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It works for me.

6 (31.6%)

It does not work for me.

1 (5.3%)

I'd be willing to help test it.

6 (31.6%)

I'm not interested in testing it.

1 (5.3%)

I might be willing to help test it.

5 (26.3%)

Total Members Voted: 14

[dorf]

Add spam detection and user registration (with OpenID support) somewhere in there.
I'd wager that SAA is a core feature to Agora.
Add BBCode and proper user profiles last.

[Angle]

Add spam detection and user registration (with OpenID support) somewhere in there.

We already have user registration, and adding OpenID support should be pretty easy - there are packages for logging in with facebook, google, etc. I can probably just drag and drop them right in.

I'd wager that SAA is a core feature to Agora.
Add BBCode and proper user profiles last.

Huh, really? I figured I should prioritize having enough features that people can use it normally, so I can build up a user base before going for the high end stuff like SAA. :/

[dorf]

It's just my opinion/interests.
Since I thought Twitter and mobile games were merely fads, you can assume that my opinion doesn't count for much

[Angle]

It's just my opinion/interests.
Since I thought Twitter and mobile games were merely fads, you can assume that my opinion doesn't count for much

No, that's fair. I was just surprised.

In other news, I'm considering changing the view to implement a sort of 'broad overview' which would allow people to view the forum as a bunch of dots connected by smaller lines, like this:

For the interface, what about having a panel which shows the posts as a series of nodes linked to others, and they can be selected to bring up a windown showing the content of that post?  something (vaguely) like this:

ANy thoughts? Does it seem worthwhile? Are there other changes you'd rather see?

[Angle]

I went and added a way to cherry pick which of a posts replies you wish to look at. You guys should look and tell me what you think!

Especially if you have advice on what to add next - I'm thinking of tackling BBCode, but I'm not certain. I have a friend who's working on adding a way to display the entire forum, or at least a large chunk of it as a graph, but that's still being implemented. You can see a preview at the bottom of the forum page, though.

[Angle]

Went and added a an overview feature to look at the various posts on the graph, and the beginnings of an in depth view for a post and for user profile pages. Right now we're working on redoing the layout so that it's as untangled as possible, and on changing the front page so that's a bit less ugly. Does anyone have any suggestions for information that should be present on the first page but isn't? I can tell from looking at it that it's pretty shoddy, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to improve it. Any suggestions?

[Angle]

We finally implemented our new layout scheme for the overview. It still needs a lot of refinement, but I think it's a good start. Take a look!

[Angle]

And now we've added the new layout to the main forum view, which should make things much easier to navigate. Tell me what you think!

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Just dropping by to say this is a great project.

[Angle]

Just dropping by to say this is a great project.

Thank you! Any suggestions for things that would make you want to use the forum? Right now I'm mostly trying to get things to the point where people will use it, so that I can see how it works in practice.

[Angle]

I added the hourglass view to the expanded post pages, so that when you look at a post in detail you can see it's exact place in the graph.

[Angle]

Also, I put together a Patreon, for those that are interested.

[Retropunch]

So, I've just looked at this and I love the idea behind it. However, I've got to be brutally honest and say that I think through your quest for the whole 'node based discussion' you've gone too far into making it more difficult to use than normal forums. I've done a lot of systems documentation in the past, and this suffers from the classic problem of a lack of basic, quickly readable 'surface' information. You're forced immediately to do a deep dive into stuff, and rather than it being better than a normal forum, it becomes way more time consuming to use and just plain confusing.

Basically, I think it just needs some big changes to how you show the basic stuff. My suggestions would be as follows:

- Highlight the current node you're looking at. Make it a green dot or similar. (this is an absolute MUST)

- Show the alternate nodes you could have jumped to from the last node (I'd suggest that they be fainter/slightly transparent). It's needlessly time consuming to have to jump back to see alternate answers to the same post.

- Label the nodes with their subject. You need to know roughly what you're looking at straight away - do the first three words or something for subjects. This might spread stuff out a bit and make it looks slightly messier, but the whole point of this is that I can see more naturally how conversations are structured - I lose that if I have to hover over everything.


Whilst it's a big change, I'd also suggest having text on the left and the node-tree on the right. Currently you've got small posts, but if you end up with lengthy ones (like this!) you'll lose the one thing that makes Agora stand out (the fact you can see where your entry fits in the tree of stuff) by pushing it all the way down to the bottom underneath the text. Having the text in a scrollable box to the left hand side will help a lot.

