[suggestion] Wave style conversation trees

[fallerOfFalls]

Currently, each note is displayed separately but quotes the entire thread. This means you have to scroll past the same conversation many times in order to find other notes. It's sort of like email was before gmail came along.

Can we have each conversation displayed only once? Obviously the current format would have to be changed because conversations have branches sometimes. Reddit has a way of displaying branched conversations, but there may be other ways that are better.

I quite liked the way that google wave did it - with a sort of "main" branch, and then you can make sub branches which are nested within the main branch. Reddit's approach makes sense when there tend to be many many different replies to each comment. But on Noiys most comments are in reply to the previous one, not to the initial note (branching is minimal) so wave style makes more sense (to me).

[JKershaw]

We currently have the home page, which lists each conversation once. The latest tab is there to show the latest notes, hence repetition of conversations. Are you suggesting something thats equivalent of the home tab, only sorted by most recently replied to at the top?

[fallerOfFalls]

If the home page lists each conversation once, then how does it choose which branch to list? It can't display them all without displaying multiple times. Here's what a conversation looks like in the latest tab and here's what the same conversation looks like in the home page. Not the same conversation at all, but it started with the same initial note.

No, I'm not suggesting something like the home tab, because the home tab doesn't handle conversation branches either. The change I'm proposing would affect how conversations would be displayed both in the latest tab and in the home tab. I could draw some pictures if that would help.

[JKershaw]

The home tab is designed to be a recap. I think it scores each conversation using a few metrics, then chooses the most VERBd post to show.

Nesting was originally in the code, but dropped due to its complexity, and the lack of use (most conversations are linear). It'd take a fair amount of work to add in; but the code is overdue a rewrite.

You're welcome to elaborate on the idea with diagrams.

[fallerOfFalls]

A wave style branched Noiys conversation might look something like

Of course, if you want super simple, then you could do away with conversation branching altogether. Instead of replying to individual notes, you reply to the conversation, and your note is just added to the end of the conversation. Not so fun for conversations that aren't naturally linear but probably a lot easier to code, while accommodating "display each conversation only once" (e.g. in order of last update?) in the latest tab.

[Cassolotl]

The latter is like Facebook, and I never had trouble with that, though there were names and icons to help. People would tag themselves more to enable sensible replies.