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Why are messages not threaded?

Why are messages not threaded on the boards?  This makes communication sometimes awkard - I want to respond to one person and then follow up with another response to another person, but the messages layout as if I am responding to the same message over and over again.  Seems like this can be done better...

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Message 1 of 8
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Hi cirrusio,

 

You can change this in My Settings. Click on your username at the top right > My Settings > Preferences > Linear Layout. Then, choose "threaded" for the sorting option within topics.

 

Thanks,

Lili

~~~~~~~~~
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Message 2 of 8
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Do you mean like you reply to message #2, and it shows up right after message #2 even though you are really message #40 in the thread?

 

I guess there is the option for that, but I'm glad people generally don't do that and it is not the default.  Any forums I've seen that display there messages that way are really difficult to read because nothing is chronological.

 

If you are replying to a particular message that it is not obvious who you are replying to, or was a while ago, then be sure to use the quote button to show the message you are replying to.  Edit it if necessary.

 

Don't keep entering a quote of a quote of a quote. That is anolther pet peeve of mine when I see discussion forums where every message winds up getting quoting, even when someone just replies.  "Yes".  There threads grow exponentially and I get tired of reading the same quote over and over an over again not being able to find what is the new bit of information in someone's message.

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Message 3 of 8
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Message 4 of 8
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Meh...disagree with both.  Most software forums chronological thread based systems.  SO is a great model and the replies are just like this. A link just means that now I am opening another page and leaving the message that the poster is replying to.  This clutters up my desktop and means I have to traverse multiple pages to determine what the op was saying that the poster is replying to.  Who cares if they are chronological if you can't figure out what the poster is responding to?

And RavensFan points out the weakness of quoting - the reply starts to become cluttered with needless text (and to be honest, the format here sucks for quoting as you have to sit there and figure out how to properly edit the quote so that you don't get just these cascading quotes).  If the message you are responding to is immediately above the message you are sending, then you don't have to worry about quoting just to make it clear what you are responding to.

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Message 5 of 8
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I'd say if a thread gets so big that you can't follow along with a continual running chronology, then there is too much going on and a new thread should be started.  A message thread should basically be a single topic.

 

Think of it as a single VI with numerous intertwined wires.  Don't we tell people they need to break that up into subVI's?

 

Remember that the vast majority of people are going to read the threads in chronological order because that is also the default setting of the forums.  So if you happen to deviate going with a threaded system, a reply that makes sense to you because it is right below a much older message, won't make any sense to anyone else because it is going to be pages later unless you take the time to quote the message.

 

But should anyone really be replying directly to a message on page 1 when the thread is now on page 4?  The conversation as long moved on past that message.

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Message 6 of 8
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This reply makes a lot of assumptions.  Some topics are complex and involve a lot of moving parts.  Breaking the topic up into discrete pieces may not be reasonable - answering a single point may not provide a total solution but may be a piece of it.  The forum is not programming - it is a discussion consisting of questions and answers so the analogy falls flat.

And, part of the reason that the topics may span several pages is the absolutely horrible format here - it's like everything is supersized on the assumption that we are all blind as bats or something.    Here is my view of this topic:

ni_forum.png

My view is consumed by two entries - the question and the first response.  And first response is only a single line!

Now here is a post from SO Meta (similar to the Feedback on these boards):

so_meta.png

Um...what?  

So, as you can see, the new forum format here means that you are often unable to view more than two, maybe three entries before you have to start scrolling and you can start to see why you have topics that span multiple pages even though you may be still discussing the original post.  I have seen this over and over again here where someone is replying on page 9 to a comment somewhere prior to that page but I can't figure out exactly what they are replying to.  This happens especially in these Feedback forums but does happen in others.

And who's to say that you don't want to reply to a comment that is not the most current?  Maybe you have a relevant point to make about the original post that is insightful but doesn't require the previous 20 comments that entail a "That's a good idea!" or "Try posting your code" (an oldie but goodie).

What I am suggesting (or rather what I was looking for) is not purely thread based; rather something that a combination of a chronological and thread-based system - similar to what you see on almost every other software forum!  There is a reason that these are so common - they work and make sense.

 

 

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Message 7 of 8
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@RavensFan wrote:

Do you mean like you reply to message #2, and it shows up right after message #2 even though you are really message #40 in the thread?

 

I guess there is the option for that, but I'm glad people generally don't do that and it is not the default.  Any forums I've seen that display there messages that way are really difficult to read because nothing is chronological.

 

If you are replying to a particular message that it is not obvious who you are replying to, or was a while ago, then be sure to use the quote button to show the message you are replying to.  Edit it if necessary.

 

Don't keep entering a quote of a quote of a quote. That is anolther pet peeve of mine when I see discussion forums where every message winds up getting quoting, even when someone just replies.  "Yes".  There threads grow exponentially and I get tired of reading the same quote over and over an over again not being able to find what is the new bit of information in someone's message.


Yup /s


"Should be" isn't "Is" -Jay
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Message 8 of 8
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