in reply to Default depth for replies

I don't think it's confusing, because there's a clear message saying "Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here". I think that hints you that the depth can be changed somehow, and note that "chosen depth" also links to the settings page to change the depth. I think it's also obvious that you can click on the titles of replies to show them and their descendants (slashdot works the same way).

Also, though this doesn't apply to those shallow threads cut by the default view depth, I think that very deep threads are usually flamewars (not trolls, mind you). Just look at how those threads are mostly not branching, just alternating replies between two monks.

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Re^2: Default depth for replies
by igelkott (Priest) on Dec 11, 2007 at 18:24 UTC
    Actually, confusion about that message was the topic of that old thread I referred to. The poster wrote "... my depth of what? Level of 'Re:'? reputation?". I really shouldn't take someone else's argument because I actually didn't find this overly confusing myself (for whatever reason) but the point is not everyone will read the message the same way.

    The ability to change the level isn't contested (of course). I'm only suggesting that the initial reply depth could be set higher (or infinite) until the user has the experience and desire to filter away long-winded debates (such as I'm starting here ;-). Perhaps it's not really necessary, as you suggest, but is it actually bad in some way to make this change? Will it lead to more or less confusion? Don't know but I have my opinion.

    Before it seems like I'm getting too carried away, I do realize that this isn't a terribly important issue. It was just an idea that at least some people might think of as some small improvement.

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      The depth limits somewhat reduce server load so changing them for AnonyMonk and new users may have a non-trivial impact on server responsiveness (most page hits are anonymous). Eliminating the limit is simply unacceptable to me (not only for the possible impact of server responsiveness but also because it can make some huge threads render unacceptably slowly and also display quite poorly). In fact, it'd be nice to have a reply count restriction to go along with the reply depth restriction, but that is harder to implement so I certainly wouldn't hold my breath.

      Have you tried setting the two depth settings differently as I recommended? I find that it is a huge improvement to the clarity of the results, to the point that I'm in favor of such being required.

      Hmm, that makes me think of a quick way to do this. I'd actually rather just strongly encourage having them set differently (that is, discourage setting them the same by accident or ignorance). But given the problems I had trying to just get AnonyMonk to use different defaults, if nobody ponies up patches to implement something better (I won't hold my breath) then I might do a quick patch to force "headers w/o bodies" to be 1 higher no matter how they are set. Somebody can come back later and improve that if they have the time and motivation.

      - tye        

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        Naively, I'd never even considered how reply depth would impact server load though it's obvious when you mention it. Guess serving nodes most people won't read would be a waste.

        Not wanting to miss out on anything, I had my own depths set rather high. I've now dropped them (a bit) and will try out the "text higher than header" depths as you suggest.

        Some people may still be confused by the "below your chosen depth" but it might be best to let them speak for themselves (if it ain't broke -- fix it again).

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        We would see load drop by switching to set of nested sets representation intead of parent pointers. Probably. ;-)

        ---
        $world=~s/war/peace/g

[reply]

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