Poll: Infinite Scrolling
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I repeat myself, but I'm not opposed to infinite scrolling if it is an addition to pagination, ie there are still pages but they get loaded and unloaded dynamically as we scroll past their limits.
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Can't provide a backlink to CS, as it appears to be down right now, but it came down to Alex telling me to turn off my adblocker or fuck off
No need. I can repeat myself. Turn off your adblocker or fuck off.
I don't care that a random percentage of visitors block ads to a site. Whatever. When you come on and smirk "oh, I don't know, what ads?" then you're just being an entitled asshole. So, go fuck off.
And guess what you'd see if you didn't block ads? Nothing! There are no goddam ads. But still, fuck off.
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Ugggh. Are you trying to turn us into a bunch of hillbillies?
And what, exactly, is hillbilly about this?
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Oh, "Entitled Asshole", is it?
I seem to recall that the "discussion" we had before was triggered by you moaning about how much it was costing you to host your site, which you don't seem to have managed to resolve yet. At the time I pointed out that there were far cheaper ways of running the daily wtf as it stood then, that there were far better, and cheaper, solutions to the forums than CS, and offered to help you to do it, for free, something which would have obviated the need to stuff ads on the site and get yourself marked as a badware host.
But no, you were a total cock-end about it. "I'm putting ads on the site to offset the cost of hosting, turn off your adblocker or fuck off". Looking at your response to people offering to help you here, I see that hasn't changed. You're still a cock-end who's absolutely certain that everything you say or do is absolutely correct. You're not willing to listen. Which is fair enough, I'm much the same, and this is, after all your s[h]ite. So, as I'm not willing to turn off my adblocker, even if there are no ads, I will, once again, fuck off. I'll post this, scramble the password on my account, and log out. What happens to this account and its posts, I leave up to you.
As for adblocking, there's nothing "entitled" or "assholish" about it. Ads are the number one security hole on the web, the number one way for badware to be spread. If you allow external ads on your site, you are putting your visitors at risk ; You're the asshole, not the visitor who arrives with adblocking turned on.
[edit] - it seems I can't scramble my password, all I can do is "send a password reset email". Chalk up another victory for the epic fail-a-thon that is discourse. Please feel free to scramble my password for me.
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You're not willing to listen.
Your opinion is very valuable to me. Please select from the poll below the option that best represents what you would like to say to me:
[poll]- I am wrong, you are right
- You are right, I am wrong
[/poll]
I will, once again, fuck off
Come back any time!
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it seems I can't scramble my password, all I can do is "send a password reset email". Chalk up another victory for the epic fail-a-thon that is discourse. Please feel free to scramble my password for me.
I don't know what you mean by "scrambling" your password. It seems reasonable to only allow the person with access to the linked email account to be able to do that (and presumably an admin could do something else). And then you could put whatever random unforgettable thing you wanted.
Are there sites that actually have an option to kill a password? That's what it sounds like you're talking about.
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Are there sites that actually have an option to kill a password? That's what it sounds like you're talking about.
Not sure why someone would want some sort of password scrambling or disabling instead of just deleting the account…
And Discourse does provide a “Delete My Account” function (well, at least it was some time ago here, looks like it was disabled in the meantime). Asking the admins would also do the trick (even if you’re not asking politely — that may even speed up the process!).
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“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
— Henry Ford (probably not a real quote though)
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Not sure why someone would want some sort of password scrambling or disabling instead of just deleting the account…
And Discourse does provide a “Delete My Account” function (well, at least it was some time ago here, looks like it was disabled in the meantime). Asking the admins would also do the trick (even if you’re not asking politely — that may even speed up the process!)It's for when you wish to keep a person's contributions but prevent them from logging in for a while. Some people need such a shot across the bows occasionally to remind them to play relatively nice. (Never dealt with such a maladjusted person? Lucky you!)
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There's the Suspend feature, but I'm pretty sure a user can't use it on themself.
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Users with 1 post or less can self-delete their account, though.
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Users with 1 post or less can self-delete their account, though.
Speaking of which, there's some crap over in the old forums that needs attention from a mod.
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It's for when you wish to keep a person's contributions but prevent them from logging in for a while. Some people need such a shot across the bows occasionally to remind them to play relatively nice. (Never dealt with such a maladjusted person? Lucky you!)
