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CIQ forums: very easy to miss new replies to old top-level replies

flowstate

TL;DR sub-replies to old replies do not show up chronologically under "newest" view, and reply notifications don’t seem to be working at all. (And it’s not clear whether a topic creator is supposed to get a notification when someone replies to a reply on their topic made by someone else, which they may be interested in. It’s also not clear whether I should get a notification when someone replies to any reply I made on any topic,)

IMO this is an issue with very long discussions (hundreds of replies) where someone may reply to an older reply from a few weeks ago. This new reply could be missed if interested parties don’t feel like scrolling back.

My suggestion would to be allow a hybrid threaded/flat viewing mode, or if that’s not possible/desirable, allow flat mode as an option.

If that’s not possible, then please implement notifications for replies (in a way that you can always see the reply history chronologically, like reddit). It would be helpful to see notifications for:

  • replies to my own replies
  • top-level replies to a topic I created/subscribed to
  • (optionally) replies to replies on a topic I created/subscribed to

—

Yes, I realize this is almost an inevitable consequence of having a forum with threaded replies....

However, it's an issue when you have a long discussion (hundreds of replies) and someone replies to an old reply. (I'll note that this is a not an issue with modern social media like reddit, where threads are typically locked after 3-6 months, and nobody cares about old comments anyway).

In this case, someone replied to a 29-day old reply (of mine) in an app support thread, I didn't get a notification (*), and I only happened to read the reply because I scrolled back a few times. And I might've missed it completely.

(*) I noticed that I am not getting notifications for any of the following situations:

  • Top-level replies to a thread I started (and reply notifications are enabled)
  • Reply to a reply I made (in my own thread, but hopefully that isn't relevant)
  • Reply to a reply someone made in my thread. (Maybe I shouldn't get a notification here, but combined with this "Newest" view behaviour, it means that it would be easy for me to miss new comments in a reply thread where I might be able to answer a question.)

I tried toggling "Reply Notifications" off and on, and saw no change in the above behaviour.

It would be nice if "Newest" would show all the newest replies and sub-replies. As for how that would actually work, I'll use The Daily WTF as an example (again): https://what.thedailywtf.com/. They use a modern forum (NodeBB) which combines threaded replies and linear mode, which you can see by clicking on a long discussion such as https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/12236/the-official-status-thread (95K posts).That way you can have your cake and eat it too: the ability to follow a thread of replies, while also being able to see all replies in chronological order.

I realize this platform may not support a hybrid mode like that (and it may not be desirable), so it would be nice if "flat mode vs. threaded replies" was an option (along with "pagination vs. infinite scroll".)

The sole exception to this issue is when you click on the text after "Latest" in the topic view -- that always takes you to the very latest reply (whether it's a sub-reply or not). But of course that only helps when you want to see the absolute latest reply....

Yeah, I realize that some of these requests are basically asking for aspects of the old forum to return, and it's a bit like wanting to have my cake and eat it too.... But I feel like very long discussions are a special case, and an app support thread certainly qualifies.

  • You should be brought to that reply if you click on the date of the latest reply in the topic view.


    Something way bigger that I miss is an overview of the newest threads, it's going to be pretty unmanageable when all the forums are moved here and you want to keep up to date of what's happening in the specific device forums. 

  • in reply to peterdedecker

    I realize that (as noted in the OP), but it doesn’t help if there is more than one new reply to a thread. E.g. If the second-last reply to a discussion is in reply to an old reply, you’re not going to see it unless you happen to scroll back to that old top-level reply for whatever reason. 

    Without notifications for all (or any) replies and a way to view all replies chronologically, it’s possible to miss replies. 

    And if someone is just browsing the discussion to see what’s new, they may not see all the new information. 

    I realize that replying to old posts and comments is usually discouraged anyway, but I’m this case it was a new reply to a 4-week old reply, and I would’ve missed it completely if I had not scrolled back to the oldnreply. 

  • in reply to peterdedecker
    peterdedecker said:
    Something way bigger that I miss is an overview of the newest threads, it's going to be pretty unmanageable when all the forums are moved here and you want to keep up to date of what's happening in the specific device forums. 

    Do you mean the "Latest Activity" view in the old forums, or do you mean the title/link to the latest thread in each forum (in the forum list).

    The latter is still available on bigger screens (tablet and desktop) but not phones (not even in landscape mode).

    I noticed a few features in the editor seem to be missing in mobile, too. I still think the aesthetics, speed and usability of the new forums are a great improvement, but some of the edge cases need some work (e.g. broken notifications, handling long threads.)