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DeveloperPermalink Reply by R_Lefebvre on November 29, 2011 at 11:52am

I would also like to know this.  One of my frustrations has been this very fact, that it's so difficult to follow conversations, especially when they get big, and people are responding to comments several pages back in a thread.

 

The only solution I've found so far is to Subscribe to a thread, and you get emailed every single reply on that thread.  I don't find it's a great solution, but it works.

 

I really would prefer if this forum was just like all the other forums on the web today.  I know that they have weaknesses in that all replies go inline, instead of being able to reply to a specific reply.  But it is much easier to see all the replies, and most people are used to quoting something if they are commenting on something way back in the thread.

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Sgt Ric on November 29, 2011 at 12:16pm

There are many forum sites that follow the same format as this.
It is quite straightforward once you realize that people may not be responding to the original post, but rather to one of the earlier posts.

The other format that shows posts only in the order posted, does not allow people to directly comment to a specific person, only to the main point.

Personally I prefer the existing format because of this, and once a person underestands the comment flexibility, they will too.
When posting, make sure which comment you are wanting to repond to by following the indents.

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Permalink Reply by u4eake on November 29, 2011 at 12:28pm

The replying is not really the problem.  The problem is that you miss out on a huge amount of info, because you never realised it was there.  If someone replies to the post on the last page, and there has been valuable info posted on page 20 of a 30 page thread since your last visit, how can you find that valuable info ? (other then going through a hundred emails)

With the classical forum style that's easy : you just scroll back to the last post you ever read and scan through the posts from there.  Here you'd have to rescan the whole thread.

I agree that this forum format is not the best for spreading info.

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by R_Lefebvre on November 29, 2011 at 1:41pm

Yes, exactly.  And in response to Sgt. Ric's comments:

 

I've been active on (addicted to) forums for a long, long time, since the dialup days even.  I've never seen a forum like this.  In the old days, forums were similar to this in that threads could have branches.  But the threads displayed only the headings for each reply, you had to click it to see the body of the reply.  So at least there was a chance of the entire thread tree appearing on one screen, and you could see if there was a new reply in an old branch.

 

Here, there are no headings.  If somebody goes back and adds a reply to an old branch with useful info, probably 99% of people will never see it unless they have a lot of time on their hands to go reading through old pages over and over and over.

 

With UBB style forums, most people simply use the "Quote" function to make a reply to an old comment.  But generally speaking the conversation proceeds in a linear direction.  Here's it's all over the place.

 

Another problem is the use of commenting in "groups".  Like the Trad. Heli. group.  People are commenting there and there's somewhere else I need to look.  People asking questions in the comments of the wiki page, etc.  I'm just overwhelmed with communication and I can't manage it properly.

 

I try to use the "My Discussions" link at the top, but even that's not great.

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by R_Lefebvre on November 29, 2011 at 1:58pm

Perfect example, Rz_Ten just put some useful info in a reply on page 18 of a 26 page thread.  The ONLY way I saw it was I happened to catch it on "Recent Activity" in the main diydrones page.

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