Why Taiga works as a forum and not as an instant messaging client, and how it could

2010-10-07 10:13:17 am

red chamber dream

this is another thing where it's tough to tell because it's like ... how much should we make it like irc while also retaining all forum functionality? that's really important to me i guess

arkarian

2010-10-07 10:13:32 am

red chamber dream

because to be honest, chat mode isn't going to be used by very many people

arkarian

2010-10-07 10:13:58 am

red chamber dream

although when we do irc integration maybe it will be ...

nate

2010-10-07 10:15:24 am

imagine every forum in the world running tf

nate

2010-10-07 10:15:39 am

just by sheer numbers alone there will be millions of people using chat mode

arkarian

2010-10-07 10:15:44 am

red chamber dream

yeah heh

nate

2010-10-07 10:15:51 am

though having said that they would be able to tell you what they want at that point so it would become moot

arkarian

2010-10-07 10:25:25 am

red chamber dream

i came in urmom's boot

Poision Envy

Edit history:

Poision Envy: 2010-10-07 12:09:31 pm

Poision Envy: 2010-10-07 12:09:15 pm

2010-10-07 12:08:50 pm

Club 27 Goals

I'd love a chat mode that is as minimalistic as the one Kenny posted, something like an "IRC mode" or something, idk. You guys already talked about how it would complicate things like editing and quoting something that crossed my mind is that if you had something similar to 4chan's "quoting" system where if you click the post number it creates a link to that post, so instead of having to have the full post quoted you could just have something like
@354: Yeah I agree.

eg:

[21]arkarian: so guys
[22]arkarian: what do you think of metroid
[23]arkarian: i think eh's a pretty cool guy
[24]JaggerG: @22: I prefer Halo.
[25]JaggerG: eh doesnt afraid of anything.
[26]Poision Envy: @24: Zelda is better because he has a sword
[27]arkarian: i'm a sexy beast

I dunno, just something I thought of just now, I didn't really think about it too much sooo there's probably some issues I haven't thought of. Only thing I thought of right away is if you only wanted to quote PART of a post it would be annoying, and anyone that isn't in IRC chat mode, it would look weird. (unless when you make a thread you can force it to be in IRC mode regardless, but that would bring up problems as well).

PS, Halo also uses a sword, but Zelda would totally beat Halo in a sword fight. Just saying.

I'd love a chat mode that is as minimalistic as the one Kenny posted, something like an "IRC mode" or something, idk. You guys already talked about how it would complicate things like editing and quoting something that crossed my mind is that if you had something similar to 4chan's "quoting" system where if you click the post number it creates a link to that post, so instead of having to have the full post quoted you could just have something like 
@354: Yeah I agree.

eg:

[21][color="green"]arkarian[/color]: so guys
[22][color="green"]arkarian[/color]: what do you think of metroid
[23][color="green"]arkarian[/color]: i think eh's a pretty cool guy
[24][color="blue"]JaggerG[/color]: [u]@22[/u]: I prefer Halo.
[25][color="blue"]JaggerG[/color]: eh doesnt afraid of anything.
[26]Poision Envy: [u]@24[/u]: Zelda is better because he has a sword
[27][color="green"]arkarian[/color]: i'm a sexy beast

I dunno, just something I thought of just now, I didn't really think about it too much sooo there's probably some issues I haven't thought of. Only thing I thought of right away is if you only wanted to quote PART of a post it would be annoying, and anyone that isn't in IRC chat mode, it would look weird. (unless when you make a thread you can force it to be in IRC mode regardless, but that would bring up problems as well).

PS, Halo also uses a sword, but Zelda would totally beat Halo in a sword fight. Just saying.

Flip

2010-10-07 06:35:03 pm

1-Up

Huh, a lot of interesting stuff has been brought up here. Keep in mind that my opinions are going to be a little more sda-centric.

I think implementing a chat option for threads that will tend themselves to irc-type discussion is a good idea. I'm not involved with the production of tf and so obviously I can't speak for the mission in terms of what you guys are trying to achieve, but it looks to me that you're trying to create the perfect mixture of irc chat and "typical" forum use in one easy to use, intuitive package.

