Well, that went well...



  • Color me unsurprised - all the newbies hate it, too.

    http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/bonecrusher-loves-his-cat-food/436



  • What are you talking about?





  • Yup (added the URL to my original post)


  • 🚽 Regular

    Well, on the plus side, at least there are zero banal comments saying "FIRST" or discussing what they got for their captcha test. Maybe that was Alex's plan this entire time.



  • @The_Quiet_One said:

    Well, on the plus side, at least there are zero banal comments saying "FIRST" or discussing what they got for their captcha test. Maybe that was Alex's plan this entire time.

    you mean to write "FRIST" and not "FIRST". 😊 💻



  • @Nagesh said:

    you mean to write "FRIST" and not "FIRST".

    Nagesh yoga flame strikes again.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @skotl said:

    all the newbies hate it

    I don't think they aaalll hated it...



  • I want to see infinite scrolling in action for the comments on a Hanzo article.



  • @apapadimoulis said:

    skotl said:
    all the newbies hate it

    I don't think they aaalll hated it...

    Hah! True. Literally, they did not all hate it. I take that back.
    But the omens aren't good, huh, Alex?

    I don't know what to say next; I know your intentions are good. But sometimes the bravest thing to do is to swallow it up and revert. This is one of those occasions. This is a monumental disaster.



  • @skotl said:

    This is a monumental disaster.

    Nah.



  • @dhromed said:

    skotl said:
    This is a monumental disaster.

    Nah.

    Interesting hypothesis. And your grounds for this position would be...;?



  • @skotl said:

    I don't know what to say next; I know your intentions are good. But sometimes the bravest thing to do is to swallow it up and revert. This is one of those occasions. This is a monumental disaster.

    So, let me preface this by saying that I'm neither advocating the return to CS nor am I advocating staying on Discourse.

    That said, I don't think this was a monumental disaster. It's different, I'll agree; many of the flaws I've seen are correctable. I'm not particularly happy about being part of the group that has to find and correct the the flaws, but I think that this could eventually be a usable system.

    Also, don't take this as me buying into infinite scrolling as the one true way; there absolutely needs to be a paging option (maybe it's not the default option, but it needs to be an option).

    I guess I'm saying, be thankful we aren't using SDSS?



  • @skotl said:

    Interesting hypothesis. And your grounds for this position would be...;?

    Our current discussion, for one.

    I'm still waiting for this fabled ember update that @sam hopes is going to Fix Everything and make the rainbows a reality. Until then, the fog-of-war post loading is glitchy, jumpy and has performance issues. But the forum as a whole is not "a disaster".



  • OK, in that case, let me apologise for my response to you on the other thread.

    I think it is a disaster, in that the cumulative effect of all of the design failings and outright bugs render the site (in my opinion) damn-near unusable.
    But we need to have opposing views so that we can centre on what is important / a priority (we are software developers after all).
    So I think I can see that you see room for improvement, which is definitely the glass-half-full version. I do tend toward the alternate view, not because I'm a natural pessimist, but because this is not day #6 of Discourse - this is the 0.9 version.

    Cheers


  • Considered Harmful

    @dhromed said:

    fog-of-war post loading

    I will be using this terminology henceforth.


  • Considered Harmful

    @rad131304 said:

    there absolutely needs to be a paging option (maybe it's not the default option, but it needs to be an option).

    At risk of sounding a broken record (kids: those things before cassettes CDs MP3s... get off my lawn!), my biggest problem is that the worst issues are entirely fixable, if @codinghorror practiced what he preached about complaint-driven development.
    Swallow your pride and admit that, while your way might work for many, it doesn't work for everyone.


  • Banned

    @skotl said:

    all of the design failings and outright bugs render the site (in my opinion) damn-near unusable.

    And yet, how many posts and topics were created in the last week here, versus the last week (or even month) of Community Server being active?

    @error said:

    if @codinghorror practiced what he preached about complaint-driven development.

    But it's not limited to a data point of one community -- I'm looking at ~12 regularly. Also, having come from 'strongly x' and going to 'strongly y', there's usually a knee jerk reaction in that area. We definitely saw it on bbs.boingboing.net where x was threaded and y is flat. We don't hear about that at all here, because you guys were already used to a flat system.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dhromed said:

    I'm still waiting for this fabled ember update that @sam hopes is going to Fix Everything and make the rainbows a reality.

