LibraryThing 2.0 Groups and Talk?

After doing "More," "Zeitgeist" and Series, conceptdawg is moving on to Groups and Talk. So here's your chance to tell us what to do with those tabs, and their subpages.

I want all ideas, but we'll probably only be doing the more design-oriented and smaller things. I want to "clean house" on Groups soon—to clear out anything not getting traction. And I want to allow new admins in. But I'm asking to give Chris Holland something to think about as he works through the pages for release in the near future.

So, what you want? What annoys you? Where does the current design fall down?

I mostly like things the way they are but I am very excited to have a page that is easier to read on my phone

I went through this 2017 list (https://www.librarything.com/topic/260411#6091717) that gilroy made consolidating people's suggestions and picked out the ones that have to do with Groups and Talk:

-- Better distinction about what are groups and the difference between the Groups and Talk tabs
-- Fix the reply button in Talk -- either hide it or make it auto reference the post reply is hit with or remove it entirely
-- NAME THAT BOOK -- should have direct link for people searching, instead of just starting a new post in book talk
-- Make Ignore Groups option more obvious
-- Better clarification of Touchstones
-- Archive Talk posts

So this isn't design so much as functionality, but ... in Talk, easier type & formatting without resorting to HTML coding. Not looking for 90s era blinkies and emojies, but practical editing tools like:
- bold / italic / underline typefaces
- bulleting
- indenting
- quoting prior posts with link to original
- embedded pictures

All of this is do-able now, but again, it requires users learn the HTML. Why not provide a common toolbar available to everyone?

Better distinction about what are groups and the difference between the Groups and Talk tabs

Not this round.

Fix the reply button in Talk -- either hide it or make it auto reference the post reply is hit with or remove it entirely

Okay, we'll remove it entirely. Just kidding. I don't buy it.

Make Ignore Groups option more obvious

Will look at that.

Better clarification of Touchstones

Will think about it.

Archive Talk posts

Do you think this is about archiving personally, or for the site?

>4 elenchus: That would be handy!

Maybe an option to see what groups you're ignoring?

So this isn't design so much as functionality, but ... in Talk, easier type & formatting without resorting to HTML coding.

Chris very much wants to do this, but it'd be a longer thing, so not this time around.

I want to convince him to add at least the ability to insert an image.

>5 timspalding:

The Reply button - my preference would be for clicking that button to automatically start the new message with a reference to the post (which can then be backspaced if needed); or hiding it behind the "More" button would be fine. But the fact that casual users of Talk do not know what that button does comes up constantly, and it should be changed. I find it's existence sometimes convenient but definitely not essential.

Archive Talk posts - from https://www.librarything.com/topic/256907#6084086:
"Re: groups
Would you consider archiveing by years. This group is an example to try to organize the postings contain 11 years of postings, very difficult to organize."
Subsequent conversation there suggests archiving talk threads older than 3-5 years, or having dormant threads hidden by default (with a toggle to see them if you want to)

I'll add my voice to those asking for a change to reply. Having it autofill >post# would make it so much more usefull and far less confusing for new members.

ok I've thought of a couple more things:

1) Ability to either a) filter topics on a group page by stars and/or posts the same way I can filter Talk, or b) filter Talk by group AND stars and/or posts
e.g. I want to see only topics I have starred in Bug Collectors

2) When clicking "Post a new topic" from Talk, require a group to be chosen by the user instead of defaulting to Book Talk

>10 norabelle414: Or maybe get rid of post from talk? Requiring people to go to a group to post *might* make them actually read the instructions in Name that Book.

Maybe add some more structure to Group home pages and make them more visible?

I’m thinking of what we currently have on https://www.librarything.com/groups/readinggloballyficti — a huge, undifferentiated mess of home-made html that is going to break sooner or later when you change the way we link to talk threads. Some ideas:

- option for admins to pin or highlight talk topics in the list, or maybe separate lists for “standing threads” and “current threads”
- separate boxes for “description” and “group activities”
- maybe some sort of calendar widget for activities (“The new theme read on X will be starting next week”)?
- maybe a touchstone-like way to link to talk topics without using html?
- straightforward way to add/change group admins

Not quite related, but it would be nice if a search on the group page returned results grouped by thread by default.

>12 thorold: On thinking it through a bit further:

Maybe the way to deal with activities (primarily things like theme-reads and group-reads, but also maybe in some groups real-world events) would be to have the option to associate a start date, an end date and an activity description to a talk thread. These would then sort automatically in the activity box on the group page and perhaps be flagged by some sort of highlighting in the main Talk list (future/current/past activity). If we could do it retrospectively, that would also achieve something like what >8 norabelle414: suggests.

Obviously we'd have to think about whether to limit creation of activities to admins or all group members, and whether we would need an option to embargo a thread for an activity that hasn't started yet, or to make a thread for a past activity read-only.

I only have one nit to pick with how Talk works...

At the bottom of a message, More -> "Mark as read to here" should be "Mark as unread from here" so you can use it on the first message and make the whole thread (or a single message thread) unread.

As soon as you open a thread, it's automatically marked as completely read. If you don't read all of it you want to change part of the thread to be unread.

I'll open a long thread, read some of the messages, then come to a message I want to leave for later. My intention is to mark that message and everything after it as unread. What I have to do is go to the previous message which I did read, and choose to mark everything to that point as read (even though it, and the whole thread, is already marked as read).

As it is, if the message that you want to come back to is the first message in the thread, there's no way to mark it as unread.

