Discourse and our reaction to it
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@too_many_userna said:
Correct solution: allow the user to choose
Bug: Cannot "like" this post +Inf times.
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The problem I have with pagination is that it's a barrier to reading, and reading is fundamental.
I'm seriously curious - what do you mean by that?
I'm assuming it is coming from some sort of hypothesis that changing pages destroys reading, but have there been any kind of studies done that show this, as opposed to perhaps the hypothesis that the human brain may actually process information better in pages? After all, we use paragraphs, because if we didn't then reading would be almost impossible.
Also, isn't this a forum, where discussion is fundamental?
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If you want a "move to arbitrary post number" keyboard shortcut
That's only good if I know the post number. Incidentally, it's displayed in Invision Powerboard, which hydrogenaudio uses.
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The problem I have with pagination is that it's a barrier to reading
Why the FUCK do you keep repeating this? People have been reading books with pages for 2000 years. Books with pages replaced scrolls because they were easier to use. Infinite scrolling is returning to 3000 year-old technology that was discarded 2000 years ago because pagination was superior.
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Why the FUCK do you keep repeating this?
Maybe same reason we keep repeating endless scrolling is bad/evil/killed my mother/etc.
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And all computer desktops should look like real world desktops because.. real world?
http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/frist-and-welcome/238/150
As @mikeTheLiar said, "look at this monstrosity". Hey, it looks like a real physical desktop, just like the one we have in front of us. That's good.. right?
Books are printed on pages because that's amenable to the mechanical processes of creating atoms with words on them.
The point is to create something better in the world of bits than we have in the world of atoms.
Do you enjoy reading heavily paginated articles on the web? Because all I read about web article pagination is mostly complaints:
Pagination is one of the worst design and usability sins on the Web, the kind of obvious no-no that should have gone out with blinky text, dancing cat animations, and autoplaying music. It shows constant, quiet contempt for people who should be any news site’s highest priority—folks who want to read articles all the way to the end.
Pagination persists because splitting a single-page article into two pages can, in theory, yield twice as many opportunities to display ads—though in practice it doesn’t because lots of readers never bother to click past the first page. The practice has become so ubiquitous that it’s numbed many publications and readers into thinking that multipage design is how the Web has always been, and how it should be.
People barely scroll, so you think that forcing them to find and click a tiny "next page" button is the right solution to get more people to actually listen to the whole conversation? How is adding more arbitrary barriers to reading a good idea?
Or should conversations just be all talking and no listening? Does that make sense?
Ars Technica posted an article about gun control with this sentence in it:
If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in your comment below. We're pretty sure 90% of the respondants to this story won't even read it first.
Guess how many commenters included the word bananas in their comment? Guess which comment was the first to include the word?
Reading conversations should be easy, as easy as possible, just scroll to the bottom and we'll load more. Like Jay Leno and Doritos: eat all you want, we'll make more.
The design guideline is this: remove barriers from things you want people to do. We want people to read and listen as much as possible before talking. Therefore, we remove the next page button as it is a barrier to reading.
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Pages are arbitrary, why does everything need to be split into 50 item chunks, why not 25 or 102?
Okay, serious question time. Are you just here to troll users? Or are you intentionally being an arrogant, unhelpful, insulting asshole?
Because look, I love this forum. It's literally my most visited site. I've put thousands of posts-- hundreds of thousands of words into it. I enjoy the company of each and every one of the users here, even the ones I disagree with. I've learned a lot by reading these forums. I've had a lot of laughs. I've made people laugh. It isn't just "another site on the Internet". My contributions are not trivial. My presence is not trivial. My user experience here is not trivial.
And I can name at least twenty others off the top of my head who are the same. And all the others I can't name, they are the same, too.So you have come into OUR place. Our bar, our club, our hangout, whatever you want to equate it to. Every one of your posts has basically been telling us, the people who use the forum, "I know better than you, so shut up and take it". We raise our concerns-- legitimate, quantifiable concerns-- and you just dismiss them, and you dismiss us.
Each of your messages is rude, and arrogant, and quite frankly, it's fucking disrespectful.