Honestly, I love love LOVE the idea, but it's got to be more (or at least equally) efficient than a normal forum for it to be useful. Sorry this has been such a critical first post - I think it's a great and I definitely want to see it come to fruition. I honestly believe it could become the new forum standard if it was made easy enough to use - I'd certainly deploy it across my sites if it did!

 

[Angle]

So, I've just looked at this and I love the idea behind it. However, I've got to be brutally honest and say that I think through your quest for the whole 'node based discussion' you've gone too far into making it more difficult to use than normal forums. I've done a lot of systems documentation in the past, and this suffers from the classic problem of a lack of basic, quickly readable 'surface' information. You're forced immediately to do a deep dive into stuff, and rather than it being better than a normal forum, it becomes way more time consuming to use and just plain confusing.

Basically, I think it just needs some big changes to how you show the basic stuff. My suggestions would be as follows:

- Highlight the current node you're looking at. Make it a green dot or similar. (this is an absolute MUST)

- Show the alternate nodes you could have jumped to from the last node (I'd suggest that they be fainter/slightly transparent). It's needlessly time consuming to have to jump back to see alternate answers to the same post.

- Label the nodes with their subject. You need to know roughly what you're looking at straight away - do the first three words or something for subjects. This might spread stuff out a bit and make it looks slightly messier, but the whole point of this is that I can see more naturally how conversations are structured - I lose that if I have to hover over everything.


Whilst it's a big change, I'd also suggest having text on the left and the node-tree on the right. Currently you've got small posts, but if you end up with lengthy ones (like this!) you'll lose the one thing that makes Agora stand out (the fact you can see where your entry fits in the tree of stuff) by pushing it all the way down to the bottom underneath the text. Having the text in a scrollable box to the left hand side will help a lot.

Honestly, I love love LOVE the idea, but it's got to be more (or at least equally) efficient than a normal forum for it to be useful. Sorry this has been such a critical first post - I think it's a great and I definitely want to see it come to fruition. I honestly believe it could become the new forum standard if it was made easy enough to use - I'd certainly deploy it across my sites if it did!

 

No no, thank you! I would love to relieve more in depth straight forward criticism like that. It's pretty ate for me right now, so I'll go over your post in detail in the morning.

[Angle]

So, I've just looked at this and I love the idea behind it. However, I've got to be brutally honest and say that I think through your quest for the whole 'node based discussion' you've gone too far into making it more difficult to use than normal forums. I've done a lot of systems documentation in the past, and this suffers from the classic problem of a lack of basic, quickly readable 'surface' information. You're forced immediately to do a deep dive into stuff, and rather than it being better than a normal forum, it becomes way more time consuming to use and just plain confusing.

Basically, I think it just needs some big changes to how you show the basic stuff. My suggestions would be as follows:

- Highlight the current node you're looking at. Make it a green dot or similar. (this is an absolute MUST)

- Show the alternate nodes you could have jumped to from the last node (I'd suggest that they be fainter/slightly transparent). It's needlessly time consuming to have to jump back to see alternate answers to the same post.

- Label the nodes with their subject. You need to know roughly what you're looking at straight away - do the first three words or something for subjects. This might spread stuff out a bit and make it looks slightly messier, but the whole point of this is that I can see more naturally how conversations are structured - I lose that if I have to hover over everything.


Whilst it's a big change, I'd also suggest having text on the left and the node-tree on the right. Currently you've got small posts, but if you end up with lengthy ones (like this!) you'll lose the one thing that makes Agora stand out (the fact you can see where your entry fits in the tree of stuff) by pushing it all the way down to the bottom underneath the text. Having the text in a scrollable box to the left hand side will help a lot.

Honestly, I love love LOVE the idea, but it's got to be more (or at least equally) efficient than a normal forum for it to be useful. Sorry this has been such a critical first post - I think it's a great and I definitely want to see it come to fruition. I honestly believe it could become the new forum standard if it was made easy enough to use - I'd certainly deploy it across my sites if it did!

These changes are for the expanded view posts, yes? The ones showing the full text of a post, with the graph down at the bottom showing nodes above and below? What about the main forum view? I just changed things so it should show up as the default front page now.

As for your suggestions, I've been thinking of doing the first one. I'll go ahead and bump it up and do it today. The second is interesting, and I'll definitely think about it. The third one I'm skeptical about, but I've heard it before, so I'll definitely consider it. As for moving the text and the node tree to be side by side, I could definitely do that. I'm worried how well it'll work out on smaller displays, though.