I'd like to see threading introduced. This would help enormously with longer topics (>50 aspirit: posts) where you're scrolling up and down to keep au courant with the discussion around a particular point. With threading, you can see the original post plus the replies to that post in one easy-to-read group, instead of looking for post #20, #25, #27, #40, #55, #67 and so on (worse when the post count get past 100).

That would also help with people creating post 121 and their first sentence is something like 'I haven't read all the previous posts because it would take too long' and then asking about something that has already been thrashed out.

I'm thinking something along the lines of vbulletin functionality.

I have no idea how to do bold, fonts, underline, copy pics or spreadsheets. I know i been told but I tried and failed

I’d like multiple star colors. The current basic functionality could be left the same for the sake of people who aren't interested in more colors: click on the star once and it turns yellow, click again and it turns gray. However, I’d like a small drop-down added that allows one to choose alternate colors.

This would allow people to star topics for different reasons. Some examples:

• As a reminder that you want to post a comment in that thread when you have time. I often quickly read through threads on my phone when I have some downtime, and sometimes I have things to say about what I've read, but I rarely have time to post right then nor do I like to type on a mobile keyboard.
  
• A reference thread that has useful info you want to be able to return to quickly.
  
• A thread you want to follow in general because you think it will be interesting, particularly in reading journal groups.
  
• An ongoing thread you don’t normally follow closely, but somebody has posted an interesting question or comment and you really want to make sure you see the replies to it. If it’s a thread you normally skim in a hurry, the star will remind you to slow down and watch for the replies.

As far as how this affects the current functionality to filter by starred threads, it would be nice but not mandatory to be able to filter by a specific color. If it would make a difference in whether or not the request could be implemented, I think it would be fine to just display all star colors in one result list. The colors would stand out easily enough that one’s eyes could further filter by star color.

Lots of great ideas popping up here. I'll reply more later.

>15 Maddz: I think people either like threaded posts or they don't. I don't. I think you lose the feeling of a general discussion.

>19 MarthaJeanne:

Personally, I hate threaded posts. If there are multiple threads in a topic, which is common, it makes it much harder to find the new posts.

>20 NatashaBarker:, >21 lilithcat: It could be done in the same way as email threading in (corporate) Outlook where you choose whether to use threading or not.

I suppose the other issue with threading is when several topics are included in a reply - which topic is it included in?

>15 Maddz: If they don't go to threaded, maybe an alternative could be an option under More - Jump to next post reference or list post references. This could then either a) Jump you down to the next post in the thread that had a reference back to that post (using the >post# system. People who chose to not use that system wouldn't be able to take advantage of the functionality) or b) open a drop down with links to the posts that reference the existing post.

In both cases, this would also rely on the Reply button getting an auto reference connection or the user knowing and using the >post# reference system.

>15 Maddz: I think threading would increase the chances of someone not reading all of the previous posts and asking about something that has already been discussed because how would they know which thread to find that information in? All the sites I use with threaded replies are a mess of people discussing the same topic over and over again in different threads.

I'm very much against threaded topics.

I can't see having a choice of threaded/nonthreaded in the same topic. People are seeing such different views of a discussion.

A couple more things that would be nice but aren't necessary:

3) A way to "+1" or like or react to or thumbs-up a particular post

4) In some groups, the ability for the person who started a topic to have more control over the topic. (e.g., continuing in another topic, blocking specific people from posting, etc.)

>5 timspalding: Fix the reply button in Talk -- either hide it or make it auto reference the post reply is hit with or remove it entirely

Okay, we'll remove it entirely. Just kidding. I don't buy it.

Please explain your immediate dismissal of this?

If "archiving" happens, it is 100% critical that we still be able to find old posts. I go searching for old posts of mine ALL THE TIME.

Add my vote to having the reply button automatically add the reference to the post being replied to. For one thing it would save me from having to type that angle bracket character which is very hard to get to on my phone keyboard.

I also agree with changing mark as read to to mark as unread from.

Threading.

We are not going to have "true" threading, with little little subconversations budding off the conversation and from each other like a tree. Really. I know some want it, but others don't, it's not how it works now, and I do still run this place!

I understand the desire to pre-cite a past message when you hit reply. I'll think that over, but I'm leaning toward "okay."

Please explain your immediate dismissal of this?

I'm not going to remove the ability to write a reply to something while SEEING WHAT YOU ARE REPLYING TO. This is what "reply" allows you to do. To suggest that we have to add an automatic > to the reply message is one thing; to assert that, if we don't do this we should remove the ability altogether is extremely silly. I'm sorry you struck out; you can't take the bat, the ball and all the bases away.

If "archiving" happens, it is 100% critical that we still be able to find old posts. I go searching for old posts of mine ALL THE TIME.

Yes.

A way to "+1" or like or react to or thumbs-up a particular post

I've wondered about that. I'm worried it would add a Facebook-y feel to topics. I guess I'd prefer to have people take the trouble to write "That's great," or whatever. It's more conversational.

In some groups, the ability for the person who started a topic to have more control over the topic. (e.g., continuing in another topic, blocking specific people from posting, etc.)

I added the ability for a group to have moderation way back when, for one group. I wonder if that isn't a better way, that to have every topic be a private kingdom--THIS POST IS POLICED BY SO-AND-SO. Meanwhile, the moderation code was greeted warmly, but it's not like the group was very active since, so it hasn't been much of a test.

I also agree with changing mark as read to to mark as unread from.

I think this means no feature change, right? Just a label change?

>31 timspalding: Please explain your immediate dismissal of this?

