DU usability question: After how many replies does a discussion thread start to become too long?

Recently the DU admins have been discussing the issue of really long discussion threads. We believe that for most visitors to our site, there is a point where long discussion threads become too long -- either they take too long to download, or they crash your computer, or it's just not worth the time and effort to sort through all the replies -- and it becomes difficult to read or post to the thread.

We have our own ideas about where the limit is, but we thought it would be better to ask all of you.

At what point does a discussion thread start to become "too long"? After approximately how many replies do you start to notice excessively long load times or other problems due to thread length? (Select the option which is closest to your opinion.)

ON EDIT: To be clear, we have NO INTENTION of locking threads or shutting down discussion. As long as people want to discuss a topic, our preference is to leave it open. So do not be afraid that we are going to start shutting down threads due to length -- we will not.

The unpredictability of thread life is part of what defines this wonderful place.


peace~

Better one long one then three short ones with the same subject.

100 replies, but generally, if it is much over 100, I will skip it - it starts to pause a lot before opening.

And every time we want to reply or refresh, it's at least a 30 second wait.

I would turn off images that didn't come from the originating site when I was reading a long thread.

It was very seldom an issue since most of the images weren't the crux of the conversation anyway.

Still, I argee. Images can be painful on a dial-up.

disagree with my personal viewpoint. :evilgrin:

______
Longer threads are less go-to-able for dial-up DUers but not that much of a problem for DSLers.

of different points of view. While it's not uncommon for that to end with flaming and a thread locking, there have been many great long threads, too.

Which makes me wonder "why this thread?" Is it really loading time thats a problem?

There is no reason why a second thread can't be started as they often are for real-time commentary on "news" events.

That just takes the practicality of someone in the thread to pitch it over to a new one--that doesn't take administrative action.

Anyone can post an additional thread and stick a link to it in the original.

the sole viewpoint deserving of space, no matter the website, no matter the topic, no matter what.

_____


_____

I follow your point and vote for it on sheer practicality.

when I was on dial up I had to turn off all the frills like pictures, videos, etc. I guess thats more a testament to my patience than anything else though, that is if I really want to admit it, ;-)

It's a sign of virility if your thread reaches beyond 15 responses. 125 is way cool.

Unless they are particularly interesting or I have already posted prior to reaching 75.

Too much comment already, but hey, whatever floats everyone else's boat: I'm easy. But not cheap.

when it gets locked. I suppose its your site, you can do what you want.
It IS getting a bit chilly in here lately, if your a "looney left" -- you know, the kind of people that came to this site in the first place.

Part of that chill is threadlocks. A lot of the old "left" people have left.
I would say once your membership is entirely "centrist", there's no reason to limit threads, if everyone thinks the same way, threads will shorten on their own.

:applause:

There you will find a diversity of opinions, more serious debates and more respect for minority points of view.

Most days it seems to me like the progressives outnumber the centrists.

But I guess that depends how left you lean. ;-)

I'm delighted that progressives outnumber centrists on this board, although that POV should be allowed postings here.

How about collapsing the responses to replies once the subthread becomes a certain length, you know like Outlook will do with Usenet? Stick a little plus sign next to an original reply. If a poster wants to read the discussion, it's only a click away.

This is, of course, only if you're looking to change format as opposed to limiting responses.

If anything, we want to encourage even more responses. I have edited my OP to make that clear.

Also, it would make sorting through who replied to what a bit easier.

Big threads are excellent. Little threads are boring and crap. Also, you can easily see who's saying what and you get to know the personalities on the board a lot more easily than in little threads. Which is good for the community.

And we ARE a community.

MONSTER THREADS! THREADZILLA!

Giant threads make the instigator of the thread feel LOVED and VALIDATED.

I'm taking about me, of course.

Nothing is THAT interesting to me. So many are people just agreeing. I like discussion threads that are enlightening, particularly on areas I don't know much about. I learn so much and feel so prepared to go out and battle the wingers. But it seems that after the first 100 or so I don't get a lot more and it becomes more burdensome to go through.

analysis then they usually take a course and finally burn out on their own....and many times end up being really, really, really long.

But on the other hand, a good hardy debate, sometimes encourages me to research or think about something I haven't before, which is a benefit no matter the number of replies.

was when I would not bother to look no matter how interesting the OP sounded. Of course I could look without listing all the responses and just click to each response I found of interest, but it was not as fun. Of course the link you clicked was a response to some other link and it became a nightmare to follow the thread.

Very much unlike other sites such as Kos, at DU I can handle any number of posts in a thread with no negative effect.

Oh, I've got the bandwith, but discussions become tedious to follow past a certain point. So, if I don't reply to the original discussion in time, past a certain point it's really not worth it to me. It becomes a tangled mish mosh, much like everyone talking at the same time, IRL.

I haven't seen threads get onboxious until they go over 1000 replies and that only happens in the lounge.

slowing downloads? Perhaps it could be started earlier in the life of a thread for those with slower connections. I often read replies based on subject lines without downloading an entire thread.

:popcorn:
:popcorn:

In all seriousness,

For me, it depends on how involved I am in the thread.