So again, tell me-- are you just trolling? Because if so, fine. Trolling is part of the forum. But I'd like to know, so I can ignore you. We're trying to have a grown up conversation about a spot on the Internet that's actually quite important to us. This isn't the time and place for trolling.
And if you truly are somehow someone related to the development of Discourse-- then shame on you. Seriously. This is how you treat your users? Getting tdwtf to use Discourse SHOULD be a huge fucking win for you. Getting it accepted by the userbase is literally the only way that will happen. And right now you could snap your fingers right now and magically fix every bug and UX concern we have-- and the only impression we'll have is that Discourse is run by a bunch of arrogant sociopaths who have no respect for their users.
Again, it's fucking disrespectful and you should be ashamed that this is the public face your putting on your product. It is NOT how you treat your users. And I don't care what relationship you think users and developers have-- there is no situation where it is proper behavior. I would not accept rude, dismissive and disrespectful behavior from a co-worker. I would not keep an employee who was like that. I would not work for an employer who treated me like that. I would not buy from a vendor who did customer service like that. I would fire a customer who treated me or my staff like that.
So cards on the table. Take our feedback. If you can implement it, do it. If you can't, explain why you can't. Do not dismiss it. Be prepared that if we, the users, find your product unacceptable, we will not use it-- even if it leaves beta. It's called community death.
And if, for some reason, despite the way you talk, you aren't associated with Discourse development-- then hey, Discourse people-- tell this guy to shut the fuck up. He's giving you a bad name, and severely damaging your ability to get the product accepted by the main stakeholders.
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@Lorne_Kates said:
Okay, serious question time. Are you just here to troll users? Or are you intentionally being an arrogant, unhelpful, insulting asshole?
You are, though. You're being very dramatic.
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You are, though.
Except for "unhelpful". I've filed bugs. I've pointed out actual UX reasons why this isn't working, and how to fix it. I've tried being nice and helpful, and gotten insulted back in return. I don't like that.
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Yeah, but if you're looking at a thread that long, who's going to read all those posts anyway? Paging and infini-scroll won't affect that.
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The design guideline is this: remove barriers from things you want people to do. We want people to read and listen as much as possible before talking. Therefore, we remove the next page button as it is a barrier to reading.
Ok - at least now I understand the design philosophy at which you're aiming. In all honesty though I think it fundamentally doesn't work for places like TDWTF. Or places like textbooks where you want position identifiers to go find reference information - anything which needs interaction.
Note in my earlier post where I said that infinite scrolling kind of makes sense for read only information - and you specifically mentioned Slate and Ars Technica: new sites - traditionally read-only media.
At TDWTF forums, we aren't here to listen as much as possible before talking - we are here to poke fun, reply to things that piqued our interest or curiosity, in a very nonlinear manner, and as fast as possible - things for which "infinite scroll" is not well-suited, because infinite scroll is extremely linear.
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@Lorne_Kates said:
So you have come into OUR place. Our bar, our club, our hangout, whatever you want to equate it to. Every one of your posts has basically been telling us, the people who use the forum, "I know better than you, so shut up and take it". We raise our concerns-- legitimate, quantifiable concerns-- and you just dismiss them, and you dismiss us.
I'm sorry if you feel we are dismissing concerns. We're watching closely, which is why we are here.We've fixed several problems already based on feedback here:
- XSS exploit on quote expand (thank you for this)
- bars between posts too dim (our bug, not a color choice issue)
- home key not working to move to top
And most of my posts are of the "here are ways to do what you want to do" variety. Feel free to browse my post history, which dare I say is quite easy in Discourse, and that's a great thing, since it's the #1 way to understand the tenor and tone of a participant in a discussion.
I think some other changes are perfectly reasonable, as @sam proposed:
- keyboard shortcut to navigate to arbitrary post number
- filter down a topic to just my bookmarks and likes
As to philosophical "we wanted a truck and you are giving us a car" concerns, those I can't resolve, just explain the rationale for. If you disagree with that rationale, that's fine, it's like two different religions that have to coexist somehow.
Any big community changes are hard and take time. But we're here and we're listening.
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I think the problem there is lazy ADHD users losing interest partway through an article. That's partially a content problem and partially an audience problem, and has absolutely nothing to do with pagination versus infinite scrolling.