I'm not going to remove the ability to write a reply to something while SEEING WHAT YOU ARE REPLYING TO. This is what "reply" allows you to do. To suggest that we have to add an automatic > to the reply message is one thing; to assert that, if we don't do this we should remove the ability altogether is extremely silly. I'm sorry you struck out; you can't take the bat, the ball and all the bases away.

And this response completely misses the point of the request. This thread could even been a good example. Yes, I might have been looking at post 5, my response didn't show UP until post 27. If I'd not added the notification and just hit reply, without making any reference at all to the previous post, it would have been a touch confusing.

This frequently happens with new users expecting a threaded forum hitting reply and just typing a response, six posts after answers were given. They respond to each post, but you can't tell exactly who they are responding to, because their responses are frequently similar to each other.

And here is a frequent problem I see. You only read Remove. You missed Make the reply have an auto reference -- which honestly is a much more desirable action.

I'd like instant access to all my posts. Thirteen years activity is just too much to be able to collect them all--I've tried several times but it's an impossible drag.

I know that in the past when this was discussed the problem came up of "stalking" people--but I don't want access to other people's posts, only my own.

Is there no way to separate these functions and let us have our posts alone, presumably under Stats? (Which are mostly private by default, as I understand it.)

>32 timspalding: I think this means no feature change, right? Just a label change?

No, it changes the initial message that's affected. The current "mark as read to here" on the first message leaves the first message marked read and the others unread. "Mark as unread from here" on the first message would mark the first message unread. There's no way to achieve this with the current functionality.

If you do "mark as read to here" on message 32, message 32 is left as read and messages 33 onwards are marked as unread. "Mark as unread from here" on message 32 would mark message 32 and onwards as unread.

The big advantage is being able to mark the first message as unread.

>34 LolaWalser: Most stats can be seen by anyone.

I think a way to mark a thread as read without having to load the thread would be useful, especially when you have low bandwidth, as some threads can take a long time to load.

For replying to short posts, copying the text to the reply would be useful, especially on phones where copy and paste is painful, but on replies to really long posts it would hurt more than help. So if you're going to do it make it optional, or limit it to 10 lines or something.

A way to "+1" or like or react to or thumbs-up a particular post

I've wondered about that. I'm worried it would add a Facebook-y feel to topics. I guess I'd prefer to have people take the trouble to write "That's great," or whatever. It's more conversational.

Please don't do it. It is too Facebook-y/Twittery, etc. I like to feel that this place has actual conversations, that people reply when they have something to say.

>39 lilithcat: I agree. Even if someone only responds to one of my posts with "well said" or whatever, I like knowing that someone thought what I said was important enough to actually put a tiny bit of effort into acknowledging.

And here is a frequent problem I see. You only read Remove. You missed Make the reply have an auto reference -- which honestly is a much more desirable action.

On the contrary. I wrote "To suggest that we have to add an automatic > to the reply message is one thing; to assert that, if we don't do this we should remove the ability altogether is extremely silly."

I then said I was in favor of the > .

I'd like instant access to all my posts. Thirteen years activity is just too much to be able to collect them all--I've tried several times but it's an impossible drag.

Interesting. Yes, I think this would be a good idea. I suppose the answer would be to have, basically, a talk post that was just all your posts, with pagination.

It's a good idea, I agree. Another idea would be to have another section in search--a facet for topics, a facet for messages, and a facet for your messages.

Which would you rather have--that search or a paginated flow of all your messages?

I know that in the past when this was discussed the problem came up of "stalking" people--but I don't want access to other people's posts, only my own.

Right. Agree.

For replying to short posts, copying the text to the reply would be useful, especially on phones where copy and paste is painful, but on replies to really long posts it would hurt more than help. So if you're going to do it make it optional, or limit it to 10 lines or something.

I hear you, but I worry that if it did this easily, topics would end up looking like email chains with >s and >>s ad infinitum.

I like to feel that this place has actual conversations, that people reply when they have something to say.

Right. That's my worry about the idea too.

>41 timspalding:

Which would you rather have--that search or a paginated flow of all your messages?

I picture it simply as all the (our own) posts, chronologically (or order-able by time). Not sure I understand the ramifications of this being somewhere "static" under a link or available on search--I guess the former sounds simpler, faster to me.

But, whatever would give us quick access to our posts, without (as now) having to scroll through threads, would be great.

>42 LolaWalser:

No, I hear you. I'm thinking that people might find search more useful. I mean my posts would be MANY pages long. I imagine yours too. One use-case here is to search your posts for something you remember saying.

>43 timspalding:

Ha, I'm having the opposite problem--I don't remember "so good" anymore--that's actually the main reason why I'd like this--to see whether and just how much I'm repeating myself. (The side effect of realising just how awful I was over the years is not something I'm looking forward to--but I guess that's just desserts... :))

Yes, I'm afraid it would be pages and pages of posts--still better than pages and pages of loonnnng threads.

Do you think some sort of word-count limit might be useful? Like, "don't show posts with fewer than 20/50/100 words" or something?

I'd like something that fixes the thing that causes new posters to Name That Book to not realise their new thread has just posted and so they accidentally post it twice. It happens pretty regularly, so there's obviously some sort of disconnect.

>44 LolaWalser: I'll put some thought into it. As this is "new" stuff, I'm not sure it'll go into Chris' impending updated (LT2) version. But it's on my mind.

Meanwhile, enjoy that I changed the reply button, everyone.

Thank you, that's helpful.

>46 timspalding:

cool, thanks!

>46 timspalding: Huzzah!

>46 timspalding: it works!

Thank you for the "bottom of the topic" message. That's also helpful.

