A sub-forum question ….................... WhyNot ….................... 5/21/23

This post is generated after reading Andrew's response addressing the threaded view in another post which I think needs more visibility. ….. Basically are we unhappy here? And why?

For myself, I'm not totally unhappy with our current solution.. I never thought the threaded view was ideal either and I'm not sure there is a perfect solution. The one we have now is a bit more open to adding to the community IMHO as the THREAD page does show our community project to the entire population of the site for at least 15 minutes … and can attract other interested members …

Most of our steady participants/community from DPR are or have been here and hopefully will continue here. .. Not sure what the specific problems with staying might be other than our long association with DPR which was not obviously valued by the DPR management ...

I think what we are doing on this sub-forum does gives a better chance at dialog and conversation centered about our posts than the current alternative (see the C&C Tread as an example) and I don't think the Threaded view actually provided that much better ... it just provided for a tighter community within the membership of the site. … The main problem I currently have here is that I don't usually know who the originators of a post was after the first response … and maybe it would be nice to know when it was started.. a few of us are trying to address that oversight and maybe management can be persuaded to include something like that with the post – probably easier than adding a threaded view to the site …

My original thought about adding the threaded view was that the forum software that drives this site is based around a backbone data structure. That data structure does not include provisions for the pointers (links) needed to support a threaded view.. Adding those links and the software to support the threaded view basically changes that backbone and would be a major software project .. maybe replacing the current software and I'm not sure that will actually happen … but then what do I know ? ...

What are the limitations of the our current situation? I suspect that moving again will further fragment any community we have here ….. Interested in your responses ....

WhyNot

Just out of curiosity is adding threaded as complicated as I suggested..... ???

WhyNot

I think the main disadvantage is that with flat view the thread can't fork. Say I start a thread and post a picture. Then you comment my picture and post a similar picture. With threaded the discussion about your picture can go on as a fork of my thread, separate from the discussion about my picture. Same with all the technical discussion threads where there can be many sub conversations - only those are even more split up than our threads. 😛

Flat can get messy this way and it's hard to follow sub conversations, especially since this forum doesn't have "back links" that take you to the original post when you click a quoted bit. I think this also stops people from posting sometimes (well, the humble ones...) if it isn't really on topic, for fear of messing things up.

But I'm with you WN. The best is to stay here and hope for the best. The powers that be have accomplished a lot in a short time. I'm sure more goodies will come.

The Flat view is what C&C is persisting in using!! This sub forum is the thread we had. Instead of scrolling through the thread to see who is there here we simply visit the sub forum and look around ( maybe a bit more time consuming.) ,,, I suggested that the Threaded view only added a tighter and maybe more restrictive community. Also, of course, Andrew lost some ownership of the thread ... Have manged some of these threads in the past I can't say I would think that loss very serious for me ... It's really more about community and the conversation than anything else as this has become slightly social media as the conversations stray from the photography ..... Being on the internet lets us join an international community with all the drawbacks of being on the Internet....

Good to see you back we miss your participation, Charlotte ...

WhyNot

Sounds great. Except the last bit about the thread starter choosing the default view. I feel that would only be messy. But what do I know? Maybe it's great. I've never seen anything like that, so I could very well be wrong.

Yes, but it's only one level of "forking". With threaded it's unlimited. It's not even one level really, since there are no top level. My example above applies here too.
But it sounds like Bob is still planning optional threaded view, so everyone will get what they prefer in the end. Happy, happy!

Thank you, WN. I'm a bit off for private reasons for a while. But I'll be back (said with a slight German accent)! 😉

I'm not sure I need multiple levels of forking as responses to my picture posts rarely go as far as 20 responses (Including my contributions to the conversations.) .. just not that complicated .. Of course there are posts like a simple question I asked to get clarification about what was being discussed in another post where I felt I didn't belong .. that post has stayed at the top of the TREAD page for a couple days and currently has more than 230 entries and there is no way I'd try to follow any of those conversations but I may have gotten an answer before i gave up reading the post ...

As I wrote I'm not unhappy with the current state of this site ... I can live with it ....

I would respond in German but even my limited ability to do so has long been lost with time ....

WhyNot

Whatever you choose it will be great with those different views available! As long as we can switch between them freely. The "compacted view" sounds very promising. 🤤

For what we do in C&C I think threaded view works much better. It enables one post to be made and a discussion started that can be followed as the discussion develops or can be added to at differing points of the discussion. It makes it relatively easy to follow the discussion as it develops from the original post. It depends somewhat on how far discussion digs into a topic and ebbs and flows. For some forums I can see that this isn't of great significance however I think it is significant for our weekly C&C no theme forum. With the current flat view it is simply too time consuming to look at an image and then find all the responses that have been made so far before making a response of your own. It doesn't matter for the first approx twenty posts but after that it gets difficult. The forum is getting 130+ responses a week. It is great that the concept is getting so much interest but it makes participation time consuming and error prone. Eventually, this will probably lead to a fall off in particpation.

