Well it seems devrant got an update since the last time I actually really looked at it. Or I'm just blind. Or it's been there all along and I'm just now noticing it, but it's driving me insane so I must ask:

Wtf does this do? What is the design decision behind it?! It's just wasting screen for no good reason!

It's not even Tumblr/Reddit like where it continues to tab over on mentions or other to represent a flow! It's just there! Gahhhhhh!!!!!!!

@dudeking probably. Which is fine by me. What really drives me insane though is that me starting a comment with a mention, this is clearly a thread. So the fact that it's not further tabbed means that it's currently a half baked feature in production that isn't providing any benefit but is taking screen space.

@M1sf3t Hmm, that sounds interesting. So private comments, basically?

@M1sf3t if we're only concerned with not derailing and not privacy, maybe it's better to simply hide/compress/"thread hidden -click here to show" those. Or a global settings options like "hide mention chains by default"

It wouldn't need to be restricted because it's still completely public should people choose to see it, but unless you are specifically mentions it would be compressed out of view.

Or a derivative idea would be an alternative mention to specifically mark it as targeted at those people (again still public but hidden to avoid abuses)

Something like @#M1sf3t or similar

Oh it hides under my finger 🤔 wtf is that for 🚩

@M1sf3t I can see your point, but at that point it's just private chat no? Also as much as this community seems to be a step above the internet at large in terms of friendliness, people are people and private chat will lead to harrassment. That's why I said public but hidden, so it accomplishes the goal, but still allows for public shaming and community moderation of inappropriateness the way threads are handled already

@M1sf3t Hmm, yeah, I see your point. Though I also understand @Alice point. And moderation takes quite a lot of time. Dfox and trogus wouldn't be able to do that alone, so the community would have to take that role. But if @dfox and @trogus would be up for implementing such a system, sure. Though I wouldn't say this community is that toxic yet, so that'd be if hidden comments would introduce a lot more toxicity.

@M1sf3t I agree. I was only trying to alter your idea to eliminate the need for moderators or buddy systems to be invloved because neither scale well as the community grows. Of course I'm not against them but my intent was for it to not be required for the system to work and we would police each other not only on harrassment and malice but also general advice or other.

One thing we can both agree on I think, the current format makes derailing too easy and would benefit from a redesign. Whether that's moderated private chat or Reddit flows or something else entirely

I read in the past this is not going to happen

@dudeking the only purpose it's currently serving is to tell the difference between the OP and comments. Which is pretty easy: the OP is the first one, the rest are comments. /confusion

I just don't think it's actually achieving anything currently