>46 timspalding: Amazing! Now I have to get out of the habit of immediately typing the message number when I hit reply.

>42 LolaWalser: I think that all my posts in one big thread would be unwieldy and would take too long to load. But being able to search through just my posts sounds like a great idea.

>46 timspalding: So you did!

>50 aspirit:

Thank you for the "bottom of the topic" message. That's also helpful.

That's not new, though!

>54 lilithcat: Except, for some reason, a lot of new members haven't noticed it. They often posted three or four messages without any way of telling who they were answering.

>54 lilithcat: oops. I haven't been using the Reply button because it didn't do anything I'd expected it to do in my initial explorations a long while back. Now it does.

>34 LolaWalser:, >41 timspalding:,>42 LolaWalser: etc... I don't understand the "instant access to all my posts" request. Isn't "Your Posts" exactly what this is?

>57 lesmel:

No. "Your posts" is actually "topics you've posted to". So you get the entire thread, rather than just your own posts.

>58 lilithcat: Then use the other link "Started by you" -- again, I'm at a loss to understand the need for an improvement. "Your Posts" is everything you have ever posted to including posts you started. "Started by you" is everything you have ever...started. Where's the need for something new?

>59 lesmel:

It's the difference between seeing everyone's posts in a topic or seeing only your posts.

If you've posted 3 times in a topic with 100 posts, "Started by you" and "Your Posts" will show all 100. LolaWalser wants to see only her three.

>60 lilithcat: The posts and not the topics; now I get it. That leaves a person with no context; but seeing as they would be yours that probably wouldn't matter.

Would anyone scream if we got rid of the ability to sort topics? Right now the default is most-recent-post, but you can sort by unread count or topic name. The latter two cause endless confusion. And is there any non-crazy use case?

Topic name *might* be useful, but I'm all for getting rid of unread count; I can't tell you the number of times I've hit that stupid thing and then thought something was wrong with talk.

Sort by topic name within the group itself can be useful when you know a thread but not when the last post was. In the regular talk feed, it's less useful.

Sorting within a group by unread count can be useful. I see no reason for topic name sort (it seems that gilroy's use-case is better handled by search, rather than sort?)

>62 timspalding: yes, and I doubt I'm the only member who intentionally sorts by topic name (to group related threads within groups or to group a group's topics in the main Talk) or unread count (when in the mood to either catch up on a long topic or go through the "1 unread" threads in a quick break).

The remark about "non-crazy" uses has me wondering what's considered acceptable with the sort feature for those fields. Like, we were given features that work as intended, but we weren't supposed to get used to using them?

I cannot remember when I last intentionally sorted by anything else than most recent post. If I ever have.

I can remember lots of times when I unintentionally sorted by something else and wasted both my time and server load to get most recent post back.

If other sorts are kept they should not be where it is easy to click on them by mistake.

>68 MarthaJeanne: And when it happens on a slow connection, it takes forever to load so you can undo the stupid click...

>67 anglemark: Same here.

>62 timspalding:

I sort by "last message". I can't recall a time I've used any other sort.

But that's me.

I can see how "topic name" might be useful for some people. Or not - I just tried sorting by topic (which I never do), and all it showed was the group name, not the topic name. So that's definitely not helpful!

>37 jjwilson61:
I agree.

Especially with long threads, it often happens that I don't want to read any new posts at the moment.
But I don't want to be constantly reminded that there are still unread in this thread. To do this I have to open the thread, wait until ALL messages are loaded and then leave it again.
I would really appreciate the possibility to mark all posts of a thread as read with a single click of the mouse.

I would really appreciate the possibility to mark all posts of a thread as read with a single click of the mouse.

I'm confused. When you open up a thread (topic) it marks it as read down to the very bottom. So it now does automatically what you want it to do; what's missing?

Sorting within a group by unread count can be useful. I see no reason for topic name sort (it seems that gilroy's use-case is better handled by search, rather than sort?)

Yes. This is my worry. While mostly useless, there is some edge-case use for it within groups.

The worry from this worry is that it's hard to get the interface right, and people invariably click the wrong thing and end up confused by what it's showing.

However, I think we have our use-case, so we can't get rid of it.

>72 timspalding: What's missing is the ability to mark the thread as read without opening it, which for some threads can take a considerable amount of time to load.

>74 jjwilson61: I often don't wait for the page to load after clicking on it, and it still marks them all as "read".

I realize this is probably well outside the scope of the redesign, but if you don't ask for a pony you're definitely not getting the pony. So... I don't suppose there's ever any chance of having the option of requesting an e-mail notification when someone makes a new post on a particular topic page?

>76 bragan: I would certainly enjoy that functionality but I'm not holding my breath!!

If all posts in a thread are marked as spam, can that thread be deleted just like if a thread has only one post and it's flagged as spam?

Like for instance, this thread here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/324706

>78 gilroy: Both messages are even by the same member. They are also the same message. Copied and pasted from somewhere.

Even the spammy content still shows in talk. However, the links don't work, which is at least some help.

>31 timspalding:

A way to "+1" or like or react to or thumbs-up a particular post?

I've wondered about that. I'm worried it would add a Facebook-y feel to topics. I guess I'd prefer to have people take the trouble to write "That's great," or whatever. It's more conversational.

I worry that as well. I've put a lot of thought about what I would consider to be (more) "ideal" commenting systems. One thing I pondered was what if people could +1 a post, but you'd a) only see the aggregate, not specific users an b) only you could see that number for your post, no one else could. And only the person who +1ed it could see that they +1ed it.