I almost never notice I'm changing pages on an article or forum. I also never consciously press the "turn page" buttons on my Kindle, or even consciously realize I'm flipping pages on a real book. Because if I'm engrossed in the content, the presentation takes a back seat. Same here, if I'm actively reading a thread and it has me interested or entertained, do I notice infinite scrolling? Absolutely not.
And there are definitely threads/topics here on the new TDWTF where I read a few posts and give up, because I don't get it, it isn't interesting, and isn't entertaining. Example, the thing about making an umlauted 'a' or whatever. Neither infinite scrolling nor pagination would have kept me there.
I personally don't have a huge problem with infinite scrolling. I prefer pagination just because it's the norm, but truth be told I'll get used to it. Mostly I'm amused that you think pagination is such an evil thing. I just don't see it. The whole argument seems like a non-sequitur to me.
I do miss the ability to middle-click on "reply" buttons and get a queue of tabs with quoting ready without losing my place in the thread if I haven't read it all yet.
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Futhermore: I will instantly any ignore any argument that depends on the behavior of "users". I'm not even going to argue sample size, or poisoned data, or fault studies. I'm going to point out the plain and simple fact that THIS forum for THIS community is not made up up fucking users.
I will now repeat that: THIS forum for THIS community is not made up of fucking users.
One more time, because this is an extremely important point: THIS forum for THIS community is not made up of fucking users.
Perhaps, just perhaps, there is a time and a place for an infinitely scrolling comment section. Like, perhaps, a comment section, where everyone is lolling over the latest Grumpy Cat video and is too busy throwing in their lols to bother reading everyone else's lol. Sure, who cares about pages then? There's no conversation happening. The Grumpy Cat fans have their Grumpy Cat. Sure, those users might not notice or care what UX shit you put in front of them, as long as they have their Grumpy Cat and lols.
But, in danger of repeating myself, THIS forum for THIS community is not made up of fucking users.
We have conversations. Long ones that require reading in small, consistent chunks for easy navigation. One might say by pagination.
And we've told you that. Over and over and fucking over again.
You might say that only a small percentage of people like paged forums. That might even be true if you take your stats from the entire Internet community of all skill levels and all walks of life. But that minority you don't care about? THAT IS US. That is all us. This community is made up of technical developers who have a preferred UX method. Here the majority reads forums, can figure things out without it looking like a phone, and was getting along just fine.
THIS forum for THIS community does not need or want infinite scrolling, and NO amount of arguments-- ranging from asspulls to the most scientific study in the universe-- will ever change that fact. Realize that, realize that one little fact-- that THIS forum for THIS community-- is different. Recognize the needs and wants of your stakeholders, and things go so SO much smoother.
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People barely scroll
[slate histogram]Why are you quoting an irrelevant article? It's about scrolling long articles. Not a word about paging. Clearly Schwarz's data tells us that long scrolls are bad. Whoa.
As far as I can intepret that graph, endless scrolling removes a "barrier" that many people don't reach in the first place. Second, "Chartbeat’s data shows that most readers scroll to about the 50 percent mark, or the 1,000th pixel, in Slate stories. That’s not very far at all." because maybe Slate articles are not very interesting!
So I think that histogram is going to stay exactly the same with or without pages, BUT that experiment still needs to be done.
Maybe endless scrolls are now shown to be objectively bad?
Ok, not really. NewScientist sometimes pulls this shit where it spreads a long article over two pages. Just two. And the second page is about the last 10% of the article. Fortunately there's a "Read full article" link, which I click, because when I'm interested, scrolling a long article isn't that bad. But paging can help breaking a really long text into manageable, bookmarkable chunks.
The pages can be really big, like 200 posts on a page. That's okay, I think. Depends on content.
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if you're looking at a thread that long, who's going to read all those posts anyway?
This is why "summarize this topic" automatically appears at the top of all long topics. It gives you the TL;DR version of the topic.
Because you're right, if 50 people are posting constantly, they easily generate more content than any human being could reasonably read, and
@too_many_userna said:
we aren't here to listen as much as possible before talking - we are here to poke fun, reply to things that piqued our interest or curiosity, in a very nonlinear manner, and as fast as possible
In that case, entering at the end of the topic should work -- since your goal is not to read but to reply as fast as possible. There's a bunch of ways to enter at the end.
