What Display mode/options do you use and whycome do you use it?

[Premmy]

Pretty simple questions, What Display modes/options do you use to view these here forums?Follow-up question, why do you use that mode/option? I've been trying out Hybrid mode and it actually is convenient for getting context in who is talking to who, It's also interesting if more than one conversation starts happening in one thread.

[synkr0nized]

I stick to the bulletin board metaphor default of linear with oldest first. It continues to make sense to me to open the thread and start with the beginning, scrolling down to see how the conversation evolved over time. I do not like the idea of most recent first, as I don't like reading the conversation backwards or scrolling up to get to later content.

I understand the benefits of the threaded idea, but I don't feel it's appropriate for this forum. And I'm willing to bet I can easily screw it up -- all I have to do is quote multiple posts. How will it know to which mine is associated and, thus, where in its threaded list to put the post? Likewise if you aren't quoting another post and just click reply it won't pick up that your post may be part of an earlier thread. Threaded view is more appropriate, in my opinion at least, for comments on blogs and the style of posting on a community like Slashdot (which is mostly responses to comments or a posted piece much like a blog community).

Using Hybrid just adds extra nonsense (threaded information, which as above I see no benefit from) that I won't be reading to my view of the thread.


For a [class] project, I actually proposed and prototyped a forum schema that was like hybrid in that it combined the linear default with a notion of threading. However, instead of the list at the top and then the posts below as it is here in vBulletin I had replies to conversations that created sub-threads nested in the display. You could click and show all posts or leave ones below your current threshold collapsed and expand them as you explored the thread(s) of conversation. The downsides with respect to replying to multiple aspects of the thread still applied. e: Oh neat I found my prototype design. Ah, right -- one of the features of having expandable/collapsable sub-topics in threads was the ability for spoiler discussions to fork off for those who've seen something (I made a fake science fiction community forum to illustrate various examples of how the schema could be used).