What is the difference between Dismiss Posts and Dismiss Topics?
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Dismiss Posts does not alter your tracking of said topic, it simply removes those posts/topics from the Unread tab temporarily. Dismiss Topics will remove your tracking of those topics, so they will effectively never appear in the unread tab again.
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We should update the tooltip for these buttons if possible to capture what @cpradio just said @techapj
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I just want to get rid of having 2 buttons, instead just have the word “Dismiss”
And then open a modal
[ ] Stop tracking these topics
Dismiss topics
I think it is a far clearer approach and a lot less error prone.
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Sure, sounds good to me, make it so!
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Just made it like so:
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/4a880a758f33c32da0e59d005de7543d470adafa
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I must say, I’m definitely not a fan of this new dialog. 
I liked the simplicity of the two buttons. Now I have to
- click on Dismiss
- move the mouse to the middle of the screen
- mentally ignore the dialog text
- click the Dismiss Posts or Dismiss Topics button
I guess I’ll have to remember one more keyboard shortcut. 
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Why not just rename the buttons?
- Mark posts as read
- Stop tracking these topics
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What do those words even mean? Just a bunch of jargon. Why would we put giant, confusing buttons filled with jargon anywhere in Discourse?
instead, there can be one simple button, which teaches you the difference Just In Time when you need to know.
And @gerhard there is a ton of usability research from Neilsen et al that shows users don’t mind clicking a number of times, if each step is clear and unambiguous. Also known as the Don’t Make Me Think rule.
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To me “Dismiss” is more jargon than what I proposed, but that’s probably got to do with what you’re used to. I agree with you that it’s not desirable to have big buttons plastered all over the UI.
Perhaps icons are better to convey the meaning? Icons are used in more places, and I think (but I don’t have data to back it up) that usage of those buttons is relatively low. Icons that come to mind are an opened envelope (“all read”) and an eye with a diagonal line through it (stop watching)… just my 2 cents.
I can see why. When it’s intuitive it flows with the consciousness itself.
But for those power users, the extra click grates. If my opinion is worth anything, then let it be known I am willing to sacrifice some mouse clicks if it means a larger group of people have an easier time using the ui. And that goes for not only learning it, but enjoying it too because it makes sense to the basic logic of their mind.
Also, in more immediate reflection, maybe the ui can also have hints to the keyboard shortcuts too. That is, beyond the keyboard shortcut modal.
I thought the idea was to get away from two buttons and get to a single button with a checkbox (based on @sam’s mockup).
As right now, we’ve just added a new button without really improving it (sure another line of verbiage was added that would have ideally appeared as a tooltip prior to the modal window change).
I also realize this is bordering bike-shedding, but seeing how I haven’t had a problem with how it was before, the new version doesn’t really bother me, but then again, I’m not the target audience since I understood them previously. I do think Sam’s mockup would be a bit easier for typical users, as right now I just have two buttons with equal importance that I have to read thoroughly so I click the right one.
Another thought.
Should the Dismiss button have an ellipsis after it (since it opens a menu/modal)? (I feel like there are examples of that elsewhere, but I struggling to remember where)
Also the tooltip on the Dismiss button is broken.
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Good points on both, @techapj please add the ellipsis to indicate the button will not take immediate action, and let’s fix the tooltip.
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I improved this per:
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/54da4610249b01fa7757b9242b7a0e58d00f9a32
I think the copy is good here and there is a lot less thinking needed.
@codinghorror feel free to improve on copy.
I like that there is just one button now to pick, worst case if you are bad in the reading department, you can not do any damage.
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What bugs me about this is that you are forcing dismiss unread posts on the user as the de facto default. Is that correct? It means they will get nagged again in the future about these topics. I am not sure there is a correct default here, and I kind of object to forcing the nagger default on users.
I think “give me some breathing room” is a much safer default than “make this go away forever”
I would expect the “make this go away forever” to be an edge case and it is also quite anti-community.
Whenever I use this button it is only to get breathing room, not to get rid of stuff forever.
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