Collecting ideas to make threads shorter / easier to read.

[NeonSturm]

With the current threads the OP may should be able to

1. make some posts less visible (a dark layer above it or 50% (visual) transparency) to stop posts distracting from the thread-topic
   
2. with his like, highlight posts which fit to the topic very well (get something like a yellow arrow pointing to the post in the left/right border)
3. write and accept summaries for multiple other post (from #3 to #11 for example) to provide new readers a shorter thread, unless they want to expand the spoiler to see all posts (especially helpful for threads with 10 pages)

But I also want something where somebody can make a statement (or multiple) and you see a overview over all statements (sorted by number of comments on them) with each user's opinion.

The difference to common threads would be, that each user has one opinion at a time - one for each statement.
+1, -1, some given option(vote) + comment hidden in a (spoiler=statement)

You can write the reason why you have this opinion, or link your reasoning comment onto other's opinions (to point them to errors), but I really miss the feature to have some opinion not lost after 15 posts discussing a single other aspect.

• Especially when your opinion is on page 3/5. Re-posting it just make it be on 5/8
• Because some "nub" says something like "but 1 +2 +x = 5" because he made the error to assume x=2 and this error stays as clutter in the thread. Not one of this clutter-posts is bad, but many of them.
• Then other peoples explaining the nub that x is variable though the post above him also said that already, hiding the important posts within clutter.

 

[Elit3]

Agreed. They shouldn't be able to delete posts, but

make some posts less visible (a dark layer above it or 50% (visual) transparency) to stop posts distracting from the thread-topic

This is a brilliant solution to a slightly offensive post, or a irrelevant one.

 

[NeonSturm]

*joking* Not brilliant - darkened :D
Elit3: Thanks for your reply.

I think OP should not be able to delete posts. People may double-post threads of others which they don't like just to be able to gain mod rights.

• This is too abuse-able and bad enough that peoples already rage if mods silently delete their posts without giving them the ability to copy their work for a correction of details sometimes.

• I understand the need, but also the rage about having your work deleted because of a single opinion without any feedback by more than just the subject of rage (=the deleting mod).
  • I fear this can kill parts of our community friendliness.

 

[Nerixel]

I don't see a need for the first or second point. Any offensive or off-topic posts can be reported and removed, which means that any remaining posts should be assumed to be on-topic anyway (voiding the point of the second point).

It also leaves open the very real possibility of censorship and favouritism. Regardless of the fact that posts will still be visible, I'd expect people to assume that any darkened posts would just be spam and not even check them. Either that or they'd read the darkened posts anyway, meaning there's no point in darkening them in the first place.

I'm not even sure what the third point is meant to mean. If it's that the OP should be able to summarise posts and put that summary in place of the original post, putting the original post in a spoiler, this just opens the door to more favouritism. You could maliciously reword someone's post, or even write something completely different to what the person said and there would be at least a small amount of the community that would never check the original post.

In general, the way Xenforo's distributed it is considered to be the best way to do it. Otherwise, the Xenforo development people would have received a ton of complaints and they would have changed it.

 

[NeonSturm]

Regardless of the fact that posts will still be visible, I'd expect people to assume that any darkened posts would just be spam and not even check them. Either that or they'd read the darkened posts anyway, meaning there's no point in darkening them in the first place.

• But people will clearly see that they are replying on an off-topic post.
• I think people should decide on their own if they wanna read that additional post
  • Some may read if they find an answer to it or a statement around it interesting
  • Others may read them only if the topic has few enough posts to not take a hour to get all statements and opinions.

If it's that the OP should be able to summarise posts and put that summary in place of the original post, putting the original post in a spoiler, this just opens the door to more favouritism. You could maliciously reword someone's post, or even write something completely different to what the person said and there would be at least a small amount of the community that would never check the original post.

We could let ppls vote on this. If two ppls fight each other in a civilised way, it is good for a discussion but bad for reading through the topic to get everybody's final opinion.

It also leaves open the very real possibility of censorship and favouritism.

There are enough trolls out there (or just ppls which not read the OP carefully enough) that I sometimes wish the OP can give a BIG LIKE or BIG DISLIKE on posts without having to write a post every time.

He could write a post explaining a very obvious error in understanding the OP from another one's post and dark both - the troll and his own post.

Highlights could indicate the official support from a thread OP. Can be abused with edits though, maybe not the best solution.



Maybe what I wrote are not the best solutions (giving it to the OP), but I wanted to point out the direction/issues too.

Agreed. They shouldn't be able to delete posts, but

make some posts less visible (a dark layer above it or 50% (visual) transparency) to stop posts distracting from the thread-topic

This is a brilliant solution to a slightly offensive post, or a irrelevant one.

Sometimes some post is required to keep the discussion consistent, even though a mod could delete it outright.

 

[der_scheme]

The highlight system sounds like a great idea to me. It is not uncommon that good posts disappear between quite many unvaluable ones or unfeasible discussions. Like those of people that not even read the OP, discussions of people who misunderstood something or whatever. Stuff that is still on-topic somehow so that a moderative intervention would be questionable, but that is simply not worth everyone's time.

I think it would be great if there was a box below the OP where all the posts are listed which have received a like by the thread starter, marking them as an outstanding contribution. If that's not an option, a button probably would suffice. That button simply would feed the search function the proper parameters, so that we wouldn't have to determine them ourselves everytime.

 

[Nerixel]

The highlight system sounds like a great idea to me. It is not uncommon that good posts disappear between quite many unvaluable ones or unfeasible discussions. Like those of people that not even read the OP, discussions of people who misunderstood something or whatever. Stuff that is still on-topic somehow so that a moderative intervention would be questionable, but that is simply not worth everyone's time.

I think it would be great if there was a box below the OP where all the posts are listed which have received a like by the thread starter, marking them as an outstanding contribution. If that's not an option, a button probably would suffice. That button simply would feed the search function the proper parameters, so that we wouldn't have to determine them ourselves everytime.

You're still opening it up to the risk of favouritism, in fact even more than it was before.

 

[NeonSturm]

You're still opening it up to the risk of favouritism, in fact even more than it was before.

I would like to hear opinions of more peoples on this.

I would make above darker, because it does not add to the topic.

How about highlights a user's first post and give them the ability to highlight one additional post (which has their most recent important opinion)?

Sometimes I would also like to mark my posts "obsolete because of a later post of mine" by darkening it and make it have a lower height by default to not cause peoples considering a quote on my own post as spam.

 

[NeonSturm]

How about letting each person update one "status"/"opinion" line below the OP?
Just one line of text, no avatar - just an IRC-style member name, pretty short.

If every such line and post has a JavaScript-visible timestamp, you have new elements shown by "since last post", "updated since ...", ...