Exactly. What I was actually looking for was a way to set my password to some random gibberish so that I would be unable to log myself in, for example, if I started feeling butthurt enough to reply to some post. A shot across my own bows, if you like.There was more here, but discourse lost it all - I had discourse open in two separate tabs. Another bug.
anyway, out again.
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Exactly. What I was actually looking for was a way to set my password to some random gibberish so that I would be unable to log myself in
We have the ability to suspend users if you would like, just flag one of your posts for moderator attention and explain you would like to have your account suspended, and for how long.
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And what, exactly, is hillbilly about this?
Ok, so "hillbilly" is too specific. Should of said something lick "country hicks". In any case, when I see s guy driving around with truck nuts dangling on his pickup's hitch, I know he's just compensating for something. Why else would you put a pair of big, ugly, rubber balls on a pickup?
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Dammit man, it’s redneck, not hillbilly, and not hick!
It’s a fine distinction, like that between Monet and Manet. Sounds like someone needs to culture up. Let Donald K. Burleson be your guide: http://www.dba-oracle.com/redneck.htm
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I know he's just compensating for something.
I've never really understood stuff like this. Some people just have shitty taste. And then other people with their own flavor of shit think something deeper is going on.
Filed Under: Sometimes a cigar is just a bomb
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I am really not seeing much to discuss on the feature of Discourse software. You go to hotel and order "chai". You eat food - Idli Sambar everyday on banana leaf.
One day owner announce, no more banana leaf. You will get idli-sambar on stainless steel plates.
Same idli-sambar, same price. Do you stop eating at this place because now you no longer have banana leaf under your food? Maybe if you are goat, yes, but if you are human person like me, then you don't. You continue to eat in stainless steel plates and remember that banana leaf with some degree of fondue. That's it.
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We will always have some degree of bittersweet fondue for CS.
Stay away from the "chocolate."
I am seeing you jokers have missed the forest for one single tree. No comment on idli-sambar?
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The idli in your picture look like they're filled with something, like an ancient Indus Valley Hot Pocket.
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I am really not seeing much to discuss on the feature of Discourse software. You go to hotel and order "chai". You eat food - Idli Sambar everyday on banana leaf.
One day owner announce, no more banana leaf. You will get idli-sambar on stainless steel plates.
Same idli-sambar, same price. Do you stop eating at this place because now you no longer have banana leaf under your food? Maybe if you are goat, yes, but if you are human person like me, then you don't. You continue to eat in stainless steel plates and remember that banana leaf with some degree of fondue. That's it.
Actually, it's a little more like you go to your favorite restaurant for breakfast and order scrambled eggs. The waitress tells you that they no longer serve scrambled eggs, they only serve fried eggs now. You ask why, and she tells you that's just the way it is. You ask her to kindly just let you order scrambled eggs. At that point, the chef comes out, tells you that fried eggs are "rainbows", and if you want "godawful" scrambled eggs, you can make them yourself.
Hell, yes, I'd stop eating at that restaurant.
See, in the end, we're getting the same thing (eggs/posts), its a difference of how it's being presented (scrambled v. fried / paged v. infinite-scroll). Are we asking that they eliminate the current option? No, we just want them to make the old, loved option available.
And do you know why else my analogy works? Because the ability to do paging is already there. Like the chef already has the tools to make the scrambled eggs, the Discourse team already has the tools to do the paging. Just turn off JavaScript to see.
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And do you know why else my analogy works? Because the ability to do paging is already there. Like the chef already has the tools to make the scrambled eggs, the Discourse team already has the tools to do the paging. Just turn off JavaScript to see.
I love the excuse that this would require man-months of effort. You know how many pagers I've built as a web developer? I lost count a long time ago. It's not rocket surgery.
Maybe they mean it would take that long to deliver paging that complies with their high standards of usability. I can respect uncompromising commitment to quality. If that is, in fact, the case, I'm willing to wait. But I've everything I've heard indicates they're not willing to entertain the possibility at all.
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[edit] - it seems I can't scramble my password, all I can do is "send a password reset email". Chalk up another victory for the epic fail-a-thon that is discourse. Please feel free to scramble my password for me.
