Lambda the Ultimate

One thing that might help is if the post index showed dates for each comment/post. That way, it's easy to see from a glance which one is the oldest (and thus the most likely start of a subthread of new posts). Not sure how hard that is to add, though.

Which post index are you referring to specifically? Adding a date doesn't sound difficult.

In particular. Or some better way of viewing new posts in a thread in order without having to search on ***, as other people note.

The Recent Posts page should have a red asterisk next to messages you haven't seen yet (i.e. messages that were posted since the last time you viewed that thread), and it lists messages with the most recent first. So I don't understand how the date would help on that page? I suppose it wouldn't hurt either, but I'm just trying to make sure I understand what it would add.

For viewing new posts in a thread in order, I think something like Martijn's Lambda Skipper sounds good, and I'll see if we can add that feature in on the server.

The problem is that I don't want to read new messages in the order they were posted. I actually want to read them in thread order. I wasn't sure what order they were shown in, so I guessed that seeing the date would help infer thread order, but I guess not.

Yes, I agree. I also want to read the conversations in order. (Maybe a monad? oh never mind...)

What's the likelihood of an nntp interface?

Are the threads kept in a backend database or some other easily read format?

--Shae Erisson - ScannedInAvian.com

What's the likelihood of an nntp interface?

There's still no direct nntp interface available for Drupal. However, as I alluded to in my "Various replies" post, there now seem to be some options for integrating with mailing lists, which further raises the possibility of integrating with e.g. gmane. Ehud's on vacation right now, but we can look at this when he gets back.

Are the threads kept in a backend database or some other easily read format?

Drupal stores its messages in a database, MySQL by default, which is what we're using for LtU.

What I have often found difficult is to follow a discussion spawn by one of my posts. It's not too difficult, but some times I even forget in which of the many threads I have posted. A list of recent personal posts would be helpful.

Is this what you are looking for? http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/user/1623/track

It never occured to me to search for my posts under 'my account'. Perhaps 'track' should be moved under 'recent posts'?

It's too crowded over there for my tastes, but if this sounds good to others it shouldn't be too hard to do.

It was intuitive for me to find this functionality. It also makes when you consider that sometimes you want to track other users. I guess this is an object-oriented style instead of functional :)

I find the forum software to be pretty adequate. However, one feature it could use is to limit the nesting depth in the display. Right now, a really deep reply thread will become ridiculously narrow in the browser window. I make this point as a reply in a deep thread to further illustrate the point.

Slashdot (otherwise not the exemplar of good forum software) has a limit in the nested display, and it seems to do the trick.

I've found a patch for Drupal which addresses this, so we'll check it out and install it if it looks good.

Sorry for the confusion. I meant that 'track' could be in the front page, under the user's name, right below 'my account'.

I agree that Drupal is one of the best web-based forum systems around, but it's still not too great, and is IMHO far more primitive than good mailing list archives. It's a real shame that the email list and web forum communities are so deeply separated, considering that in the end it seems like email/web should really just be a per-user UI preference around the same basic system. Maybe someday we'll get there...

However, in the short term, if it would be possible to enhance the RSS feeds with currently missing info (author for top-level posts, in-reply-to info for comments, maybe a couple of other things), I think it would be pretty easy to build an email list gateway for LtU, and then archive it using any system we like. I'd almost certainly be willing to host such a list and its archives, but I can't make the changes to the RSS feeds myself...

Does anybody else even think this would be useful?

It would be nice to have these options for navigating the 'collapsed' view of threads.
The 'collapsed' view is easier to notice new posts with, but AFAIK to view the next message in a thread one must go back to the collapsed-list and manually select the next message. There is no indication of where this msg is in a thread except that it has a "parent" (it is also strange to see just a given reply preceeded by the original post - even if they are severely disconnected)
When there are multiple separate reply-threads, these should be separate 'next in thread's or follow-ups.

This is SOP for mailing lists.