Performance impact aside, I wonder if that wouldn't help dissolve the popularity contest issues. It'd give you a way to say "yeah, I agree" without posting a pretty content-less post, and wouldn't "bully" the discussion by having a vote on who more people agree with.

It's just nice to know that people appreciated your post sometimes.

>80 brightcopy: That was my thought as well. I don't really have concerns about popularity contests since LT doesn't promote topics for any reason besides recency and number of posts (and there isn't any mechanism to promote individual messages at all). No one would know that a particular message got five "+1"s unless they were reading that topic and message anyway.

I hadn't thought about the fact that, because LT only promotes topics for recency and number of posts, having a "+1" would actually prevent topics from getting promoted because someone posted "I agree" or "congratulations" or "thank you" or whatever. You made a good point!

I agree with your suggestions of a) anonymous +1s, or b) only the author of the message can see the count of +1s. I think they both have their positives and negatives but are thoughtful compromises.

Another site I use, Habitica, uses the same single linear posting style as LT, no promotion of particular messages, with an anonymous but counted +1 system, and it works very well and non-controversially.

In real-life conversations there are plenty of non-verbal ways to agree with or support someone who is talking (nodding, affirmative "mmhmm", etc.) without interrupting the flow of talking, so I don't see this as being any less conversational.

timspalding (#46):

Meanwhile, enjoy that I changed the reply button, everyone.


Yeah, I noticed. I realize I'm in the minority in finding it annoying.

>80 brightcopy:

only you could see that number for your post

I would hope that not even you could see it, if you didn't want to.

>80 brightcopy: Where would they see the +1's? The logical place would be the post being liked, but who goes back to read there own posts again?

>84 jjwilson61:

1) Yes, that would be the logical place.

2) LolaWalser. ;)

>85 brightcopy:

???

Why this random dig? Why are you directing people to that post when it has got nothing to do with this liking business or whatever?

>86 LolaWalser:

Relax, Lola, it was a joke and not at your expense. You were just talking about wanting to read your old posts. I'm with you on that one, and often wanted to look at something old that I had forgotten or half-forgotten. I was just pointing out that going back and reading your own posts (for whatever reason) isn't as weird as jjwilson implied.

At this rate, I think I'll go back to lurking for a few more years...

>87 brightcopy:

Relax

Please reconsider telling people to "relax" after some random thing you said about them when they weren't even "in the room". You had no business making me the butt of your pally joke to another person. It's not at my expense? You patronise me with "relax" and now would also treat me like an idiot?

YOU NAMED ME AND LINKED TO A POST OF MINE.

I believe I'm justified in seeing that on my expense tab, thanks.

You were just talking about wanting to read your old posts.

Because, as I said, I've had many conversations here over the years, a lot of them repetitive, a lot of them involving arguments I've posted about for almost thirty years, from the days of the Usenet through various online platforms to here. I never made copies of anything I wrote and now I'm concerned about my memory. This you find a good topic to present as a question of silly vanity or something.

At this rate, I think I'll go back to lurking for a few more years...

No matter how I phrase this, you'll probably hear it as snarky... and I really don't want it that way... but, there's no "nice" way to say this--this too is a manipulative thing to say, where you try to make me, the butt of your uncalled-for joke, the culprit, responsible for YOUR behaviour.

Lurk or don't, it's not my business. My business is only what people choose to say about me and my posts where I can see it.

>71 birder4106:
>72 timspalding:

You are absolutely right. Sorry for this confusion.

What I really meant.
I would like a button on the main page of a thread/topic. Like "Ignore this topic" but in the sense of "Mark all as read".

>88 LolaWalser:
Now there's a post I want to +1

I'd like earlier access to the 'continuation' comment at the end of a thread. Maybe at 100 or so, rather than 250

>91 majkia: It's actually 150, but I'd also like it sooner.

Thanks for the change to Reply, I've wished for this for ages.

Otherwise I'd just like to add my €0.02 that I'd rather not have +1s, or likes, or the like for Talk posts. I find they tend to promote wisecracking and bold, divisive statements over dialogue.

Oh, and yeah, I'd quite like for it being harder to resort by # of unread or topic name. I've never wanted to sort Talk by anything but latest post, but I've misclicked rather too many times.

I have made some small changes while the new groups percolates in my and Chris' mind and fingers. So far:

1. Topics and groups now go "dormant" after six months of inactivity. I'm going to be merciless about this; if groups aren't getting traction they should go away, to live again under other circumstances, or not. Yes, all dormant posts and groups are searchable, and groups can be revived with a post. In the future I believe I'm going to have a dormant status and an archived status--with the latter being non-revivable.
2. I'm moving toward having groups have only one language. I love mulilingual groups in theory, but in practice the second language is misused and the group is not multilingual at all. The second language is half out now and will be fully out soon.
3. The language-group lists are MUCH reduced now, with private and dormant groups removed.

Didn't topics use to go dormant after just 90 days?

Never quite grokked what dormancy does. It allegedly hides groups in some contexts, but those have to be fairly specific, because if I go to the main Groups page at least one of the groups suggested as local is dormant, and indeed appears to never have had any topics at all.

i'm removing the concept of local groups.

While good in theory, it was not much used, and an extra thing to fill in when making a group. The features that came from it were minimal. Most of the local places were in fact countries, but as basis of the system was lat/lon, it wasn't necessarily easy to tell people about local groups. That is, much of the US is closer to "Canada" (the center point of Canada) than much of Canada is. All in all, it's a fiddly feature not getting much use, and I don't want to carry such things forward into the new design.