If I'm very involved, they never seem too long.

If I'm not involved/the topic doesn't interest me...anything over 100+ish can be too long to scroll through.


ON EDIT: Having said all that, I voted for Never.

Just kidding !!!

Of course I always read the OP properly before adding my 2c ;-)

150 reply posts download fairly quick unless there is a large number of photos or links.

As for content,very seldom does a thread get too long,imo.

With threads deemed too long?

:evilgrin:

depending on the topic.

OK, wrong analogy.

The problem is that most threads with excessive replies have fairly vacuous replies in large numbers.

They're full of tons of: I agree's, K&R's, and other fairly useless and semantically valueless contributions.

It would be nice to have a vacuity filter that would eliminate such stuff and return only posts that at least the potential for worthwhility (sic).

I usually wait until a thread has a lot of replies before I check it out. Although, once it reaches over 300 it becomes close to impossible to discuss, unless your actually checking "My DU" and especiallly if you want to respond to something earlier in the thread (you'll get no responses).

Just sayin'

The exception to the rule could be if there is ever a thread where people are agreeing with a position I take on any given topic. Other than that, it should be 125.

if it's covering a hearing or speech where we have the DU commentary then 75-100 range is ok

most other topics, if it's over 30 threads I usually don't bother replying, will check out the thread topic but that's all

I've never had a problem with threads that were too long. To my mind, they should be as long as necessary to run their course naturally. The only exception I can think of are the "official debate" threads or election results, which are cut off at a certain point and continued in Part 2, Part 3, etc., with a link in the last post to the next thread. That's the perfect way to do it, IMO, but doesn't really apply to usual discussions.

I can see how someone on dialup might have a problem with the load time in a really monstrous thread, and I'll sometimes just skim the subject lines and click on select ones that sound interesting, but I don't think there should be any imposed length-limits on discussion topics.

I'm not on dial-up, though. Other users may have serious problems with long threads, but I don't. I enjoy long threads, especially those that go on for days, with lots of give and take.

and mention the word "KUDZU"!!!

:evilgrin:

edited to acknowledge Dora as being the first to mention this prolific plant. :hi:

that are sometimes included that bog down the load time. I am usually drawn to a thread with a lot
of replies because I figure it's a 'hot' topic, as in current, and probably contains some interesting
responses. The threads following the floor debates seem to get cumbersome when it's in real time and
then it goes on to thread #2,3,4, etc. The 100 reply cut off helps because after 100, you lose the
'real time' conversation between what was said on the senate floor and what is being said here at DU.

I have one other suggestion: The 3 paragraph rule.

I think that would work better if posts were limited to a certain amount of words.

Sometimes when I post a 'hot' news item, the original article has a bunch of one or
two sentence "paragraphs" and if you apply the 3 paragraph rule, it's impossible
to post the gist of the article. It depends on the source, so maybe posts should be
limited by a word count? I've seen that on other message boards and it forces you
edit better and pare down what's pertinent to your message.

Kaiser Permanente: Not only does that site limit word count, but if you make the mistake of moving from the COMPOSE page to another page for a moment, you CANNOT back up without losing the words you have already typed.

Maddening Security Problems!

But I'll leave that rant for another day!

Peace, Love and Happiness...

Radio Lady in Oregon

I hear you but like on C2C, I think the limit is 1200 words and it seems
to work good but if you edit there, you don't lose what you already typed.
It's probably the different code each message board uses.

it logs you off with a "Sorry, but we're doing this for privacy purposes."

But it's a medical site, so I guess they have their own special problems.

I'm not familiar with C2C... what is that?

Thanks for your comments.

including The Democratic Party!

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any thread with 100 or more is liable to lock up or crash this old clunker I am using. :(

I don't know how hard it would be to do here, but some of the other boards I haunt have a page feature that puts 25 or so posts per page for long threads. Seems to work good for me :)

The one that asked if we can get to a million after 999,999... or something like that...
was ridiculous. It was fun for a while but it would went on for months.

I don't remember any thread ever taking a long time to load, but I wasn't really keeping track until now.

So many of these long treads teach us nothing but are just argumentative. Those thread are a waste of this site.

But usually the good ones don't seem to go past the 200 mark anyway. Flamebait threads do start racking up posts but thankfully the mods lock these up .

to have the last five posts of any thread show up in a slightly different color, just so I know, especially in a long thread, which posts are the most recent. It is difficult to scan the numbers to find, say #80, if it's a buried response in the middle.

Maybe this is totally impossible, but thought I'd throw it out anyway.

Thanks for all you do--I love the general design and set-up of this site and its constant evolution.

Glad it's possible!

Redstone

... the indentation stops. That sucks.

For length: let the user decide.

someone posted, "I *never* click on threads that have more than 50 posts."

Their post was number 77.

:P

I've been on a few other boards that handle it that way, and it makes it a lot easier.

... And let people choose how many posts/page in their settings.

But if I have been participating, I don't care - I've certainly participated in discussions that lasted more than 200 responses/replies.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

When good discussions are underway, threads with hundreds responses aren't too long. When it's a flaming exchange among a small number of people who aren't adding much beyond calling each other's positions stupid, then 20 posts is too long.

