I'm sure many hubski users are familiar with reddit's method of expanding or collapsing comment threads. Considering that hubski has the same basic setup for threads, I was surprised to find that there doesn't appear to be any way to collapse them! then I thought there might be a reason, and not just oversight or technical inability or something.
So, is there a reason? I've been thinking about it, and it seems like not having collapsible comment threads has its barbs and its petals, so to speak. On the plus side, it will introduce a sort of physicality to the threads which can't be got around- popular things to talk about/debate will necessarily take up more of the page and (presumably) garner more of the attention. On the minus side (?), it means that if something is particularly popular, other responses are less likely to be viewed. I haven't been here long, but it seems like the thread isn't sorted by popularity. Maybe there are filters I'm not seeing? Anyways, if your comment already has 500 responses by the time I come along with a different perspective, my perspective will now take up 1/500th of the screen space that yours does (or the children of yours). Not sure if there's a way to get around this/if one would even want to get around it. Just spitballing.
Anyways, what do you think? Or is there a way to expand/contract that I didn't know?
I think the ability to collapse comments is necessary once topics get over a certain size. It's not much of a problem on hubski now, since there are few topics with more than a hundred comments, but in a thousand comment thread, there is no way I am making it to comment 1000 without being able to collapse threads.
All of these users over from reddit in the last couple days have jumped to propose changes to hubski that make it seem more like reddit. You guys have been here less than 48 hours -- give the site a bit more of a run-through before you suggest these things. Adding collapsible commenting may, in my opinion, lessen the average length/quality of posts. Right now the comments section of hubski is very different from reddit's -- smaller, with many more thought-out and long posts. There aren't too many one-sentence replies, and there aren't any frivolous conversation threads. These are bad things for the overall quality of the site. If mk adds collapsibility, it may be seen as a green light for people to write less thoughtful/shorter posts -- because hey, everyone else can collapse it, right? Just a thought -- let's not jump to suggest this because it seems to make things slightly easier. hubski's comments are much more worth reading than reddit's, and collapsibility may also make it easier to hide things that are probably worth seeing, and skip to easier received posts.
I agree with you. It's pretty obvious I came here from Reddit, probably the same TheoryofReddit post that got a lot of other people over here, and I definitely don't want this to be "just like reddit but smaller." I'd rather it be something which can scale while promoting interesting discussions. That can scale the act of having interesting discussions. From a dialectic standpoint, being able to collapse comments is essentially being able to ignore them- something which I think should be avoided. Easily silencing opinions is a bad idea, and definitely stifles longer posts while promoting zingers and one-liners. Clearly that's a bad thing- if you don't want to read interesting posts, I don't particularly want you in a community I'm in. So on that we agree. But we also need to be careful of the opposite happening- if a post has a lot of replies, it's possible that it will become the only thing people see. And that's as bad as ignoring everyone but those who responded quickly to whatever the top comment was. I think a nice middle ground would be to have reply chains with more than 4 children have their own little scrollwindow. You could scroll down to read more of that comment's replies, while being able to move past it after noting its prominence. Setting a number (4) instead of some sort of variable amount (% of total replies, maybe) isn't a great idea, but it's a start.
Okay, so a compromise. And your argument from the other side is fair, I agree that long strings can hide good content as well as encourage it. Your solution strikes me as a bit cumbersome, though I may be mis-visualizing it, but I'm sure that if mk decides it's necessary he can implement something that fits in.
While I agree that we should be wary about what comes over to Hubski from Reddit (let's be honest here, that's partly what's going on right now), mk has said before that he's taking into consideration that there are a TON of redditors here now. I'm one of those people, but he really seems to know his stuff, so I think he'll be able to implement what we need, even if it's not what we want.
Yes, but do you see my point -- with collapsibility, skipping past them (that is, ignoring the best content in favor of the worst) will be that much easier. Once we start upvoting/liking/sharing comments that are shorter more often on the basis of the length, this site's days are numbered. It's not a sacrifice we should be willing to make to reduce our scrolling.
I don't think that we're to the point of needing the functionality that collapsing comments provides yet (if we ever do, debatable as there are great points on both sides), but they way I use them is in this way: A poster makes a comment in a busy thread that I am very interested in seeing the first level replies to, and not the replies to those replies as much. So if Flagamuffin says something intriguing or controversial or whatever, I often want to see all of the replies to your comment. In busy threads, non-collapsing comments make it terribly difficult and hides a lot of that content effectively. On mobile, non collapsing comments make navigating comments almost obscenely difficult as well imho.Yes, but do you see my point -- with collapsibility, skipping past them (that is, ignoring the best content in favor of the worst) will be that much easier.
I'm personally a fan of collapsable threads. If you go back to Hubski's inception, it was cloned from HN, which doesn't collapse. Probably would never be able to tell as mk has transformed the site so completely, but certain absent features are probably legacy omissions. At this stage, I think that collapsing comments while nice, aren't a top priority. Hubski traffic has been increasing steadily, and as it continues to, there will come a time at which average comment volume reaches a critical mass and the site will probably need a feature like that. But HN has much more traffic than Hubski at the moment, and they get by without it...although I find myself wishing they had that feature quite often. I guess I'd say that Hubski should implement it well before it reaches HN's volume.
I am still thinking on this. flagamuffin makes some good counterpoints. As ecib mentioned, Hubski began with the HN source, and it has managed to deal with quite a large volume while maintaining quality discussion. There also may be variations that keep positives from both sides, but reduce the negatives.
Would it be possible to make each parent comment as well as a set number or size of replies have their own individual scroll box? It would show the complete parent comment as well as a set number of replies afterwards (depending on length) and if you want to read more you can scroll down within that individual scroll box. If what you are seeing interests you enough to keep you hooked in that reply chain you can press some sort of button or command to expand the entire box.
I think you should have the option to collapse comments if you wish, but Im sure that most people wouldn't. But, the minority also matters. And also its a new site function. Pop it in controls budski.