That one is the relatively easy bit to solve - you don't ever delete a post, you just delete the content, and make it a null, invisible node - so that all the succeeding nodes can be linked to it. But then you have the problem of quotes in succeeding posts, what if they contained the text that caused the post to be deleted? So now all succeeding posts need to be searched and any quotes within purged. If you'd thought of this before you started, you'd make quotes references to the original post rather than copying the context across - that's a better solution, but it fundamentally changes the underlying structures. So, you go back to post purging, which is problematic in its own way. Moderation facilities make these features much more difficult. It's helped here by the fact that we hardly ever delete posts, rather we move them to the Dumpster. That will be easier with an embedded threaded structure, because whole subthread can be moved in one go. But it leaves the problem that posts which contribute positively to the original thread end up in the Dumpster. The model of threading that I'm using, which is based on post order rather than linked lists helps that, in that relative ordering can be retained even if a few posts are removed.
The efficiency problem can be fixed if the whole site is based on a suitable structure, called a B-tree. It isn't here or on DPReview, and it's a pretty fundamental change. The underlying Django and Postgres systems on which these forums are based allow B-tree searching, but because they aren't the underlying structure they are implemented using separate data indexes which can become very large indeed. I'm addressing this problem by only implementing threaded order within a thread, which slightly complicates the reordering problem above and depends on facilitators doing the job properly when they move a sub-thread. So, they can prune a branch, but decide to leave some posts unpruned, and those posts go at the right place in the original thread. Once they've been put in another thread, putting them back in the right place becomes more difficult.
This might be a bit technical for some, but it's just to show that it is being done and that it isn't simple.
June 26, 2023
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Fascinating read .. I'm currently and forever in the future will be technologically illiterate .. but this post had me pulling out Horowitz and thinking data structures … My thought was that once we moved to Trees and Post order we were becoming more interested in the efficiency of searching. ... I rarely do a search here or on DPR and when I have I note that the results are not GOOGLE . … I'm usually more interested in being able to follow any conversation on topic and the simplicity of linked lists seems suitable to the purpose … But these sites must be based around a data structure so any change that requires a change to that structure would result in a project … but then this is just memories from the long past … How important are searches to this site such as this? .. Just curious ….
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Searches are a different problem. All the posts data here is kept on an SQL database. Searching really requires direct access to that database to be efficient - which there are facilities for. In that sense searching is somewhat a separate problem from the viewable structure. In terms of our development, it's also a separate problem.
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They have to work, IMO that's all.
It would be preferred that search results displays posts in posting order (descending) - there are some forums on the wild, where search results are in random order, totally unusable.
Posts structure (flat or by thread) is not directly related to search - for search posts content (not structure) has to be indexed for full-text search.
I personally don't use forums search facilities, unless they are not indexed by google - this happens, but rarely. -
I think the site's search works fairly well, unlike the one at DPR. But maybe you didn't mean that search, WN? Did you mean visibility to web search engines, Google et al?
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I would volunteer as moderator.
My suggested policy would be to sanction any direct personal attacks and hostility, but otherwise everyone should be free to speak their mind. I.e. as long as you are adressing the subject/argument (and not the other person) you can say whatever you want. But if you adress the other person you should not attack them and also always try to interpret their posts in the best possible light.
Those are my 2 cents.
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Correction. That is if you want to search the whole forum. The lack of ability to search only a subsection of the forum is a minus.
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Let's agree on the definition of hostility first ;)
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Lets not go there on this thread please 😁
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No, no, no, and no again.
Why do we need to delete anything? If you really want to hide something offensive, then hide it with a spoiler tag. Add a moderator note on what the person did wrong, but leave all content intact. This way the thread is not disturbed and readers can learn from others failures.
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Personally, I'm completely with you on the on the approach - and it's the one we use, we hardly delete anything. It's not 'offensive' things that are the problem, it's the downright illegal, which we do need to delete. Still, the thread view solution I'm working on won't have the problem.
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Yes, it could do with 'advanced search'. It's another case, in comparison with DPReview, where the underlying tree vs DB structure produces different results. For DPReview you can start off the search at any node and it stays within the branch. Can't do that within a DB structure.
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you get my vote, buts its not going to happen because a members personality is to close to home.
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I'm not sure what that means, but I think Cornergrafs ideas are excellent. So, he gets my vote too.
Alan
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I really don't understand why photographers are so in love with threaded view. It leads to some really annoying content for the flat view world. Is it really so hard just to breeze past what doesn't interest you?
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It depends on the nature of the forum / thread. Threads like the Wednesday C&C and This Week Through Your Eyes lend themselves to threaded view where replies are contained under individual posts. It is much easier to read replies to a single post without having to trawl through the whole flat view to find them all. Other single topic posts are ok in flat view. But even then the topic often expands and comments to different points mixed together gets a bit muddled, especially when the post replied to isn't quoted.
They both have their good and bad points. -
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Would it be that simple - we rather get 10 different answers and then 10 comments to each answer, why other answer is wrong plus about 10 non-related comments, which of course require answering and so on, ad nauseam. I can't see, how threaded or flat view could change that substantially. Well, threaded view will make moving sub-threads into dumpster much easier 🙃