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@sam - I completely agree with @Lorne_Kates. And not only do you insult us, but you lock us out. On Vote of No Confidence earlier today I had about 12 posts already, and I was really trying to get you to understand why I don't looks continuous scrolling. All of sudden, I couldn't post to that topic anymore because new users are only allowed 3 posts on a topic. I'm betting that you changed three settings, not wanting to see my posts anymore. Plus, for a forum that's only 3 days old, that's a really dumb rule to implement.
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@Lorne_Kates said:
THIS forum for THIS community does not need or want infinite scrolling, and NO amount of arguments-- ranging from asspulls to the most scientific study in the universe-- will ever change that fact. Realize that, realize that one little fact-- that THIS forum for THIS community-- is different. Recognize the needs and wants of your stakeholders, and things go so SO much smoother.
If you open with "my religion exists so that yours may be destroyed", there's not a lot of room for coexistence. shrug
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In that case, entering at the end of the topic should work
Except that if we only go to the end, we miss out on things about which to poke fun... as I said: nonlinear.
Edit: Hah I got bit by the "couldn't select the initial 'i' in a quote" thing...
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And most of my posts are of the "here are ways to do what you want to do" variety. Feel free to browse my post history, which dare I say is quite easy in Discourse, and that's a great thing, since it's the #1 way to understand the tenor and tone of a participant in a discussion.
Can you explain in a single sentence why I should spend my evening (and perhaps even longer after that) reading through your post history to try to learn to use a tool that is doing a poorer job that the tool I already had-- and that still might not be able to fully do the job I want it to do... instead of spending my evening using the tool I already had to have fun?
think some other changes are perfectly reasonable, as @sam proposed:
And I think it's unbelievably ironic that you started that sentence with "I", since that makes it impossible to quote. So, Jeff, is @sam a Discourse developer? And if so, do you agree with the arrogant and dismissive tone he's taking with members of the community you're trying to get to adopt and accept your product?
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OK, then the keyboard shortcut to enter a topic at an arbitrary post number should let you teleport to the last 20% of the conversation as desired, should it not?
How is that materially different than deciding which page number to click on?
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Because you're right, if 50 people are posting constantly, they easily generate more content than any human being could reasonably read, and
I don't think Discourse can know what's relevant, but I could be wrong.
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There are two classes of feedback:
This car needs power windows.
This car needs a truck bed.
I am all for a better car. But I'm not so much a fan of the Subaru Brat..Well at least here's some honesty. I mean, we all knew he didn't give a shit what we think, but at least he's in here saying, "oh hey BTW, I don't give a shit what you think. Fuck off and die, thanks."
That's reassuring I guess.
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In fact, @sam is one of the co-founders of Discourse.
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@too_many_userna said:
because infinite scroll is extremely linear.
More linear than pages? Does this concept of "linear" even apply?
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The metrics used for post relevance in topic summaries:
- external incoming links to the post
- internal incoming links to the post
- read time for the post (we measure how long every post is open on everyone's screen)
- read flags for the post (was the post ever visible on-screen at all, and to how many people)
- likes
- bookmarks
- flags
- replies, mentions, quotes
The more of these a post has, weighted a bit by post length, the more likely it is to show up in the "reader's digest" version of the topic, e.g. the summary.
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As to philosophical "we wanted a truck and you are giving us a car"
Well, clearly Lorne is posting large textst without problems, so DC can't be much of an issue. ;)
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Well at least here's some honesty. I mean, we all knew he didn't give a shit what we think, but at least he's in here saying, "oh hey BTW, I don't give a shit what you think. Fuck off and die, thanks."
I do care what you think. But part of caring means that if you really want a truck, I need to gently guide you off the car lot and point you to the nearest truck dealership.
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More linear than pages? Does this concept of "linear" even apply?
I guess when I see something at the bottom of a forum page like [1 2 3 4 5] I see that as nonlinear: I can, in one very small mouse motion or click, jump between discontinuous sections of content and - most importantly - visualize a large number of those sections simultaneously. I see pages as an array, which is multidimensional.