To me you can look at the relationship between irc-chat type discussions and "typical" forum discussions as a spectrum. As posts become generally shorter and more, ugh, I hate to say this, chat like, they tend towards the chat side of the spectrum. Threads with longer, paragraph style posts fall onto the spectrum on the "typical" forum side. Note that I'm not saying that there isn't overlap. There is certainly a time and place for long responses on a #irc channel and a utility for short posts on a forum. The proposed "chat mode" is a feature that I would consider to fall on the far side of the spectrum. Basically an irc channel within the forum.

If we consider the streaming topics found here and at sda, those threads might benefit from an irc-style construction. posts squeezed tight together like in k.man's example. Honestly in that setup, there isn't really a need for post editing imo, but you start to get away from "typical" forum use if you take that away. Also quoting could be done in terms of what we already see on irc (copy-paste) or like Poison Envy suggested. People get by fine w/o editing posts in irc channels, because they can just correct themselves with a new post.

In terms of paging, is it possible to construct a system where posts scroll off the top of the post-area instead of creating a new page. Perhaps paging can be constructed by date? I dunno, this last part is really off the top of my head.

Huh, a lot of interesting stuff has been brought up here.  Keep in mind that my opinions are going to be a little more sda-centric.

I think implementing a chat option for threads that will tend themselves to irc-type discussion is a good idea.  I'm not involved with the production of tf and so obviously I can't speak for the mission in terms of what you guys are trying to achieve, but it looks to me that you're trying to create the perfect mixture of irc chat and "typical" forum use in one easy to use, intuitive package.

To me you can look at the relationship between irc-chat type discussions and "typical" forum discussions as a spectrum.  As posts become [i]generally[/i] shorter and more, ugh, I hate to say this, [i]chat like[/i], they tend towards the chat side of the spectrum.  Threads with longer, paragraph style posts fall onto the spectrum on the "typical" forum side.  Note that I'm not saying that there isn't overlap.  There is certainly a time and place for long responses on a #irc channel and a utility for short posts on a forum.  The proposed "chat mode" is a feature that I would consider to fall on the far side of the spectrum.  Basically an irc channel within the forum.

If we consider the streaming topics found here and at sda, those threads might benefit from an irc-style construction.  posts squeezed tight together like in k.man's example.  Honestly in that setup, there isn't really a need for post editing imo, but you start to get away from "typical" forum use if you take that away.  Also quoting could be done in terms of what we already see on irc (copy-paste) or like Poison Envy suggested.  People get by fine w/o editing posts in irc channels, because they can just correct themselves with a new post.

In terms of paging, is it possible to construct a system where posts scroll off the top of the post-area instead of creating a new page.  Perhaps paging can be constructed by date?  I dunno, this last part is really off the top of my head.

tomatobob

2010-10-07 08:03:58 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

I question the need for quoting in the chat threads, I guess there is a bit of a problem with making sure the right person sees your post since it doesn't nameflash like irc does, but just typing "ark:" or whatever before your thought would seem to be just as effective for the purposes of a stream thread or something. But that's not really an environment friendly to more drawn out thoughts, by the time you've finished typing whatever you were going to say will often no longer be relevant to what's going on, due to the pace of the chat or the posting delay because the thread is eating your computer's memory like a bag of potato chips. This was kind of a problem in Paraxade's 20% Prime stream where people were trying to ask, I think it was Tyzr, about something and by the time he could comment not only was it no longer an issue, but it was pretty much impossible for him to fund what it was they wanted him to respond to because it was buried about a hundred pages back. A forum isn't quite a substitute for chat logs, bringing every post onto one page would probably crash browsers so you're left paging back and ctrl f-ing each page for what you want and god help you if you're trying to do that during an ongoing chat because even if you do find it there's no guarantee that it hasn't been addressed already while you were looking.

Collapsing the posts down more would help a bit, no quote or edit, start the post next to the username instead of under it, just format the whole thing like an im client if possible. The problem with trying to make threads that are going to be fast moving still seem sort of forum like is that you're getting the more conversational nature of chat but you also get a sort of bulky looking spam thread. You almost have to remove the temptation to make a longer posts in those sorts of threads, there's only so much space to work with and you just can't read anything more than a small paragraph because the next post is gonna push it up the page, as will the next and so on, there's no time for that. Next thing you know you've got this page that is actually six, you've finished reading one post only to find that there are now over a hundred more to read, and your browser has stopped adding new ones altogether so you have to refresh. And now you're back out of the loop.

