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Replies and references

While reading a topic at TAZ about quoting (specifically this), I decided it may be worth discussing the point here as well.

There are several situations where quoting is misused, and it bothers me on my own forum and always tried to think for alternatives.
Recently Slack introduced "threads" (do note I'm not proposing threaded discussions again, that's not my goal, bear with me until the end), that are... a P.I.T.A. for several implementation limitations, but indeed have a value: they directly link multiple (very related) replies.

What I would think about experimenting is something that doesn't touch the underlying structure of the forum, it's more some visual trickery and some backend logic based on a couple of rules:
1) the only thing that exist are topics and messages, these two entities are not touched (i.e. messages will continue flow in topics the same way they are doing now at the end of the discussion),
2) what would be in addition to that is a visual representation of the quoting/replying next to the specific message addressed.

TL;DR: basically it would be just two interface changes:
1) showing a little text similar to the "modified by" saying "show replies" (and maybe some fancy display of the replies),
2) add a "reply" button to the list we already have.
And an optional one:
3) think about a way to start topics from "replies" (sort of current "new topic", just integrated).
But replies wouldn't change place, they would still be messages in the topic like any other.
We can say it's just another way to see an extract of the discussion.

If I have time, I'll prepare a mock-up based on a random discussion on this forum, or maybe an addon.... who knows. xD
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Re: Replies and references

Reply #2 –

Interesting ... So it would only show direct reply's to a specific message in that topic?

Re: Replies and references

Reply #3 –

Yes, something like that.
Just for reference, this is the help page for slack threads:
https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/115000769927-Message-threads
or (language apart... except for Germans :P) this, that shows a little better how threads appear there:
https://www.turn-on.de/tech/ratgeber/so-funktionieren-die-neuen-threads-in-slack-208309
then, of course, in the forum, threads would just be a set of messages more directly related to a certain particular post, not an entirely separated discussion.

As usual, I'm not sure if that would help or not, but it may be worth giving a try (not disrupting anything and just meaning some more code to write lol).
Bugs creator.
Features destroyer.
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