Also, does there really need to be a 'post new comment' set of forms when every message already has a 'reply to this comment' link?
It takes up a lot of space, and it is unclear whether the new comment will be "new" in the sense of starting a new thread, or whether it will be equivalent to clicking "reply to this comment".
[On Edit: there was even a thread about this ~5 months ago: here]

Just my $0.02

I am aware of the Recent Posts. I display the discussions sorted by latest post, so it's easy enough to find the latest updated thread. The problem is navigating large threads.

But I admittedly can't think of any better solutions, I don't know about all the web forums that exist out there. It might very well be that they simply aren't any better. But I really liked the gmane.org thing. The fact that you can use nntp with it is excellent for those of us who prefer good old usenet style, and the web interface seems good too.

If Gmane is not an option, are there are other interfaces between mailing lists, nntp and the web that might be usable? I think that turning the LtU discussions into a mailing list might be a good idea if we can get a decent web interface and possibly a nntp "feed" on top of it.

Recent posts is good but I noticed a problem when threads go over 1 page. The links to topics on the second (for example) page on "recent posts" doesn't take you to the second page, it puts you at the top of the first page. Not sure if it's a known issue.

The comment number shows up at the end of the "reply to this comment" link. You'd still have to put the right URL together to link to the comment, though.

The subject of each post is a link to itself. Just right-click on it and copy the location.

These links were only added since Greg posted his question ;)

Sorry, I didn't realize this was a very old thread with some new posts. One thing I like about Slashdot is that at some point they "archive" threads and don't allow any more posts.

Leaving comments open has been a deliberate policy. Stories on LtU can still be relevant after years, whereas articles on Slashdot are usually obsolete by the time you've read down to the troll comments at the bottom of the page (If you don't believe me, Netcraft confirms this ;)

Maybe make the older stories have a background that turns yellow after six months, orange after a year, brownish after three years ... just so you'd get the hint that you're replying to a somewhat sun-baked thread. Or use shades of green, to imply mold?

I'll keep that in mind...

Amusingly enough, I wrote about this idea agre ago, in a totally different context.

I'd have to dig back through old email for the exact reasons, but we considered Slash and rejected it when we moved the site from its old home on weblogs.com.

The general consensus seems to be that as one of the oldest weblog systems, the Slash codebase is a little iffy and difficult to deal with, and more recent systems have surpassed it in various ways. Probably for these kinds of reasons, it doesn't seem to be very actively developed any more, judging by emails on the development mailing list and by the frequency of posts on slashcode.com. The sense I have is that development effort has moved on to other platforms, and that Slash isn't going anywhere.

Often I click on a forum with several new posts. If I read reply to the first new post, I'm taken to another window, when I get back to read rest of the new messages, the *** have disappeared! Not sure how that would be fixed though, perhaps have the 'reply' link open a new window? The 'recent posts' feature mitigates that problem though.

I recommend right-clicking on the Reply link and opening it in a new tab or new window. :)

That would be nice for reading LtU on PalmOS as well.

--Shae Erisson - ScannedInAvian.com

We could set up a theme designed for portable devices. Removing the right hand sidebar from that theme would be easy enough, and CSS customizations would be possible. I'll add this to the list.

Right now I'm reading LtU on my Nokia 770, and I very much wish for a theme with only one sidebar. Even a quick hack that kills the right sidebar would make reading easier.

I'll see what I can do.

The *s is searchable, boldness isn't. Combine the features, sure, don't ditch the *s

I'll add it to the todo list for the drupal upgrade.

Lambda/drupaul doesn't seem to like the word "javascript" in links in comments, so I can't make a live bookmarklet. But if you put text like this:

paranoiascript:(function(){var i,x; for(i=0;x=document.getElementsByTagName(%22textarea%22)[i];++i){x.cols +=50;}})()

into the "Location" field of a bookmark in your bookmarks toolbar, then you'll be able to click it to widen text areas in almost any web app. (I've only tried in Firefox.) (You'll have to s/paranoia/java/.)

Wow, bookmarklets are a neat hack. This is the first I've heard of them. I feel so behind the times :)