You're running into the 'jack of all trades master of none' thing, Taiga can be forum, but it can also be like a chat client. Taiga can be a chat client, but it's also kinda like a forum. And it does forum a lot better than chat client, but the chatty nature can get in the way of proper conversation at times. I mean, shit, look at that anime thread, it's basically unreadable- not due to the subject but due to the fact that it is literally four people typing a couple words

like each

fucking post

it's like

goddamn dude,

fukkin

make a point already.

God.

It's like dude

what

why does this need to be

fucking eight

or nine or someshit posts.

Seriously.

Why.

It's not even conversational, no one talks like that. Even irc isn't that bad if only because more people are talking so breaking up a thought in to smaller bits kind of makes sense, but in what is supposedly a thread where people can share thoughts on their favorite animes it's pretty much impossible to get any sort of read on what's going on because half of each page is one dude making one post over the course of twenty. The social topic is bad enough in that regard, but at least there's precedent for decent posts there and from time to time the discussion can be pretty good if only because the people who tend to use it are used to it being a forum thread.

I mean, I understand that the chat type function needs to be tested and that thread provides a good place for it, but it does so the inherent weakness of irc type threads. It's just a pain to follow, they look like either a cluttered irc window or a contentless thread, it doesn't feel like you can go back and drudge up something from a couple pages ago because the threads on to something else entirely and it's just not worth the trouble. The advantage of a forum is that you should be able to do that, it's a place where people can collect their thoughts on specific subjects and bounce ideas around. Chat probably can do that but in practice it doesn't.

I like the idea of introducing some more irc like concepts to a forum, the realtime updating and quicker posting features are nice and actually help conversations, but I'm not sure trying to really combine the two concepts is a good idea. They are two different beasts, people are going to tend to use forums like forums, we've seen that here and at sda with Taiga. It's pretty much nate and ark using it like irc outside of steam threads, it just seems to me that the users have sort of dictated what Taiga is at this point, a forum. If you really want it to be more like irc you'd have to basically make every thread a stream thread. It seems more about the environment than anything, stream threads pretty much demand the more rapid response posting or idle chatter while the stream is at a kind of lull. Regular threads don't have that, they look like threads so they are typically treated as such. Like it or not it looks like you're going to have to separate the chat and forum if you want both to feature here, you aren't going to seamlessly combine them no matter who much you want to, not unless you find a way to kill every other chat client and/or forum software in existence first to the extent that people just don't know any other way, at least.

I question the need for quoting in the chat threads, I guess there is a bit of a problem with making sure the right person sees your post since it doesn't nameflash like irc does, but just typing "ark:" or whatever before your thought would seem to be just as effective for the purposes of a stream thread or something. But that's not really an environment friendly to more drawn out thoughts, by the time you've finished typing whatever you were going to say will often no longer be relevant to what's going on, due to the pace of the chat or the posting delay because the thread is eating your computer's memory like a bag of potato chips. This was kind of a problem in Paraxade's 20% Prime stream where people were trying to ask, I think it was Tyzr, about something and by the time he could comment not only was it no longer an issue, but it was pretty much impossible for him to fund what it was they wanted him to respond to because it was buried about a hundred pages back. A forum isn't quite a substitute for chat logs, bringing every post onto one page would probably crash browsers so you're left paging back and ctrl f-ing each page for what you want and god help you if you're trying to do that during an ongoing chat because even if you do find it there's no guarantee that it hasn't been addressed already while you were looking.

Collapsing the posts down more would help a bit, no quote or edit, start the post next to the username instead of under it, just format the whole thing like an im client if possible. The problem with trying to make threads that are going to be fast moving still seem sort of forum like is that you're getting the more conversational nature of chat but you also get a sort of bulky looking spam thread. You almost have to remove the temptation to make a longer posts in those sorts of threads, there's only so much space to work with and you just can't read anything more than a small paragraph because the next post is gonna push it up the page, as will the next and so on, there's no time for that. Next thing you know you've got this page that is actually six, you've finished reading one post only to find that there are now over a hundred more to read, and your browser has stopped adding new ones altogether so you have to refresh. And now you're back out of the loop.

You're running into the 'jack of all trades master of none' thing, Taiga [i]can[/i] be forum, but it can also be like a chat client. Taiga [i]can[/i] be a chat client, but it's also kinda like a forum. And it does forum a lot better than chat client, but the chatty nature can get in the way of proper conversation at times. I mean, shit, look at that anime thread, it's basically unreadable- not due to the subject but due to the fact that it is literally four people typing a couple words

like each

fucking post

it's like

goddamn dude,

fukkin

make a point already.

