Will Xenforo ever adopt threaded comment structures (like Reddit)?

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qazwsxedcrfv1234

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I know that Xenforo comments have a flat structure, but is there any chance that the forum software will come to adopt a threaded structure (like Reddit)?

Speaking of flat / threaded comments, which do you prefer? Is there a way to have both types of comments be shown for users?

I know that there might be some bias towards flat (as Xenforo's userbase is accustomed to flat comments), but it would still be nice to know as to which you prefer and why.
 
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Oh wicked, you wouldn't have a screenshot or two of what these looked like, would you? It would be fascinating to see what the early web looked like. :)

Soz, I've just seen your screenshot above.
 
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Seeker-Smith said:
McMaster University is still running a copy and you were correct it was 1995 when I started using it.
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It looks like a version of wwwboard--same layout. Not sure who copied who, though. The wwwboard script was free. I used WebBBS which was a spinoff of wwwboard.

And I'm still looking for a way to import old WebBBS posts. There used to be an import utility for WebBBS -> vB, but vB decided to use a newer version than I have (which wasn't an official version) and of course, they were never any help. My developer chops are pretty much gone as I've gotten older, so I have no way to import those posts myself. And I don't know how an importer would handle those separate branches in a thread...
 
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Wildcat Media said:
It looks like a version of wwwboard--same layout. Not sure who copied who, though. The wwwboard script was free. I used WebBBS which was a spinoff of wwwboard.

And I'm still looking for a way to import old WebBBS posts. There used to be an import utility for WebBBS -> vB, but vB decided to use a newer version than I have (which wasn't an official version) and of course, they were never any help. My developer chops are pretty much gone as I've gotten older, so I have no way to import those posts myself. And I don't know how an importer would handle those separate branches in a thread...
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If you need a service to do this, DM me. There's not a forum software I haven't been able to import, including many legacy flat file forums such as wwwthreads, dcforum, and even listserve.
 
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MySiteGuy said:
If you need a service to do this, DM me. There's not a forum software I haven't been able to import, including many legacy flat file forums such as wwwthreads, dcforum, and even listserve.
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I'll keep it in mind. It's not all that critical, but my oldest forum has five years of posts in WebBBS that a lot of us are curious about. The main thing is that there would be a lot of manual editing after import, as I'd have to match old names and email addresses to current ones, and editing out sensitive data--nothing I couldn't handle but on the other hand, I don't have much time for it.

If I could somehow find an older version of vB's Impex tool that supported my version of WebBBS, I could do it myself. And I know I probably have it somewhere, as I did it with a couple of other forums. Yet there are decades of hard drives, floppies, etc. And even in this set I want to import, our first 181 posts are missing...and I know I have a backup somewhere, although again, hundreds of floppies and a handful of Zip discs are something I don't have much time to go through.
 
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Jerry said:
Indeed, it was about 20~ years ago I did that work creating ImpEx and then the various importers. The model for each was the same, though the focus was driven by customer demand for who wanted to migrate at the time. I'd implement it differently now, though I'd use the same model.
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As a former vB customer from back then...thank you for the ImpEx importer!

I probably have that old version of ImpEx that worked for the 5.1 (?) version of WebBBS...but it's probably buried on a hard drive from 20 years ago, so it would not be easy to find. I tried a newer version but it only worked with a later fork of WebBBS after the developer abandoned the script (and it was changed enough that the importer halted almost immediately).
 
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briansol said:
the last threaded view board i used was in like 2001. darksol (a honda del sol forum)

darkSol motorSports - Bulletin Board

darkSol.com offers the same great service, selection and quality -- now with the convenience of secure online shopping.
web.archive.org

looking at it now gives me anxiety. how can you even follow anything?
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Heh, that's exactly how ours looked in WebBBS but without the IP information.

And good luck finding a Del Sol locally that isn't rusted...I only drove one once (at a dealer, while they finished up paperwork on a car we were buying) and it was a bit of fun!
 
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Threaded conversations support from the API isn't the problem, it was the UX. Web/mobile UX standards, browsers, and js community just wasn't where it needed to be back when these systems were built. Now, threaded (in the sense that I can reply to replies) makes a lot of sense for some communities if not all. Some are moving back to threaded conversations.
 
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Navigating a threaded topic is really the same as navigating a large email chain where people are replying to bits of it, and actually most of the email lists still work this way.

If you read the Linux Kernel Mailing List for examples that’s how that works, as per lkml.org

I’ve never been fond of the sub conversation behaviours it produces, but I’m also not sure I agree with the comments about the UX “being there” now. Discourse for example does some of this stuff with one or two level nesting, which means reply-to-this-message buttons everywhere and watching a group of users who are all very technical get this wrong so regularly (for two years) demonstrated to me that the approach isn’t as effective there as it might seem.

Reddit does better with this but I’ve still seen that issue happen there too where people accidentally reply to the wrong thing. People tend to get this less wrong on flat conversations in general.
 
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