Lemmy Wish list

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Things you wish for or suggest for Lemmy webapp, smartphone apps, alternate webapps, etc.

Let application developers, programmers, designers know what you think Lemmy could benefit from

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Forum Thread Comment Sorting (github.com)

submitted 2 years ago by trymeout@lemmy.world to c/lemmywishlist@lemmy.ml

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Lemmy is essentially also a federated forum (Really a link aggregator). The only real difference from a link aggregator to a forum is that forum comments are in order by date and time while a link aggregator is in a tree with the replies to other comments.

Essentially add a button next to chat and a setting in the account settings to sort the comments the exact same way as in "Chat mode" except it will show the oldest comment first up top and the newest comment last at the bottom like a forum thread.

(Describe your proposed solution here.)

Adding a toggle button on every single post called "Forum" or something like it to sort the comments by date and from oldest to newest. And for comments that are commenting on other comments to have a link to the parent comment and the parent comment in quotations in the comment child comment.

And to also have a setting in the account to have all threads sort comments this way if the user chooses without needed to press the "Forum" button every time.

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[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The main difference between a forum and a link aggregator isn't how comments are ordered. In fact, a link aggregator doesn't even need comments; it needs just the ability to share links.

So Lemmy already fills both purposes, with or without changes on the sorting system.

That said, your idea could be split into two features:

sorting order, oldest first. This is already implemented. (It's damn useful to watch how a discussion evolved.)
"flat" (non-nested) view for comments. Could you exemplify a benefit of this feature?

[–] trymeout@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

For example on the website interface for this thread, there are 5 buttons

Hot - Top - New - Old - Chat

Hot, Top, New and Old do as they do and will nest the comments. Chat will have the comments non-nested and will be sorted from newest to oldest.

Another button can be added next to Chat called Forum. Forum will be the exact same as Chat, being non-nested comments except it will be sorted from oldest to newest. This will make any Lemmy thread act as a forum were comments are from oldest to newest. With this feature, Lemmy is now can behave as a link aggregator and a forum.

[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

Yea I like it. Double points for being probably quite easy to add, as it's Chat in the opposite order.

Forum makes sense as a name/label, though, like Chat, I'm not sure how obvious it is what it does. Labels like Flat-Old and Flat-New might be more usable ... we don't have to be beholden to the names of older formats, especially as we're just talking specifically about how comments are formatted.

Maybe just a button Flat that sits independently of the Hot Top ... buttons, which will flatten all of those options. That'd be quite intuitive I think. Then a settings for your profile that specified what mode you want on by default.