From reading the responses in this forum, I don't think I'm unique in this view that there is something more "random access" about pages that is appealing than is available through the "infinite scroll" concept - even if you start adding in things like "go to post X".
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The problem I have with pagination is that it's a barrier to reading, and reading is fundamental. Who visits page #864 of #3,204? Who?
Here's a thought: maybe instead of telling us we don't need that, you just give it to us and let us decide if we want to use it or not.
I don't like dictators.
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The metrics used for post relevance in topic summaries:
Those are mostly metrics of popularity, not relevance.
(Edit: added "mostly", because generalizations and all that...)
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All of sudden, I couldn't post to that topic anymore because new users are only allowed 3 posts on a topic. I'm betting that you changed three settings, not wanting to see my posts anymore.
Ahem,
Dear new person I don't know,- that's a rate limit rule to prevent spammers.
- accusing Atwood of this is paranoid and you may want to stop posting for a moment and reflect on your life,
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@blakeyrat, It would take months of work to re-architect an arbitary paged view into Discourse. The continuous post stream is a central design pillar of the product, and has been, from day one. The code is wrapped around that core concept.
@too_many_userna said:
there is something more "random access" about pages that is appealing than is available through the "infinite scroll" concept - even if you start adding in things like "go to post X".
Is there anything less "random access" about a keyboard shortcut that lets you jump to an arbitrary post number at will? Because that's what's on the table.
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Also, replying to a new user resets their post limit for the topic. So welcome @abarker, looks like @dhromed just did you a favor ;)
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do care what you think. But part of caring means that if you really want a truck, I need to gently guide you off the car lot and point you to the nearest truck dealership.
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Stop making posts that start with "I". Your product can't quote those.
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We aren't buying a fucking car. You're coming into our clubhouse asking to remodel. There's no lot to walk us off of. And holy jehova fucking Vishnu-- do you honestly actually believe your solution is "members of an established community can't learn my bleeding edge tool, so we should bounce them"? FUCKING SERIOUSLY?
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If you actually bothered listening to ANY of the fucking feedback we're giving you (and I don't mean lol we fixed a serious security issue that shouldn't have been there in the first place), you'd fucking implement them. Yeah, we're fucking suggesting things that effectively make your product more like a paginated forum. And if you implemented them all, you know what you'd have? A product that's a lot like a paginated forum. And you know what would make it way fucking easier to get people to adopt your product? If there wasn't a huge learning curve and UX shock because IT IS LIKE A GODDAMN PAGINATED FORUM. Because hey, if I had a paginated forum that IN ADDITION did all the neat shit you claim Discourse can do, fucking great. That'd be a lot easier to use. But you're telling me I have to give up the UX I know by heart just so I can experience some whizzbang features. Well, guess what, I chose the UX I know and love and can use. 100% all of the time, always. You're telling me I can have a periscope, as long as I don't drive my car. Fuck.
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- accusing Atwood of this is paranoid and you may want to stop posting for a moment and reflect on your life,
Bug: Discourse is making other users sound crazier than me.
Expected behavior: dhromed should be calling me a paranoid lunatic, not this new guy.. D: D: D:
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@too_many_userna said:
I guess when I see something at the bottom of a forum page like [1 2 3 4 5] I see that as nonlinear: I can, in one very small mouse motion or click, jump between discontinuous sections of content
Ok, point taken.
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Reading conversations should be easy, as easy as possible, just scroll to the bottom and we'll load more. Like Jay Leno and Doritos: eat all you want, we'll make more.
Look: nobody's saying to remove the infinite scrolling. If people want to use that, fine. More power to them. If you could pull it off without introducing 347,231 other bugs, I might even give it a go myself.
But I don't see why I should be forced to adopt your opinion of how a forum should work merely because I want to discuss software WTFs with these people here. I don't agree with you about infinite scrolling. I'll probably never agree with you about it.
So the question is, do you want to be a software developer and create software tools that people use and love, or do you want to be the '1984' thought police and dictate how people should think, using software as your instrument of mind control? Because right now you're the latter. And fuck that noise.
