditional tree, as the same comment maybe replying to multiple posts.

I may be contradicting myself here, but somehow i do like HN's UI too. It has a tree, but pretty neat. Though the levels can be a little ambiguous at times.

So what solutions are you guys thinking of? Or is this just one of those "Hey! let's make a discussion platform! I wonder what's wrong with the current ones... let's ask!"

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3 comments · 1 top-level

rrpadhy12y ago· 2 in thread

Have not really liked 4chan, but I will give it a re-look now.

We are having a few things in mind. One of them being applying categories or tags to comments, along with the nested comments.

We believe, each discussion essentially has multiple parallel threads running, and each thread should have its own structure.

The other thought is about users able to post as anonymous, but with certain restrictions.

xerophtyeOP12y ago

For the anonymity thing, look at my other comment[1]

Tags/categories may seem like a fair idea, but what i don't like in UI's is information overload. So keeping info on a discussion would be pretty cool, but make sure i don't see it if i don't WANT to see it. it should be available, but not "in-my-face".

Also, what do you think people will react to having to type tags or subjects for their posts?

You know what would be super amazing? A discussion visualization/organizing tool. That could perform an analysis on the comments and perhaps group them together by relevance/chaining/sentiment. Would be cool if i open a 200+ comment page on HN or anywhere an immediately see a visual representation of what's going on. What aspects are being discussed and in what sentiment. Like someone posts a Product Landing page. I open the comments and see a lot of discussion about "UI" or "security" or "usability" or "heath risk" or "privacy" , each marked with +ve or -ve sentiments. Now THAT is something worth working on.

EDIT: the tool could do something as simple as marking keywords and giving posts a red or green BG with varying shades based on the sentiment...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6933982

rrpadhy12y ago

Point taken.

We are already having thoughts on the automation of tagging, grouping or categorization of comments. However, before we start working on it, we are validating on how important or necessary this feature would be.

What if, we spend a few days making an awesome automation to do what you mentioned, but no one really gives a st about it. :)

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