    Me too. I suspect a lot of the problems right now stem from the way the pages “feel heavy”. What I mean by that: as you scroll, it takes time for the page to respond, and that time is above the threshold for it to be perceptible. It doesn't take much; people are sensitive to this sort of thing.

    There might need to be some sort of similar trick done with the topic list (also an infinite scroller, but with much more predictable item heights).

    My take? Discourse is currently better than CS in many important ways (e.g., I don't have to write HTML to reply any more!) but has some really annoying bugs in areas that CS got right (by virtue of it really only using static web pages, which browsers are really good at supporting by default).


  • Banned

    In this animation, the curtain represents traditional browser pagination, and the cat represents how we improve it with Discourse.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @codinghorror said:

    because you guys were already used to a flat system.

    Er, not quite. CS had a threaded option. You know, for people who wanted it....


  • Banned


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Fairly typical reaction from you then Jeff. You personally don't like it so it has no chance of being implemented no matter how many people want it.


  • Banned

    C'mon, even GMail doesn't do that kind of crazy old-school Outlook 97 hierarchical threading. It's flat as a pancake.

    We have discussed giving people ways to filter to a particular conversation, which would be very similar.



  • @codinghorror said:

    And yet, how many posts and topics were created in the last week here, versus the last week (or even month) of Community Server being active?

    New Toy effect, plus our endless capacity for complaints, and also Why Wasn't I Consulted?.

    Observe how slightly more new threads about ordinary WTF things have been created in CS than DC since DC was opened.



  • @codinghorror said:

    C'mon, even GMail doesn't do that kind of crazy old-school Outlook 97 hierarchical threading. It's flat as a pancake.

    So... just because something has been done in the nineties and because Gmail doesn't do it, it has no merit? I find it harder and harder to take UX/UI people seriously - it seems that more and more people make their decision on what seems "hip", rather than what seems usable.

    Next up in discourse: replacing all button labels with indecipherable icons. (At least Gmail/Google sort-of backpedalled on that.)



  • @codinghorror said:

    But it's not limited to a data point of one community -- I'm looking at ~12 regularly. Also, having come from 'strongly x' and going to 'strongly y', there's usually a knee jerk reaction in that area. We definitely saw it on bbs.boingboing.net where x was threaded and y is flat. We don't hear about that at all here, because you guys were already used to a flat system.

    This is a good point.



  • @dkf said:

    Me too. I suspect a lot of the problems right now stem from the way the pages “feel heavy”. What I mean by that: as you scroll, it takes time for the page to respond, and that time is above the threshold for it to be perceptible. It doesn't take much; people are sensitive to this sort of thing.

    It's like a game dipping below 20-30fps. You're like whoa.



  • @codinghorror said:

    In this animation, the curtain represents traditional browser pagination, and the cat represents how we improve it with Discourse.

    Communication tip: try to not intersperse your Good Points with Snarky Dismissive Metaphor Gifs That Not Even Your Supporters Agree With Anyway breathe in



  • @codinghorror said:

    C'mon, even GMail doesn't do that kind of crazy old-school Outlook 97 hierarchical threading. It's flat as a pancake.

    Soem crazy people like threaded. I don't, but eh. Too much disconnected context switching to my brain.



  • @codinghorror said:

    @skotl said:
    all of the design failings and outright bugs render the site (in my opinion) damn-near unusable.

    And yet, how many posts and topics were created in the last week here, versus the last week (or even month) of Community Server being active?

    You'd make a good politician, with that mastery of spin 😄

    "How many posts and topics were created...?" Lots! And what is the primary topic of the majority of them - how much people dislike this site!

    We've all stopped talking about other people's WTFs and are now almost solely concentrating on the experience here.



  • @skotl said:

    We've all stopped talking about other people's WTFs and are now almost solely concentrating on the experience here.

    +1


  • BINNED

    I'm fine with threaded most of the time, unless the discussion gets stupidly branched. But I don't see how flat helps with that. Sure, it might look nicer, but the confusion stays.