It can be difficult to follow when someone is responding to post #5 but there are 40-some-odd posts between them.

IBTL = In Before Too Long

One thing I really enjoy about DU, is the unpredictability of a thread.

How many times has the mundane hit it big (someone's haircut, shhhhh) or the BIG drifted to DU oblivion?

Threads reflect the mood of the day.

Sometimes a thread left for dead comes back to life --- on its own!

I think one of the things that makes DU...well, DU - is the threads do their own damn thing. My vote is to leave it that way; it is all part of the characteristics of this wonderful place! :applause:

Thanks for asking Skinner!

Sometimes just a couple, and the thread's too long, if you know what I mean.

As far as computer usability goes, though, I clicked an answer on your poll.

TC

how dare you let people speak!


haha

this is a silly poll


there should never be a limit to a discussion about anything

...with the numbered "official" threads linked to all of the previous ones, seems to work well, lessening download time while keeping the entire discussion intact.

Many kpete threads, for example, can grow quite long but can bring a lot of relevant info together in the same place. So I'd recommend continuing to allow DU users to decide for themselves when to start (and link to-and-from) new threads on a topic.

Slightly off-topic, what's making threads hard to use for me since I updated software here is the way, at least for me (surely I'm not the only one?), Mozilla Thunderbird 2.x no longer threads the replies to an OP - they just all get listed in numerical order at only one level, with no sub-threading at all, so it's hard to see who's replying to what.

I understand this is a "pure" HTML issue...

I've made that slip of the tongue before.

I use firefox 2 and that does not happen to me.

Apparently you somehow managed to set a preference that is supposed to no longer exist (we removed it). Try logging out and logging back in and see if that fixes it.

Logging off and logging on didn't seem to fix it, so I logged off, deleted DU cookies and logged on: that did the trick.

Thanks very much for your time and attention! :hugs:

I'm much more likely to look a thread that doesn't display that.

For technical usability, it depends on your individual system, I don't have any problem loading long threads.

For content, 95% of the time, the main arguments have been expressed by the 125 mark, hell usually by the 50 mark, and many of the tangents as well. A lot of people are unwilling to read through long threads and just make the same argument over and over.

Then there's the fun threads with two posters attacking each other for 35 replies...

a 200 reply long thread is a little overwhelming. But if you have been following along, it isn't so bad.

200, 300 plus posts, it's no issue. What I object to is the growing youtubeification of the internet and DU. Video is a no-go for me.

If you're considering some sort of auto-break/begin new thread, maybe after every 100.

The cut off is usually around 100 posts. This seems to help people keep up with what's happening...

Seems like it would be easier, kind of like when looking at MyDU where you can select how many to see per page.

Maybe 50-100 posts per page (and allow people to set a preference). Most sites I have been to have something like this and it seems to work well for really long discussions (like about bathrooms..... ;)

For obvious reasons.

'Too long' means some of the participants are posting more than they're reading. For some, that's somewhere around 25. :silly:

Sorry if someone has already asked that...

This thread's too long for me bother reading all the posts...

I've had to attend zillions of meetings and found redundant commentary as time consumptive. Yet there is some virtue in looking for judgement, confirmation or refutation of one's evidence or opinion. The tidbits and challenges proove insightful. I'm an high school teacher who has to correct a lot of writing. I have a stamp that reads "Where's the EVIDENCE."

cachukis

:)

At work, no limit.

Sometimes five responses is too many.

Sometimes I get up to two hundred and some and then look for more and am disappointed.

It ain't the QUANTITY, it's the QUALITY that matters.

unhelpfully,
Bright

Much later, and I would not have been able to load this poll thread without problems. In other words, around 100 posts starts to take a little while to load. Over that, I've learned not to click any more.

about the thread being long, its about the message being discuss, thats what IMO should be more important. DU is about discussion not having many thread, if other DUers figure a thread is too long then don't read it.....and yes sometimes long thread can be daunting for the softer brains. We understand.

Hi Skinner

I'm going to have to support unlimited threads, with an Unless that may require tools for the mods if they exist. There are a few unlimiteds that just have to be allowed and four or five of then are going on as we speak. Support and love threads. Where DUer's show themselves at their very best, and that's when people they know and love are suffering, healing, celebrating, grieving, or any number of other things that go into life.

Unless those threads can be flagged as open-ended versus limited in some way by the mods, as well as a variety of other posts, that from the getgo based on subject matter, author and history of postings on the subject will draw a crowd.

I simply think it's be extra work, with or without what I think would be necessary sorting and ID'ng of exceptions to the limit set.

Peace
SCE

:evilgrin:

Subthreads beyond 10 posts are just yelling fests usually.

When posting videos in the video section, if there are 10 parts to the video, instead of posting each one individually, why not post the 1st part, and then add the links to the additional videos on the same page in the comments section? That way, they're easy to find and don't become scattered throughout the page.

Some threads with two post are frankly too long! :rofl: Sometime the first post is too much.