God.

It's like dude

[i]what[/i]

why does this need to be

fucking eight

or nine or someshit posts.

Seriously.

Why.

It's not even conversational, no one talks like that. Even irc isn't that bad if only because more people are talking so breaking up a thought in to smaller bits kind of makes sense, but in what is supposedly a thread where people can share thoughts on their favorite animes it's pretty much impossible to get any sort of read on what's going on because half of each page is one dude making one post over the course of twenty. The social topic is bad enough in that regard, but at least there's precedent for decent posts there and from time to time the discussion can be pretty good if only because the people who tend to use it are used to it being a forum thread.

I mean, I understand that the chat type function needs to be tested and that thread provides a good place for it, but it does so the inherent weakness of irc type threads. It's just a pain to follow, they look like either a cluttered irc window or a contentless thread, it doesn't feel like you can go back and drudge up something from a couple pages ago because the threads on to something else entirely and it's just not worth the trouble. The advantage of a forum is that you should be able to do that, it's a place where people can collect their thoughts on specific subjects and bounce ideas around. Chat probably can do that but in practice it doesn't.

I like the idea of introducing some more irc like concepts to a forum, the realtime updating and quicker posting features are nice and actually help conversations, but I'm not sure trying to really combine the two concepts is a good idea. They are two different beasts, people are going to tend to use forums like forums, we've seen that here and at sda with Taiga. It's pretty much nate and ark using it like irc outside of steam threads, it just seems to me that the users have sort of dictated what Taiga is at this point, a forum. If you really want it to be more like irc you'd have to basically make every thread a stream thread. It seems more about the environment than anything, stream threads pretty much demand the more rapid response posting or idle chatter while the stream is at a kind of lull. Regular threads don't have that, they look like threads so they are typically treated as such. Like it or not it looks like you're going to have to separate the chat and forum if you want both to feature here, you aren't going to seamlessly combine them no matter who much you want to, not unless you find a way to kill every other chat client and/or forum software in existence first to the extent that people just don't know any other way, at least.

arkarian

2010-10-07 08:08:07 pm

red chamber dream

the thing is when a bunch of us are talking in the anime thread like we are right now, it works great. it's really awesome, just like irc except there's all this cool stuff like avatars. so it appears that the problem comes later when people are trying to read it all. guess i'm not sure what to say about that ... just because it's a forum doesn't mean you have to read it all right?

tomatobob

2010-10-07 08:22:59 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

It is generally good practice to read through threads you want to respond to. In this way you can insure that you are not covering ground that has been covered well already, it also helps one to familiarize oneself with just what the fuck is happening. Even if you don't intend to read all of it, asking a person to read through 500 pages of nothing is a bit much, it would be nice to be able to see something of use in a thread.

And no way in hell does it move fast enough to require pointlessly extended posts. The speed of conversation should encourage one to collect their thoughts quickly and sum it in one quick post rather than making six to say something that could have been said in a single line of text. It's just annoying to read. It's like talking to someone who pauses after every other word for no reason, you don't want to say anything because you can never be sure if their actually done talking.

And it still looks like ass even in chat mode. So much wasted space.

arkarian

2010-10-07 08:25:27 pm

red chamber dream

Quote from tomatobob:

It is generally good practice to read through threads you want to respond to.

yeah that's exactly what i'm talking about. that's absolutely true for other forum software but tf doesn't (always) work like that. i don't think it's a good idea to read through the anime thread because there's so much stuff in there that's unrelated to anything else. it's like an irc channel, and no one regularly reads all the logs of an irc channel; that would be ridiculous.

so maybe having a separate "chat mode" wouldn't be so bad after all. at the very least it would encourage people to not feel like they have to read everything in the thread before responding: after all, it's a chat.

Poision Envy

2010-10-07 08:35:13 pm

Club 27 Goals

I think the thing I like most about Taiga is just the fact that as soon as there is a new post it shows it, and doesn't require you to just refresh all the time to see if there's something new. Andrew and I were talking on facebook's private messaging thing, and one of the things that came up was how it would be a lot nicer if facebook used Taiga's thing to just display the new messages automatically (we were actually considering on just taking the conversation to a private thread here, lol). But when threads automatically display new posts, it means that people can read them and respond more quickly, which then makes it more like an instant-messaging thing.