I'm going to be changing the paradigm for private groups from "Invite members to join" to the more familiar model of "Ask to join." In other words, we're moving from "push" to "pull." (Or is it pull to push?)

I'm doing this because:

1. The "ask to join" model is more familiar, being how Facebook handles it, for starters
2. The "Invite members to join" system can be irritating. Fundamentally we don't need a system for pushing people to join a group.
3. The "Invite members to join" system is liable to spam, and spam is a drag on developer time and an irritant to members.
4. Members can, of course, still message members inviting them to join a group.

>97 timspalding:

I like this, having found a few groups that were "invite" but on which I had no ready contact. It wasn't worth my trouble PM'ing the group administrator, as I didn't have a pressing need, just a general interest. So I never joined, though in a couple cases I ran across several different posts I wanted to respond to.

I'd suggest another "rationale", then:

5. "Ask to join" also encourages LTers to join a group, directly, rather than try to find a way to get the administrator's attention (when in fact the administrator may have no idea who the LTer is, given they're not already part of that group). More germane to smaller or specialized groups than to popular groups, I concede.

Or maybe that's what was meant by "irritating", in 2.

That is, much of the US is closer to "Canada" (the center point of Canada) than much of Canada is.

I suspect most of the population of Canada lives closer to the geographic center of the US than to the geographic center of Canada, for that matter. (I'm virtually certain this is the case if you include Alaska and Hawaii in the US computation, which puts the US "center" in South Dakota; not sure about the lower 48 only.)

At least Canada and the USA mostly speak the same language. Living in Austria, my 'local' groups speak Czech, Slovenian, Slovakian, Hungarian, Italian, Dutch, French, Bulgarian, but I don't. Those that are in English or German tend to be local to somewhere not very close (Bookcrossing group for everyone who lives or travelles in Belgium) or specialized or both. (Budapest Moms Lending Library).

Falling down the geeky rabbit hole (no LT-related content in this post, just geographic geekery):

Per Wikipedia, the "center of population" of Canada (the population-weighted centroid) as of 1986 was at 43°52'N 79°26'W (a little north of Toronto).

Per the US Census Bureau, based on the calculation methodology the center of population of the US is either at 37°31'N 92°10'W (in south central Missouri) or 38°28'N 87°25'W (near the Illinois/Indiana border).

The geographic centroid of Canada is at 62°24'N 096°28'W , in Nunavut.

The geographic centroid of the US, including Alaska and Hawaii, is at 44°58'N 103°46'W (in northwestern South Dakota).

So, we can say the "average Canadian" lives at the center of population of Canada - that's how it's defined, after all, and that "Canada" for purposes of a local group specifying only the country is at the geographic centroid, and the same for the US.

Using a great-circle distance calculator such as this one that tells us:

The "average Canadian" lives 1450 mi / 2335 km from the "center" of Canada.
The "average Canadian" lives 1200 mi / 1930 km from the "center" of the United States.

So my instinct based on "most Canadians live really close to the US border, and the "Center" of the US is farther north than people think because Alaska is big and north" was spot on.

(Oh, and the "average American" lives either 790 mi / 1270 km or 950 mi / 1530 km from the "center" of the US. The country is smaller and the very distant parts - Alaska and Hawaii - aren't very populated.)

Clearly what this tells me is that "local groups" should recommend groups based on US politics to people who specify only "Canada" as their location. Good thing Tim's getting rid of them.

I joined a bunch of "local" groups back when Talk was new(ish), and they have, one and all, been moribund almost from Day One. I won't miss them. I like the groups I'm in that have members from all over the world. I learn way more things!

I'd like to cut down and standardize group descriptions. Quite a few resemble MySpace pages, with extensive custom HTML.

My thinking is that group descriptions become text-only, with links permitted, but no other HTML.

In exchange, I institute "pinned topics."

What do you think?

>103 timspalding:

I'd like to cut down and standardize group descriptions.

What do I think? I think it depends on what you mean by "standardize".

One thing I'd like to see is enforcement of the rule against "multiple, duplicative and contentless groups". Right now, if I look at the "newest" groups, I see two "time travelers" groups, both described as "any reeeeally old books websites and other old things you want to share you can", and both with just one member and no topics. Same with "Neil Gaiman Collectors". There's a "hackNY" group, almost two months old, 1 member, no topics. "EDE3233" - no topics, 1 member - the creator who has no books catalogued. Etc. Etc.

>104 lilithcat:

I'm not really sure what to do about those. There needs to be some way to discover new groups, but indeed most new groups will be junk. What do you suggest?

>105 timspalding:

I find them by occasionally looking at the "newest" groups on the Group page.

Honestly, if they are obvious junk, or duplicates, why can't you just delete them?

Then there are situations like this: http://www.librarything.com/groups/chasingrainbows The creator says if there are related groups, he might "drop this one". It was pointed out to him that there are, but the group is still there. Why? Well, there's no way for the creator to delete the group (that I know of), which makes sense if there are other members, but, if not, that should be possible.

Honestly, if they are obvious junk, or duplicates, why can't you just delete them?

Because staff are not going to go around trying to decide what's low-interest and what's high. That sort of thing must be done by members deciding whether or not something is interesting, and flagging things that are obviously useless.

Well, there's no way for the creator to delete the group

Any creator can delete a group they created. It's not even hard.

>107 timspalding:

Any creator can delete a group they created. It's not even hard.

I never even noticed that.


Because staff are not going to go around trying to decide what's low-interest and what's high.

I was thinking more about situations where someone has created two groups, each with the exact same name and the exact same group description, no difference between them. Clearly duplicative.