Thanks, WhyNot, for launching this conversation. We on the Weekly C&C thread are anxious for threaded view of some kind. We like being at long last inside an appropriate sub forum (Critique) but many of our old members are hesitant to rejoin or are participating less because of the confusion flat view is causing. Meanwhile, we have gained new participants because of the great Threads view we have here that makes all new threads easily visible to everyone and breaks down those old silos.

So, we've been helped and hurt by our transition from DPR. We are committed to maintaining the weekly concept of our activity for a variety of reasons. But we desperately need a threaded view that will allow sub-conversations about the individual images posted in the weekly thread that can be viewed tiered under that image. If any beta models are available, the C&C thread would be a great place to test it out. On DPR, it was not uncommon to have four "tiers" in a conversation about one image. Now, by the time we get to 20 or so posts (and 120 is our average), some posts are getting confused, misquoted, and misattributed as they get further and further from the original post.

We'd be glad to help if we knew how but unfortunately we don't have any tech wizards on our team.

I thank you for participating in this conversation.. My interpretation of the Threaded view is that it provides a place for a community with similar interests to join and the weekly nature encourages regular participation. It also tends to keeps that community close & long enough for interesting conversations to take place … There is also an ownership that goes along with whoever hosts the thread and a responsibility to try to encourage participation – a cheer leader!! ... The C&C is based on that concept but as currently implemented here I find it becomes difficult once it gets beyond three pages … I personally may continue to participate for a while but may have to move to the stand alone posts and if no conversions occur I'll be a deserter ...as I confess to needing an audience ….

My experience with the stand alone threads on other forums is that communities take much longer to form and for photography they are usually nailing a picture to the wall and forgetting it … I think the the FT Weekly here works because the community was already formed over on DPR and the conversations are easier to follow. While over on DPR we wanted to see what people using other systems were doing with their photography but there was always an undertone of what the FT & mFT provided and how we were using those capabilities (like ProCapture) and I think there still is. Not sure this weaker organization will keep everyone and if we drift away then this sub forum will get lonely …New membership will be needed to sustain any of these Threads/Sub-forums. If we decide to move again (even back to DPR) I fear this community will fragment more than it has with this move … I would probably stay here until the audience leaves ...

It appears the threaded view is in the future for this forum so I guess we'll see how it goes … and I am interested in your correction of my interpretation and your interpretation of how all this works …

WhyNot

I hope threaded view is in the future.

Like you, I think we are risking losing even more members if it doesn't happen. And, some of the ones who are dropping out are leaving the forum as a whole, or at least waiting and watching. But if we left, where would we go? No other forum has threaded view either, except DPR, and I would not bet any money at all that DPR will continue the forums in their current form in the long haul. Something may survive, but it may not be that.

Like you, I find that image discussions don't develop in the flat view here. There's a post, a few likes or short comments, or nothing at all. It's the weekly activity event that sustains the discussion, a phenomenon we've all observed but may not have any real explanation for. We don't want to give it up and become just another post-and-like operation. Threaded view would help more than just us - it would help the tech discussions and any other discussion that needs to be more than a question/response.

I've been in other flat view forums where subforums became the kind of interactive community you and I are referring to. What did they have that we don't have? They had subforum hosts. I hesitate to call them moderators because of the way that title came to mean "forum gestapo" in some places on DPR. A very active and supportive forum host with a small group of committed helpers can make a forum section a community. But it takes a LOT of time to provide that and not every thread host has that kind of time. So threads, which work in a similar way, are the best way to keep a community vital.

So for now, we keep on trying to make it work, and keep hoping help is on the way!

This is exactly my sentiment.

DPRevived has been off to a good start. Our weekly C&C thread has found a welcoming home here.
But there is still room for improvement, and having the option for threaded view would be one such major improvement.
In a peer-to-peer photo critiquing thread with multiple contributions, threaded view is a lifesaver to keep things organized and tidy.
Every submitted image can have its own little sub-thread (forked) with comments.
That is so much easier.

Threaded view should not REPLACE flat view. There are still applications for which flat view is better (eg if you want to see quickly which posts have been added recently: just go to the end of the flat view).
But having the two options is just better and more flexible for different purposes.

Here is another suggestion : with the use of cookies, it should be possible at some stage in the development, to have a small icon for "NEW" next to all newer posts in a thread since the viewer last visited it. This was a feature on DPR and it was a great way to identify and review new content quickly, regardless of using threaded or flat view.

In any case: all development efforts until now have been mightily appreciated!

Roel

Not to be nitpicky, but it's an Austrian accent 😸. Oh, what the h*** I AM being nitpicky!

Former subject of the Governator,
Lynne