Oh, in response to tbob talking about how annoying it is to have 6 posts in a row by the same person, forming one or two sentences, would it be possible for you guys to make it so if someone posts, and they have the last post in the thread, it would just automatically add it to the end of their previous post?

arkarian

2010-10-07 08:36:47 pm

red chamber dream

that's something i've seen in some aim clients. we actually talked about that a lot during initial development -- "auto edit if the last post is yours"

arkarian

2010-10-07 08:37:05 pm

red chamber dream

maybe that's an idea we need to start thinking about again.

arkarian

2010-10-07 08:39:59 pm

red chamber dream

one problem is that sometimes users intentionally double post (for whatever reason). one example might be when an admin makes a rules thread and puts all the rules in the first post. then they make a new post underneath saying "ok everyone, i've locked this thread. please talk about the rules in another thread".

in that case it's useful to have a double post because the second post isn't and shouldn't be part of the rules post, right? so it makes sense there.

think the best way to solve this would just be to force edit if it's been x seconds/minutes after your last post. what does everyone think about that?

arkarian

2010-10-07 08:46:23 pm

red chamber dream

also, i think we'd need to count these additions as edits (so nothing would appear in the edit history when you do that). it would also be cool to see a timestamp for every new thing the user says, aim style.
so like:

20:39:59 sup
20:40:32 yeah i'm cool
20:40:40 it's true

and then have the date at the top of the post where it's always been

tomatobob

Edit history:

tomatobob: 2010-10-07 08:53:32 pm

2010-10-07 08:48:19 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

I'd be in favor a something like a 60 second buffer for that. Seems fair.

Quote from arkarian:

it's like an irc channel, and no one regularly reads all the logs of an irc channel; that would be ridiculous.

so maybe having a separate "chat mode" wouldn't be so bad after all. at the very least it would encourage people to not feel like they have to read everything in the thread before responding: after all, it's a chat.

Right. See, most people are not going to see it that way. It's still a forum to them and 'forum etiquette' still applies, they will try to read the thread, why shouldn't they? It's not an irc channel after all, no matter how many times someone tells them that it's the same. I'm not convinced that anyone besides you and nate will ever really see it that way.

So yeah, I'd say making specific chat threads would be the best bet, if only to avoid scaring new users off. And probably help keep it from bleeding over into more focused topics.

On a more positive note, seeing the board index update live is pretty cool actually.

I'd be in favor a something like a 60 second buffer for that. Seems fair.

[quote="arkarian"]it's like an irc channel, and no one regularly reads all the logs of an irc channel; that would be ridiculous.

so maybe having a separate "chat mode" wouldn't be so bad after all. at the very least it would encourage people to not feel like they have to read everything in the thread before responding: after all, it's a chat.[/quote]
Right. See, most people are not going to see it that way. It's still a forum to them and 'forum etiquette' still applies, they [i]will[/i] try to read the thread, why shouldn't they? It's not an irc channel after all, no matter how many times someone tells them that it's the same. I'm not convinced that anyone besides you and nate will ever really see it that way.

So yeah, I'd say making specific chat threads would be the best bet, if only to avoid scaring new users off. And probably help keep it from bleeding over into more focused topics.

On a more positive note, seeing the board index update live is pretty cool actually.

nate

2010-10-08 02:00:31 am

nah, this has all been positive so far.

KennyMan666

Edit history:

KennyMan666: 2010-10-08 03:54:39 am

2010-10-08 03:52:54 am

Viking

Precursor

Auto edit if you're the last poster with something like a minute or two of buffer would solve a LOT of the issues I have with it. Do that. Do that now. Do that hard.

That said, minimalistic chat threads are still a good idea so do that too. LOOK AT ME, I EDITED MY POST INSTEAD OF WRITING THIS IN A NEW POST.

arkarian

2010-10-08 03:55:35 am

red chamber dream

lol. go two different mindsets and situations.

arkarian

2010-10-08 03:55:58 am

red chamber dream

definitely think the first change we should make is the force edit thing (except not actually an edit like i previously said)

arkarian

2010-10-08 03:57:37 am

red chamber dream

the other changes i plan to do are a) shrink down chat mode even more and b) let users specify chat mode as default when creating a new thread