Perhaps there could be a requirement that members must have at least one book catalogued before they're allowed to start a group.

Pure duplicates, like the time traveller and Gaiman groups mentioned by >104 lilithcat:, ought be possible to detect algorithmically.

(Whether that's a worthwhile use of developer time is another question, of course.)

A group without any topics after a week could be deleted automatically.

All this talk of groups reminds me of a request!

Can we get the option to counterflag on a group?
Say someone has selected a perfectly valid group for spam flagging. Can the users get counterflags to stop that?

>108 lilithcat: I was thinking more about situations where someone has created two groups, each with the exact same name and the exact same group description, no difference between them. Clearly duplicative.

Maybe we could make that grounds for flagging?

Perhaps there could be a requirement that members must have at least one book catalogued before they're allowed to start a group.

I like this, but I'm worried about an unexpected consequence--spammers adding books before they spam the group system. Two problems for the price of one.

Pure duplicates, like the time traveller and Gaiman groups mentioned by >104 lilithcat: lilithcat:, ought be possible to detect algorithmically.

True. Although I'm not sure there are enough of them.

A group without any topics after a week could be deleted automatically.

Maybe removed from the "new" list.

>103 timspalding: My thinking is that group descriptions become text-only, with links permitted, but no other HTML.

I could live with that. But it would be nice if we could keep bold and italics! Pinned topics would be useful.

Have you got management of the admin role on your radar (cf. >12 thorold: above)?

>113 timspalding:

Clearly duplicative.

Maybe we could make that grounds for flagging?

Yes!

>113 timspalding: Flagging just one group or both groups?

timspalding (#103):

My thinking is that group descriptions become text-only, with links permitted, but no other HTML.

In exchange, I institute "pinned topics."


Give us bold and italic as well, and I'll take that deal.

A few observations from looking closely at statistics and Google Analytics:

The Groups tab is not used very much

Members just don't use the groups tab that much. The single most-visited groups page has three times as many hits as the groups tab. This is a powerful argument to merge Talk and Groups somehow at some point.

The secondary group links are not used much

While it's good to have a place that lists new groups, active groups and such, having them all on the left navigation of the groups tab is perhaps overkill. I could just make sections on the page, with links for more information. Because people just aren't clicking on the categories on the left.

Most users don't use either talk or groups, but the most frequent and committed LibraryThing members use it a lot

This is perhaps not news to members, but we are a social-optional site. There a lot of users who use only the cataloging aspects. Users who catalog a book in a given year are 12x as many as post to talk. At the same time, talk and groups are a significant percent of total traffic and engagement because the people who use Talk tend to use it a lot.

Lurkers outnumber posters

Lurkers outnumber posters in any given period by about 2.5:1.

Now, what does this all mean for the feature going forward? You tell me.

>118 timspalding: secondary group links
This made me think "Wait. We can create subgroups? Why hasn't Pro and Con done this yet?" Then I read the rest of the statement and realized it was something different...

>103 timspalding: My thinking is that group descriptions become text-only, with links permitted, but no other HTML

I’m assuming this doesn’t mean that group logos/group topper photos will be removed from the description. Or am I assuming what I shouldn’t assume?

I don’t understand the reluctance to deleting *obvious spam groups*. Everyone hates spam and it makes it more difficult to find groups/topics/etc. that you might be interested in, so why not auto-delete the stuff that isn’t for real. Like in the many examples already provided (duplicates, empty groups, etc.)

>118 timspalding: Of course the Talk tab is used way more often. Once you know how it works, Talk is the easiest way to read groups and the Group tab is only needed to find new groups to subscribe to. I don't see that that's a reason to merge them though.

>121 jjwilson61:

I was coming to post the same point.

Volume of visits is not the best metric of usefulness here. The pathway of use means the Group Tab shouldn't be used very much, unless one is regularly seeking to review new groups or search out existing groups for a new (to you) interest.

Not even sure this implies the Groups Tab should be less prominent than it is.

>117 lorax:

The permitted tags will be strikethrough and blink.

>123 timspalding: +1

>113 timspalding: I'm worried about an unexpected consequence--spammers adding books before they spam the group system. Two problems for the price of one.

Maybe an additional requirement that new members can't create groups for a few hours after joining? Like, they must have one book catalogued and be a member for more than two hours before starting a group. I doubt that would actually stop spammers, but it might make them chose a different target.

>118 timspalding: "Lurkers outnumber posters in any given period by about 2.5:1."

Well, I consider myself a lurker as I read regularly (from certain groups) but hardly ever post!
I use this to keep me informed about new things in LT, mostly :)

The typical spam poster in groups joins, creates a group with no message, and leaves. Someone sees the group, flags it, and it disappears from the new group page (as far as I can tell, after one flag). It still exists somewhere, but the only link to it is on the spammer's profile. If there is a message, it takes a little longer to flag away. Less visible than someone posting in a long existing topic. Real spammers creating groups aren't a big problem for other users.

However, often newcomers try out creating a group along with other actions. They often create multiple similar or identical groups. If they are kids (in years or mentality) they may fill the group description with garbage. Sometimes they appear plurally and even send each other garbage posts in the new group. These are more problem than the real spammers, because they are very visible without being really flaggable.

There are also the authors who create groups to advertise the bright new star on the book firmament. Since they often include multiple messages, they are also more trouble than the just plain spammers. Requiring entering a book won't stop them because they want their books entered.

I've gone ahead and moved groups with no posts in more than a year from "dormant" to "archived."

"Archived" groups can be searched and all their messages are preserved. But you can't post new topics or messages to them.