Your password is NOT saved anywhere. Discourse uses properly salted PBKDF2 (or however it's spelled). To do otherwise is, although far too common, a real WTF.
And Discourse does provide a “Delete My Account” function (well, at least it was some time ago here, looks like it was disabled in the meantime). Asking the admins would also do the trick (even if you’re not asking politely — that may even speed up the process!).
Self-deletion is disabled as soon as you make your second post. Deletions by admins receive several "This is a dangerous thing" barriers once you make more than 15 posts.
This was kinda explained above, but a consolidated explanation is nice.
with some degree of fondue.
In a nice mood right now - you meant "some degree of fondness".
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In prior discussions here, people have cited Google images and Pinterest as examples of infinite scrolling which seem to leave a better taste in their mouths than here. I'll also add the Facebook newsfeed to that.
Now, here are the huge differences between those sites and a Discourse thread which, as subtle as they are, are important to note:
1.) You often really don't care what goes on beyond, maybe, a few "pages" under the fold. The more you scroll down, the less relevant or useful the content is, and you eventually stop when you've reached that arbitrary line between current, relevant stuff, and old news or irrelevant crap (or it's time for bed/end of lunch break, etc).
2.) Each item in a Facebook post or image is independent of the other. It's just a heap of content that are disconnected from eachother.
3.) Often times these pages truly don't have an end. Facebook's newsfeed will go back for months, and even if you reach an end, that end is usually meaningless. For all intents and purposes they have infinite scrolling because the content essentially is infinite.
Contrast that with a Discourse thread:
1.) Usually most, if not all, of the posts in a thread are equally relevant to the discussion at hand. Unlike Facebook posts which don't follow a single line of thought, in order to get the entire scope of a thread, you have to read each post. Therefore, most readers new to a thread are going to read the entire thing from start to finish, and each time they scroll to the bottom and that damn "loading" spinner shows up, it's disconcerting and abrupt.
2.) After you've read a thread, the top of it is no longer the most relevant. When new replies are made, the end of the thread becomes the one you are most interested in.
3.) A thread (besides the Thread that must Not be Named) is always very finite. There isn't any arbitrary end or truly "infinite" timeline that will eventually take you back to the forum's beginning.
Given that, here are the conditions, in my opinion, under which infinite scrolling is acceptable (or at least tolerable):
1.) If each item of content is disconnected from the others such that you don't have to go all the way to the bottom of the heap of content to get the entire gist of what's going on. Watching cat pictures, anecdotal sites like Clients From Hell or Not Always Right, Facebook newsfeeds, and so on all meet this condition.
2.) If, at all times, the top of the page is always going to be the most relevant. Google Images always sorts by relevance, Facebook news feed always sorts by most recent (or sometimes most discussed), and the further down you go, the less relevant or useful that content is. Contrast that with Discourse, where usually the very bottom of the thread becomes the most relevant to what you want, since you usually have already read what's above it. The only time the top of a thread is the most relevant is when you haven't read it yet, or you need a refresher as to what it entails.
I know it sounds very strange that pagination is "better" in each of these cases, but I think the reason for that is because, in our minds, the thread is more easily digestible in smaller chunks (distinct pages) than one large ocean of posts on one page. It's a very psychological thing, but when I read threads like The Thread which must Not be Named and see some 100 pages, each with 50 posts, in my mind I compartmentalize that a lot better than if I go to the thread and scroll through it with seemingly no end in sight.
The big thing to note is when a site like Facebook does it, I don't give a damn when the end of the scrolling happens. I'm going to leave long before I scroll down to that point. When it happens on a Discourse thread, I do care. I want to see the end... and each time I scroll to the "bottom" my mind prepares for thinking, "Ah, the end of the thread!" only to find yet another spinner load the next batch of posts, and I think, "Aw, shit, I thought I reached the end of the discussion!"
The only "good" thing that Discourse does is have the indicator of where you are in this arbitrary sea of discussion, but for some reason I like seeing "you're on page 51 out of 67" rather than "you're at post 594 out of 982, so keep scrolling; you'll reach the end when you no longer see that loading graphic" Don't ask why this is the case. Maybe it's similar to why people like books separated into chapters rather than just one very long story, or maybe it's because I've got an undiagnosed brain injury. Maybe it's because, subconsciously when I reach the end of a page in a thread, it's a cue for me to take a short break before continuing whereas when the scroll abruptly fetches the next batch of posts, I think "oh, this page isn't done afterall." I really don't know. All I know is I like the experience of pagination better in this case, and as a UI designer, that's really all one should care about.