    And don't even say flat view will discourage people from branching off too much. Hammer, all problems look like nails, yadda yadda...



  • I once had this crazy idea for a hybrid approach, where there would be no visual indent or data branch if the reply was to the last of a branch, but only if it it was in the middle.

    You'd prevent "diagonal thread syndrome", a common disease of threaded displays.

    But I haven't thought it through that much.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Threading actually handles crazy branching better than flat.


  • Banned

    It does, but it doesn't solve the "crazy" part...

    Unfortunately, it also becomes just as impossible to follow as the conversation branches, with a dozen-headed hydra of replies arriving all over the place at any time.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @codinghorror said:

    it also becomes just as impossible to follow as the conversation branches, with a dozen-headed hydra of replies arriving all over the place at any time.

    Cannot reproduce. I have no problems following branches.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @codinghorror said:

    Unfortunately, it also becomes just as impossible to follow as the conversation branches

    Some things are just plain impossible. Alas. Tracking a thousand-post-per-hour flamewar is one of them (especially when you've got asynchronous propagation of insertion events; I remember how USENET used to be, and “confusing” was a useful word indeed). But at least you can see what happened later more easily, once the dust and flying feathers have settled.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @codinghorror said:

    And yet, how many posts and topics were created in the last week here, versus the last week (or even month) of Community Server being active?

    You're working in the wrong field. You should be a spin doctor who says things like, "Sure, what [company] said about black people was wrong, but look at all the attention it gave them!"

    Wait until you see people actually talk about TDWTF instead of the monstrosity of this software, and then you can gloat.

    @codinghorror said:

    In this animation, the curtain represents traditional browser pagination, and the cat represents how we improve it with Discourse.

    You're only saying that's a good thing because your wife wasn't changing behind the curtain in that animation, exposing herself to all your friends.

    I think we've all made our point about why we think infinite scrolling is bad (or at least forced infinite scrolling is). It's up to you if you want to continue being in denial and making short-sighted and insulting retorts saying that anyone who wants traditional pagination are wrong and we should all confess our sins and convert to infinite scrolling worshipers. If you think alienating yourself from people who give criticism is the best response to this, though, you've lost all respect as someone who preaches good UI.


  • BINNED

    Embarrassingly, it has only now occurred to me that we have some empirical data available so we can see what all this activity is about!

    Make of those numbers what you will. I'm just gonna point you in the direction of bigger numbers.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Onyx said:

    Make of those numbers what you will. I'm just gonna point you in the direction of bigger numbers.

    I can't make anything of those numbers. What unit is a "day". As in New topics: 16 day. I mean, I would understand if it was 16 per day. Or 16/day. But 16 day? Is that a newfangled "Web 3.0" unit of measure or something?



  • @codinghorror said:

    C'mon, even GMail doesn't do that kind of crazy old-school Outlook 97 hierarchical threading. It's flat as a pancake.

    You're saying that like it's a good thing. I like hierarhical threading in my e-mail client (and guess what - there's never any question about which messages are new).



  • Since "Google did it" seems to be the default @codinghorror answer for "Why crap instead of good?" maybe @apapadimoulis should replace the forum system with Google+



  • @hungrier said:

    maybe @apapadimoulis should replace the forum system with Google+

    We'd probably get sponsorship from Google, as that would double the number of Google+ users at a stroke.



  • Read it as "16 per day" / "16 per month" or "16 this past day" / "16 this past month".

    It's a 'victim' of ONW.



  • @riking said:

    It's a 'victim' of ONW.

    You mean actual victim. It's not a needless word, you goddamn programmer.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @skotl said:

    We'd probably get sponsorship from Google

    Hmm, so what you're saying is, Google+ is the step between 1. TDWTF and 3. Profit? Well then...



  • @apapadimoulis said:

    Hmm, so what you're saying is, Google+ is the step between 1. TDWTF and 3. Profit? Well then...

    Shit, there's a dilemna; Discourse or Google+.

    That's like picking between herpes and anal probing...



  • There are three doors. Behind one is herpes, behind another is an anal probe, and behind the last is Discourse...


    Filed under: Oops I actually just made this joke like yesterday, Suck it Trebek



  • This post is deleted!

Log in to reply