Make an experiment

[Roland Karlsson]

Lets make an experiment!

Take a look at the main thread in this forum

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/68486483

It has 224 posts right now. It is about different things, on or off topic.

Switch back and forth between threaded view and flat view.

• In threaded view you can easily scroll a thread view of all posts. See how they relate. Following subthreads. You do get a nice overview and a method for following thoughts. But, you have to click to open the actual posts. You also have to scroll to find all unread posts.
• In flat view you see 20 open posts in time order. You can then read those in chronological order, open 20 new posts by clicking. Its like a feed where you can see a number of unrelated posts. I do not know how ro see if posts are unread and I have no clue how they are marked as read. I know that you can jump to the first unread post though. Seems a bit too primitive for my taste. I guess the only efficient usage is to jump to first unread and then read everything newer. Trying to jump here and there will not really work.

• Threaded view is easy if you want to follow subthreads. It is also easy to know what you have read and also easy to skip (for you) uninteresting subthreads. It is also a more compact representation. It includes some scrolling to find unread posts though.
• I have to admit that I do not know how to efficiently use Flat View and I am amazed that so many users use this primitive implementation. It is not good.
• But the function of DPReview flat view is not interesting really. XenForo probably has a much better one. Or?

 

[Mark Ransom]

Lets make an experiment!

Take a look at the main thread in this forum

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/68486483

It has 224 posts right now. It is about different things, on or off topic.

Switch back and forth between threaded view and flat view.

• In threaded view you can easily scroll a thread view of all posts. See how they relate. Following subthreads. You do get a nice overview and a method for following thoughts. But, you have to click to open the actual posts. You also have to scroll to find all unread posts.
• In flat view you see 20 open posts in time order. You can then read those in chronological order, open 20 new posts by clicking. Its like a feed where you can see a number of unrelated posts. I do not know how ro see if posts are unread and I have no clue how they are marked as read. I know that you can jump to the first unread post though. Seems a bit too primitive for my taste. I guess the only efficient usage is to jump to first unread and then read everything newer. Trying to jump here and there will not really work.

• Threaded view is easy if you want to follow subthreads. It is also easy to know what you have read and also easy to skip (for you) uninteresting subthreads. It is also a more compact representation. It includes some scrolling to find unread posts though.
• I have to admit that I do not know how to efficiently use Flat View and I am amazed that so many users use this primitive implementation. It is not good.
• But the function of DPReview flat view is not interesting really. XenForo probably has a much better one. Or?

There's no point to an experiment unless it gives you actionable data.

Those of us who like threaded view already know why. Those who use flat view demonstrate the truth in the old saying "ignorance is bliss". Getting them to appreciate threaded view just days before it goes away is a cruel joke. Probably not possible in any case.

 

[Mathew Anderson]

Thanks Rolan for the continued ideas and feedback, but the topic has been completely discussed many times now, and we've given our reasons for why and how we're moving forward. I encourage everyone to review those threads if they want to know more.

To keep the forum changes relevant moving forward, We're going to lock this thread and ask everyone to refrain from creating new threads on the same topic.

Thanks