>128 timspalding:

The wikipage says that archived groups can be revived, but (unlike for dormant ones) gives no hint as to how. Do you have to contact staff?

>128 timspalding: They are still listed under Your Groups. Should they be listed separately, or moved to another page, or something? We still want a record, most of us, that we are/were members of them, but since we can no longer post to them ... I don't know.

>130 anglemark:

It might be nice if dormant and archived groups were indicated in the list, similar to how watched ones are.

>129 AndreasJ: Yeah. I'll note that.

>130 anglemark: Yes, I'll be dealing with them. This is all a little higgledy piggledy because I'm working on the new groups pages.

See https://www.librarything.com/topic/325036

Would it be possible to allow flagging in join to post groups without having to actually join the group? I see spam in join to post groups occasionally and it's inconvenient to have to join the group, flag the post, and then leave the group.

>134 amanda4242:

That's a good idea. I didn't realize that was a problem.

>135 timspalding: And if you are ignoring the group, but the spam is posted in the spammer's group you have to first stop ignoring, then join, flag, leave, and finally reignore. It's enough effort that the spam takes a lot longer to disappear.

timspalding (#135):

I didn't realize that (needing to join a group to be able to flag it) was a problem.

You posted multiple times to a thread about it in 2011, which you ultimately closed as not a bug:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/122959

(I remembered only that it was a known issue, and searched for the posts. However, being aware of LT issues is not my job.)

>104 lilithcat: brought up the TOS prohibition against "multiple, duplicative and contentless" groups, but I've never been exactly clear about what to do about them when I see them. I tend to think of group flagging only in regards to spam, but should we also be flagging groups which clearly violate that clause of the TOS? Those two Neil Gaiman groups were created multiple and duplicative, and remain contentless three weeks later; should we feel free to flag them? And what about cases like Collecting Discworld and Pratchett, which has content, but almost all of its five post are about the existing Discworld group?

This might have been answered in one of the posts above but after a scan I didn't see it mentioned. I was wondering if there was a specific reason for making the text of Talk threads so big. It's as if I just put on somebody else's glasses or moved to the Large Print section.

>139 VivienneR: That was answered in another thread. Apparently this size is actually *smaller* than what pretty much everyone else uses.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/324351#7263336

>140 amanda4242: Thanks Amanda. As lilithcat said a few posts further down that thread "Just because all your friends do it, doesn't mean you should."

I still don't like it, just as I don't like Large Print books.

I was kinda hoping with the release of the new Talk pages, the touchstone boxes to the right of a talk thread would show series as well as work and author. Also hoping for an ability to print or in some other way export the list of works without having to screen capture it.

>139 VivienneR:

I find this odd. I keep my screen at normal (100%) magnification, and the font size is just the same, if not smaller than most other websites. I don't love the font that is used, but the size is totally normal.

>143 gabriel: The group pages have normal font size (or possibly smaller than before) but as soon as I go to a thread the font increases dramatically. What surprises me is that there have not been droves of complaints.

>142 gilroy: I was kinda hoping with the release of the new Talk pages, the touchstone boxes to the right of a talk thread would show series as well as work and author.

Thanks. This is a good idea. I will look into it.

Also hoping for an ability to print or in some other way export the list of works without having to screen capture it.

Everything touchstoned on the page?

>144 VivienneR: The group pages have normal font size (or possibly smaller than before) but as soon as I go to a thread the font increases dramatically. What surprises me is that there have not been droves of complaints.

This is clearly a bug. I can't make it happen. conceptdawg?

>145 timspalding:

Also hoping for an ability to print or in some other way export the list of works without having to screen capture it.

Everything touchstoned on the page?

At most, all the works touchstoned on the thread. Especially good for those "I'm looking for recommendations" threads or "Top books of {Year}" threads for when someone wants to go to a store to shop without internet access.

>144 VivienneR: What operating system are you using, and what browser? We'll need to investigate this further.

Do you mean that you're going from a Group page (which hasn't been released as "LT2" yet) to a Talk thread, and you're seeing the different font size between the two?

>147 kristilabrie: I'm using Safari on iMac OS10.

Yes, I look at the list of messages on the group page which shows smaller font than it used to be, and then to a specific thread where the font is bigger.

I'll send screenshots if that might help. Although, the preview doesn't show a big difference.

>148 VivienneR:

It should be noted that only the Talk pages have been updated so far; the Group pages are still using the older formatting. That would account for the font-size changes you are seeing.

>149 shadrach_anki: Thanks. I was hoping that would be the answer.

That second screenshot in >148 VivienneR: also illustrates the odd way blockquote renders in a larger font size (in >146 gilroy:). Is that a deliberate style choice or a bug?

Here's an unexpected behaviour which might not be adjustable. It's my habit on the main talk page to right click a bunch of topics into new tabs (i.e. right click the link and select "Open link in new tab"). I'd use my centre mouse button if it wasn't broken! So I can still do this if I right click the actual "topic" or "unread" links, but if I right click anywhere else in the highlighted bar, I get the menu that I would expect from clicking the background of the page anywhere else.

To put it another way, the behaviour of the highlighted bar is different depending on whether I left or right click, which feels a bit wrong, but not the end of the world (mostly because years of conditioning mean that I still automatically go the "unread" link anyway).

Windows 10 Firefox btw.

>151 thorold: The blockquote being larger is a bug that will be fixed, thanks!

>152 mart1n: Good catch, I'm not actually sure if that's a bug or not. The whole bar is supposed to be clickable but I'm not sure about the command+click or right-click option. Will pass that along to the developers to tease out. Thanks!