I know what I'm saying won't make a lot of sense to people, and I know I'm going to get a bunch of replies asking "WTF" but after really thinking hard about why I don't mind infinite scrolling on one site versus another, this is what I've concluded to myself. It's easier for me to grasp "I have 2 pages left before I'm current on this thread" than "I'm on post 524 out of 785"
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It's easier for me to grasp "I have 2 pages left before I'm current on this thread" than "I'm on post 524 out of 785"
That part is definitely true. Even if the rest of your post is so long I didn't read it.
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I know what I'm saying won't make a lot of sense to people,
What are you talking about? That was a fine, fine analysis of scrolling in various sites.
Discourse's infiniscroll is unique not only because of fog-of-war loading, but because it actually provides mechanisms to navigate the stream, unlike twitter and tumblr, where "down" is the only option. They haven't even bothered.
The negative interpretation of that is that Discourse implements fixes and workarounds for an inherently problematic content delivery method, even if its advantage is effortless "immer geradeaus" content streaming.
Take your pick.
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unlike twitter and tumblr
Both of which work on a "newest is most relevant/important" scheme. They aren't posts in a topic, they're "topics" in themselves. Neither of those are forums either, which is likely why they haven't bothered with other navigation. There isn't a workflow that suggests it is needed.With forums, generally the whole topic is relevant, which is why you read from beginning to end, oldest to newest, and why navigation is important. There is a workflow, and infinite scrolling may not be the best fit, no matter what other features you throw on alongside it.
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1.) Usually most, if not all, of the posts in a thread are equally relevant to the discussion at hand.
Except on TDWTF, where most are equally irrelevant.
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Bravo, excellent analysis. As an avid book reader, I agree to the usefulness of chapters as rest indicators: punctuation, paragraphs, pages, chapters, volumes - it's a logarithmic scale of hints to help you manage pace and position. Without them it's easy to feel lost in a sea of words.
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Except in books, chapters are thematically related and titled. The real equivalent is multiple topics, which Discourse does encourage via "reply as new topic". Each new topic is a chapter.
Otherwise we'd be arguing that a book chapter titled "pages 150 to 200" is a good idea ;)
One interesting equivalent of "auto chapters" is mapping topics in time, where there is a flurry of activity for a few days, then a pause for a day, then someone posts and there is another flurry of activity. That pause is a natural "chapter break" in the topic.
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Some books don't have chapters. Some manage to go long distances without paragraphs or even punctuation. Some are considered to be Great Literature. Some of those authors would try to do without pages too if they could, but have effectively lacked the technology to do so (i.e., for a reasonable price) until recently.
But usually breaking things up into digestible pieces (like pages) helps a lot. (Chapters and topics do correspond.)
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Reading a thread on Discourse:
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One interesting equivalent of "auto chapters" is mapping topics in time,
I am intrigued by this UI idea, but I haven't used it anywhere yet.
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In a nice mood right now - you meant "some degree of fondness".
I blame android os and swYpe for my accidents.
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Some of those authors would try to do without pages too if they could, but have effectively lacked the technology to do so (i.e., for a reasonable price) until recently.
You do realize that scrolls were invented before paged books, right? Reading and writing didn't even begin to become widely available until after the book was invented and replaced the scroll. Yes, I know that the press started all of that, but remember, the press wasn't invented until after books.
I find it interesting that we humans threw out the scroll and replaced it with the paged book, because scrolls had inherent flaws - difficult to navigate, hard to manage, tough to put together paper in just the right size, etc. - that books did not, yet some of us now want to do away with the online equivalent of the book (pagination), simply because it "interferes with the flow of processing information". Never mind that online scrolls (infinite scrolling) has its own problems. Scrolls are cool!
I'll admit, infinite scrolling has its uses - Twitter, Google images, and Facebook have all been mentioned. But notice how Google hasn't tried to implement infinite scrolling on, say, web searches, or news searches. Why? Well, since I don't work for Google, I can't say, but I bet it's because they know that infinite scrolling is a bad fit for those scenarios.
