In #38607, discourse-boost plugin is introduced, and there seems to be something that might be better to optimize for.
On mobile view, the boost takes up too much space. When there are boosts up to 50 or 100, the whole webpage will be flooded by the boosts.
Maybe add a fold to that, limiting the default view of boost to a line will be better? And users who want to see all boosts can click “expand” button on the right upper corner.
Second is that it might be better to add a quote button to the boost, so that users can reply to it without using functions like @ or else.
Hmm, is a boost something a person can reply to? That would seem to introduce a whole new tree of mini-replies. It seems to me to be a disadvantage of the boost idea: another place to have a conversation, another place to look for conversations, another choice as to which kind of conversation to have.
Just like quoting a normal reply will be okay, and the user who boost will receive notification about that, then the users can just use normal reply to communicate.
I believe this is absolutely necessary. Under normal circumstances, a single window height can display four or five pieces of useful information; however, Boost—even with the minimum limit set to 50 items—manages to display only one or two. This severely disrupts visual focus.
Indeed the name is confusing, and having a list of “Agree” from dozens of different people do not seem like a thoughtful use of electricity.
I can see a lot of negative “boosts” coming in, like “Meh”, “Duh”, “Boring”, “Pfff”, “Mmmm” and other stuff that really does not bring anything to the conversation. In a recent community I have set up, I started a topic explaining why the collection of reactions were chosen, inviting conversation, and explaining that no negative reaction was provided because we think that if you have some negative reaction to a post, you should take the time to explain the perceived issue, so that the community can actually solve it, rather than remain in a limbo.
I agree with @Lilly that this feature does not seem to bring anything useful to thoughtful conversation. I am starting to worry about the future of Discourse if precious developer time is spent on new features that would hinder conversation and pull the quality of discussion and thought downwards rather than helping the online discourse to enrich writers and readers. One might argue that it depends on the community, but really, it all comes down to how much raw materials and water we use for all this, and whether it is worth the move; is this for mass consumption and debilitating people, or is this to make the world a better place?
As a company, we encourage a high degree of autonomy among teams and individuals.
People have a fair bit of control over how they spend their own precious time.
As humans in this planet it’s the most precious resource we have and it first belongs to each of us as individuals.
Yes, we live in a world of complex social relationships where we trade our time for various things and cede a fair bit of control over it to the companies we work for, but we don’t do so entirely.
As such, we have a lot of discussions like this one to feel out what has value to others, so we can independently make those assessments in alignment with what we discover.
I agree this feature isn’t for everyone, and I had similar gut reactions to it that are being shared here. But I also see the fun people are having with it elsewhere and it feels like a net positive in certain communities.
So I support the independent exploration that has gotten it to this point, even if it isn’t what I would personally stack rank at the top of a centralized product backlog.
You won’t need to use this if you don’t want to. Not all discourse features or plugins are made for everyone and I think that’s fine.
However, if you’d like to use them:
Boosts will be moderate-able. You can also just delete them as admin and deal with the offending user.
Maybe? Maybe not. I think that fun features are totally appropriate and not all things need to have a pragmatic goal other than “fun”.
I get where you are coming from but I think Silicon Valley has made itself seem more important than it really is. The world’s problems will not be solved by software and this type of concern while warranted I don’t think is beneficial to a discussion on a fun feature in an open source platform that is a drop in the ocean compared to the content that exists in the world.
My forum doesn’t use gifs, badges or gamification. My users are locked to TL1. Even reactions are really under used. All those are excluded because practically no one likes those — but as we all propably know fair share of forums and social media platforms are filled with topics never ending ”discussion” of gifs, and because I don’t allow such low level posts, those users don’t do anything else than reading.
Well, gifs or boosts aren’t discussion and makes everything very restless[1]. But that is only my opinion and my active users are seeing things similar way.
I understand why, propably quite many so called non-tech forums, would like to use boosts. And that’s fine as long two obvious things happens:
admin can disable boosts
boosts as a system doesn’t break things when disabled
What I would like to see, in the role of user, would be ability to hide zero content, like gifs or boosts, totally.
If we don’t keep mentioning it, erosion will make those concerns disappear soon enough. If we keep mentioning it, maybe next time developers who want to have fun will find features that actually keep the energy bill down, and the community usefulness and fun up.
Bombs and corruption dominate the news. Yet we keep writing code, playing games, smiling at each other and throwing verses through the night. Being a drop in the ocean is a universal fact, and we should be proud of every little dents we make every day into the global doomsday narrative of malice and carelessness. Because we keep doing it, in the end, this global narrative might even change for something our children’s great-grand-children are happy to live with.
I have a use case where something like this would be a nice addition - our community screenshots megathread. We don’t allow the usual replies without screenshots there, but people still want to comment. Previously i experimented with QA plugin in an attempt to bring “second level” to the thread, but it lacks needed customization for this.
But for the rest of the forum? I’m afraid it looks too cluttered.
I’ve used Basecamp quite a bit, and have found the boosts much less helpful than reactions - to the point that when I return to Discourse I breath a sigh of relief. Why? Friction. Friction in reacting, and friction while reading. Basically, they make me feel fatigued.
I do think there might be a niche of a boost to:
Extend a reaction where this is helpful (like @Canapin’s example)
As an alternative to an ultra-short post (which automatically prompts the user to do this)
But this would need to be implemented very slickly in order to keep the UX easy for both the responder and the reader.
But I feel pretty positive that that talking about bombs, water pollution, and erosion is neither a fun nor beneficial way to discuss a software feature on a forum centered around the software.
I personally find the boost feature fun. I’m happy we aren’t forcing this on anyone, and hopefully (eventually) we will give more options to communities to let their users express/boost/react in ways that work best for them.
One might argue that it depends on the community, but really, it all comes down to how much raw materials and water we use for all this, and whether it is worth the move; is this for mass consumption and debilitating people, or is this to make the world a better place?