The discussion revolves around moving title icons, such as locks, to the side. erlend_sh proposes pushing all titles to the right, creating more alignment and reducing noise in the topic list. However, codinghorror points out that the suggested space is used for checkboxes when selecting topics for group actions, which is only visible to staff.
As an alternative, erlend_sh suggests moving post status to the tags position, but notes that it looks isolated in that location. erlend_sh also acknowledges that misalignment can help emphasize special status, but believes it’s too emphasized and negatively impacts the topic list’s appearance.
Just playing with an idea. What the topic title says isn’t technically what’s been changed, because what I’m actually doing is pushing all titles to the right. Here’s a simple before and after:
There’s ample room for it on desktop, and I feel like it makes the topic list considerably less noisy when there’s more alignment. I know it’s been argued in the past that the misalignment helps emphasise the special status (e.g. locked), and it does, but my opinion is that it’s too emphasised this way, and has a negative impact on the complete appearance of the topic list.
In the rare case of >1 icon, like with a bookmarked or solved topic that’s also closed, then sure, misalign it.
That column is used for the checkbox when selecting topics for a group action, though. Only visible to staff of course.
Personally I also think that makes them stand out a lot more, which isn’t really what you want for a close. Might be a decent argument for putting the new/unread indicator there, though, since you do want those to stand out.