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I find it interesting that we humans threw out the scroll and replaced it with the paged book, because scrolls had inherent flaws - difficult to navigate, hard to manage, tough to put together paper in just the right size, etc. - that books did not, yet some of us now want to do away with the online equivalent of the book (pagination), simply because it "interferes with the flow of processing information". Never mind that online scrolls (infinite scrolling) has its own problems.
Except computers can help us solve some of those problems. I don't think Discourse solves them all perfectly, but I think you guys are being ridiculous about this. At first, I figured a lot of this was typical TDWTF hyperbole regarding legitimate issues, but now I'm thinking you guys are a little unbalanced.
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Except computers can help us solve some of those problems. I don't think Discourse solves them all perfectly, but I think you guys are being ridiculous about this. At first, I figured a lot of this was typical TDWTF hyperbole regarding legitimate issues, but now I'm thinking you guys are a little unbalanced.
Sure, computers can help solve some of the issues that led to switching from scrolls to books, for example, keeping track of where you were. But, as has been pointed out - in multiple posts, on multiple topics - there are other problems with infinite scrolling. For example, navigation is still a problem. It's not easy to find where a specific post was in a given thread or topic, primarily due to the implementation of infinite scrolling. Could the implementation be improved possibly, but it would only lessen the impact of the navigation issue, not eliminate it. To come reasonably close to eliminating the problem, we'd need to improve everyone's bandwidth, RAM, and processing power enough to ensure that we could load an entire topic into local memory once it is opened. Honestly, that's not currently a realistic expectation.
You could argue that it's equally difficult to find a specific post in a paginated topic. Well, some people have great success remembering which page a given post was on, so they would have no trouble. If you combined that with Discourse's topic search feature, you'd have one powerful set of navigation tools.
And, as I've pointed out repeatedly, practically no one is demanding just pagination on Discourse. We just want the option. And since @codinghorror and @sam have made it clear that we're idiots for wanting such a thing, why shouldn't we attack them?
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It's not easy to find where a specific post was in a given thread or topic, primarily due to the implementation of infinite scrolling
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You could argue that it's equally difficult to find a specific post in a paginated topic.Yep.
And, as I've pointed out repeatedly, practically no one is demanding just pagination on Discourse. We just want the option.
I agree with that. I'm just saying you guys are being giant dicks about it. Which was cool at first, this place being what it is.
And since @codinghorror and @sam have made it clear that we're idiots for wanting such a thing, why shouldn't we attack them?
Since this feature is basically the antithesis of why they started this, I'm not at all shocked that they prioritize pretty much everything else above implementing this. They seem to be genuinely interested in fixing stuff, regardless of @Lorne_Kates' @blakeyrat impressions. There are several things being proposed to help out with some of these issues.
But it seems like some of the participants around here make Big Bang Theory's Sheldon seem like a real easy going type of guy. It's just not funny any more, and to me, the people looking bad are the ranters, not the Discourse developers. Maybe you guys are totally right, but you come across as jerks and make me want to argue the other side even when I agree with you.
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It's just not funny any more, and to me, the people looking bad are the ranters, not the Discourse developers. Maybe you guys are totally right, but you come across as jerks and make me want to argue the other side even when I agree with you.
OH MY GOD
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The art of Internet conversation is realizing you're not trying to convince the person you're talking to, but everyone else watching.
This would be my new sig, if we had sigs.
Filed under: I'd keep the bullshit color coding.
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Easy to do. View the raw of my post (not so easy to do).
Jeff Atwood (@codinghorror): The art of Internet conversation is realizing you're not trying to convince the person you're talking to, but everyone else watching.
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Testing API keys...
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The psychological burden imposed by infinite scrolling really can't be emphasized enough. As anyone who's ever been tasked with "Clean your room!" knows, attempting to take in a large task all at once is vastly, disproportionately more daunting then when subdivided into smaller, more immediately manageable goals. That's what pagination does for people. "Oh my, this thread is a hundred pages long! Well... I'll just read the first couple pages..." and off you go. Cheerleading for infiniscroll is thinking like an engineer, not a human.
And of course, infiniscroll will also always and forever be saddled with the fundamental defect that it fights the way web browsers want to work, breaking find-in-page and turning the scroll bar into a spastic, unreliable tool.
