"floating" threads with intense conversation

December 13, 2000 4:52 PM

How about threads "floating" back up to the top of the page in relation to the intensity of the conversation? Right wing site Free Republic does this
posted by owillis to Feature Requests at 4:52 PM (11 comments total)

Or similarly, a view that allows all topics with new posts to show up first might be nifty.
posted by hijinx at 9:45 AM on December 14, 2000

Oliver, do you mean sorting by # of comments, or sorting my most recently commented to?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:20 AM on December 15, 2000

I imagine that most recently commented to would be the more effective of both.

Ordering by datetime last commented to, then ordering by number of comments (or number of comments since last login even) may create some indication of "intensity" - the conversations with the most recent active discussions would float to the top...
posted by cCranium at 7:21 AM on December 15, 2000

Free Republic also has the “brrt” phenomenon, which is pretty juvenile.

Anybody know why they do that? Is it just for recognition of the thread?
posted by capt.crackpipe at 1:40 AM on December 18, 2000

Never having been there this is just a guess, but it's probably some kind of posting to keep the thread fresh and near the top deal.

I was trying to think of a relevant acronym expansion, but I can't.
posted by cCranium at 6:42 AM on December 18, 2000

Matt: I would think some combination of most recent and most comments, so hot threads stay on top but new threads don't get killed
posted by owillis at 9:19 PM on December 20, 2000

I kind of like posts disappearing off the bottom of the page. Sometimes it is a great relief to have some mean gun conversation expire, and people don't seem to have a problem recreating any thread with a slightly different twist if the conversation needs to continue.
posted by thirteen at 9:01 PM on December 27, 2000

thirteen, I agree, there are times when I come to the site only to be happy a given discussion's petered out after a few days, but there have been a couple of occasions that I've memorized a thread id to get to it after it falls off the page.

If something's really drawing continous discussion after the week or so they're on the front page, would it not be worth it to create a relatively easy way to get to that discussion?

Perhaps an old threads page that gets updated with threads that are older than 7 days but still generating discussion? Then, depending on what you chose, you could go there or not.

Mind you, if you're anything like me you'd have to go there, because it's a part of MeFi. But that's something my psychiatrist (who's actually imaginary, makes for great sessions!) and I are working through.
posted by cCranium at 11:08 AM on December 28, 2000

perhaps some type of Page Two, which would include "hot" threads - I'm not sure how hot would be defined - recent discussions with lots of posts, discussions with recent posts, etc. These would be discussions that have scrolled off Page One.

um, i guess this is kinda what you recommended above, ccranium, but i'm just seconding the idea :)
posted by gluechunk at 6:09 PM on December 28, 2000

Page 2 sounds good, so the new stuff stays prominent, but "hot stuff" doesn't die...
posted by owillis at 4:25 PM on January 4, 2001

Jason Kottke described a bunch of nifty stuff that Matt's been working on, including a whole lot of moderation-type stuff, filtering and a boatload of more customizability.

It sounds very cool, Matt, I am definetely looking forward to the general release.
posted by cCranium at 10:25 AM on January 5, 2001