Facebook-like Feed?

[oshyan (Oshyan Greene)]

@sam

So I guess people are asking … “please sir, can I have but on steroids please?”

Sort of?

@sam

• Just kill the topic page in this mode … we don’t need no topic page … “topic page+list” all-in-one is where it is at. A single page for “topic+topic list” is what I want.

Not… quite? I’m not sure. Do you mean, as Jordan mentioned above, replies without context? If so, then I can only answer for myself, but no, that’s not what I want.

@sam

• Effectively let me interact with all these random topics from 1 interface, composer needs to work on topic list.

Yes!

@sam

• Use some algorithm (either I control or admin controls) vs simply ordering on latest

Maybe. The “algorithm” is for me less about “what shows first” and more about “what shows at all, but in a single interface”. I am in fact one of those people who would prefer my Facebook feed be ordered strictly by date, and FB has an option for that, but you have to enable it every time you visit.

@sam

• Yeah… let’s keep “unread” / “new” / “read tracking” all working as well… cause we need it.

You manage this for topic reading just fine. If the posts are auto-expanded, at least to some reasonable limit of length (with e.g. a “read more”), is it still more difficult to track read status than in a topic?

@sam

1. I am mixing topics and posts in 1 interface, you got to come up with some wonderful way of collapsing content… so please do that as well.

Yes, probably. I have some ideas, probably not ideal, but for example 1st post (with content collapsed at some reasonable limit with a “read more” which takes you into the topic) plus latest response at the bottom of and “attached” to it.

@sam

There are months … maybe years in getting an interface like this going, it is not something that is easy to refine or design.

Fair enough!

@sam

We have tons of other significantly higher priority exploratory work I would look at … exploring, prior to this giant can of snakes.

Also fair enough, I suppose. Then again this could be a significant driver of adoption for a whole new market. Although as I think I’ve been coming to realize more of late, Discourse’s core market and revenue model may simply be oriented too much around customers way beyond the people I interact with for my particular interests, desires, and ideas to be taken into account from a business standpoint. And… I get that. It makes me sad, but I get it.

@sam

As sidebar improves and gets rolled out more widely, we will allow for other “custom buckets of topics” directly accessible from sidebar.

Hooray, that’s exciting to hear!

@sam

All of this discussion though feels way off from what the OP is asking for.

Perhaps. You’re right that what shows up in the “feed” view is somewhat tangential (although critical to adoption, IMO). But I am definitely also strongly in favor of the core mechanic OP is requesting, and I think it goes hand-in-hand with the adjustments to the “personal view” I’m also advocating for above. Now if some of that needs to be split into its own topic, that’s totally fair. Maybe I went on too much of a tangent (I do that sometimes ). But I do think they’re interrelated topics, at the very least. And there are a number of other connected topics around here too, I’m often not quite sure where to focus these kinds of thoughts.