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Pagination persists because splitting a single-page article into two pages can, in theory, yield twice as many opportunities to display ads
Uh oh, 4000+ post flamewar between Adblock users and ad-lovers incoming!
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Is there anything less "random access" about a keyboard shortcut that lets you jump to an arbitrary post number at will? Because that's what's on the table.
I agree that a "goto post" shortcut is very random access, but it requires knowing to what post you want to go. The page links which you dislike group pages, so you only have to be "close" (and you can remember position in the array, rather than the number - which you can't do if you have to remember a post number). Also - keyboard shortcuts aren't discoverable, but page links are.
So it's not just about the "random access" - it's also about some aspects of the implementation of how that is achieved. "Next page" links provide spatial navigation - which is very powerful.
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Then why didn't it kick in until after I'd already exceeded the limit?
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@Lorne_Kates said:
2) We aren't buying a fucking car. You're coming into our clubhouse asking to remodel. There's no lot to walk us off of. And holy jehova fucking Vishnu-- do you honestly actually believe your solution is "members of an established community can't learn my bleeding edge tool, so we should bounce them"? FUCKING SERIOUSLY?
You know, I don't like the infinite scrolling thing and ultimately I disagree with Jeff and Sam on this, but you're really not helping yourself here.
And getting upset at them for being disrespectful? This is TDWTF. It would be disrespectful if they were respectful, or something.
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I think some other changes are perfectly reasonable, as @sam proposed:
keyboard shortcut to navigate to arbitrary post number
filter down a topic to just my bookmarks and likesThis stuff is trivial bullshit. (Oh look, your quote button also doesn't pick up the bulleted list-- yet another thing Community Server does correctly that you guys fucked up.)
As to philosophical "we wanted a truck and you are giving us a car" concerns, those I can't resolve, just explain the rationale for. If you disagree with that rationale, that's fine, it's like two different religions that have to coexist somehow.
This is the actual problem.
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nobody's saying to remove the infinite scrolling
I guess technically that's true?I don't see why I should be forced to adopt your opinion of how a forum should work
Because software makers have a right (nay duty!) to inject their product with their vision evenifitsnotreallyavisionbutanimplementationdetail?Technically, it's Alex and Henchmen who decided on Discourse. To great and constant dismay of the users, but eh.
'1984' thought police and dictate how people should think, using software as your instrument of mind control?
That's quite a lot of hyperbole for a scrolling mechanism.It is our way.
I approve.
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Then why didn't it kick in until after I'd already exceeded the limit?
The setting works per-topic. I can't be arsed to count if that's true for you.
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And getting upset at them for being disrespectful? This is TDWTF. It would be disrespectful if they were respectful, or something.
Fuck off, shitmonkey.
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One thing I want to point out here: blakeyrat and I are agreeing on UX here. Okay? If that isn't a surefire sign that you've messed up your UX really, really bad, then there is no hope of convincing you.
@codinghorror, go read the initial thread where this was announced: http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/t/30922.aspx?PageIndex=1 You'll have to read more than the top and bottom 10%, because it's a grown up discussion where people make lots of points. I'll wait. It might take a while to figure out how pagination works to read the whole thing.
Okay, you're back? Great. Notice how the #1 request was "just make sure infinite scrolling is not enabled, or at least configurable to be turned off"? The #1 deal-breaking request.
If it's coming straight from your horses' mouth that that's not possible, and that you will never implement it, then I think that's end of discussion. Since you love car dealership analogies, this is us saying "We don't want to drive a manual." And you only showing us manual cars, then saying your car company only MAKES manual cars, and we're free to aftermarket the transmission ourselves. Well, thanks for letting us know, this relationship simply will not work, have a nice day.
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I do care what you think. But part of caring means that if you really want a truck, I need to gently guide you off the car lot and point you to the nearest truck dealership.
Ok; I want to view this content with a pickup truck. Where do I go to get that? Where's that dealership?
Oh. Wait. You don't have one, and you're never going to make one. So the only answer you can possibly give is, once again, "fuck off and die."
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And how is topic different from thread? Far as I can tell they're the same. Since I had 12 posts in the thread before I ran into the 3 post limit, it seems something odd is going on.
