[Request] Allow for Discord feature: ‘Create Thread’ for another layer of organization

[gilded tusk]

How come this server does not have ‘Create Thread’ feature?

Having an organized conversation proves difficult in channels when you cannot ‘split off’ and self contain a chat.

Especially with a server that has 20k+ online users, the channels become muddled with multiple conversations going on at once

[oak compass]

You can probably find the original discussion to Threads and Forums and read up on it. (:

[gilded tusk]

For others that are curious…

https://discord.com/channels/187217643009212416/1032106911610454097

https://discord.com/channels/187217643009212416/1025504608040271904

[gilded tusk]

That’s too bad there’s been resistance, I see many benefits to organized chat in a server with so many users.

People fallback and rely on the reply feature when many conversations are going on

[oak compass]

It's not about resistance. The thread feature isn't well developed.

The Forums, yeah there is resistance.

But I'm not gonna discuss this here again.

[gilded tusk]

What’s missing in the thread feature that would make it worth it?

[oak compass]

Better UX, no Archiving, I think there was also something with them not being searchable from outside, so answers to questions would never show up if someone searches for them.

[gilded tusk]

Threads will be archived after 24 hours of inactivity and text inside thread does appear when using search function

https://support.cci.drexel.edu/getting-connected/discord/discord-threads/#:~:text=By default%2C a thread will,portion of the threads list.

[oak compass]

There are more reasons. I can't recall them. It has been discussed and decided against.

You can chat with pfist if you want to know more.

[gilded tusk]

Hey pfist, Cedric and I have been chatting about Discord Threads. I know you’ve been against the feature, how do you recommend keeping multiple conversations in order, inside a channel? Navigating conversations, especially when searching for a topic already discussed, can get muddy.

I’m not saying this feature should always be used when chatting, but if a user wants to ‘self contain’ a chat, use cases:

• getting back to a user that hasn’t had their Q answered
• not muddy newer conversations
• user has a block of text/on going conversation (troubleshooting/guide) with other users,
• users in conversation are not immediately available, easier to jump back into a thread

What are your thoughts? @opal heart

With the online user base of this server being 23k+, it’s easy for conversations to become muddled

[fallen lily]

My main issue with threads is that if you don't initially see them, you are unlikely to ever join the conversation. If somebody asks a question and it's replied to in a thread, 99% of the people who might have helped won't bother to look.

Or they will assume that because somebody has replied, that they are dealing with the q uestion. Or whatever.

Or some chatGPT warrior is going to reply to everyone with bad advice.

[opal heart]

It is a complex problem. Discord is ultimately a chat app, so conversations are going to flow naturally and require scrolling up if you want to see what you missed. Discord is currently testing a beta feature called Summaries that uses AI to give you an easy way to catch up on previous conversations, but I am not yet convinced it is reliable enough to fill that role.

[gilded tusk]

That all applies to standard channel chat too @fallen lily

[fallen lily]

The chatGPT thing doesn't. People will spot it and call it out.

(without threads)

[gilded tusk]

@opal heart what’s the harm in turning on Threads? It’s not a feature used much anyways, just for use cases ie: some examples above

[opal heart]

I think forum channels are better than threads. If we do either one, it's going to be forum channels.

Especially at this scale.

[gilded tusk]

My biggest use case goes:

User01: Hey there I have a question!
User02: hey there I have a question!
User 02 question convo continues, User01 gets lost in the sauce

I see that all the time

[opal heart]

Indeed. It is a common problem in busy text channels.

There is significant pushback against forum channels from a small number of regulars here. I am not sure how representative they are, honestly, but I have been taking their feedback into account.

[flat shoal]

You'll find most unanswered questions are asked poorly. At least in my experience.

At least in the active channels, the well asked questions get answered

[fallen lily]

Or just asked when the person who knows the answer isn't available.

[gilded tusk]

That doesn’t call for user to go unanswered

[opal heart]

After a certain scale, text channels simply don't work well for tech support. They become messy. Replies help, but the chaos largely remains.

[flat shoal]

From what I see about the forum thing, is it's only really the people that have questions skipped over asking for this stuff, but the people actually answering questions mostly dislike it from what I've seen

[flat shoal]

We do this for free. If it takes an interrogation, and sometimes it does, like 20 minutes even just to get the actual problem and screenshots of the code, we probably won't respond

And as Daekesh said, sometimes we just don't know

[fallen lily]

I think the main point is, if you want a forum experience, go to the epic forums. Discord is live chat. Embrace it!

[flat shoal]

Exactly!. We have the forums, and I see plenty of the regulars here having answered things there

[opal heart]

I keep hearing this as an argument against forum channels, but it is not perfect. Forum channels are still ultimately chat.

[flat shoal]

Just yesterday I found a really helpful solution on the forums from WizardCell

[opal heart]

Whatever the solution is, it must be balanced against the reality that some questions will go unanswered, regardless of how channels are organized.

[gilded tusk]

I don’t want a forum experience, I want another layer of organization in channels

And threads provides that when necessary

[fallen lily]

Forums aren't chat. They are "asynchronous" messaging.

They having a more official and substantial feel than a chat room.

They have weight.

[opal heart]

Yes but the forum posts still behave exactly like regular text channels. They're not like web forums.

[flat shoal]

Yep. Feels a lot more like "you exist here to only answer questions" , nothing else.

Plus I still don't think it's going to fix anything imo. Sure it gives a problem a dedicated place, but it doesn't stop people posting issues that have been answered, and it doesn't stop them getting drowned. Just because it has the ability to make searching for answered questions and such easier, doesn't mean people will

[opal heart]

There are plenty of good arguments against forum channels, but as more time passes and I use more support servers with forum channels, I don't think "Discord is not a forum" is one of them.

Sure it gives a problem a dedicated place
That is the primary issue forum channel proponents are looking to solve. Compartmentalization. It is the primary feature forum channels borrow from web forums, and for good reason.

[gilded tusk]

Now we’re moving away from the original request to ‘forums vs. live chat’. Rounding back to the topic:

I don’t want a forum experience, I want another degree of organization in channels

And threads provides that when necessary

[flat shoal]

I have supported threads as a decent middleground tbh. Manny can also close threads right? I seem to remember that being in the api

[opal heart]

There are primarily two different demographics at play here: people who hang out in chat and answer questions when they come up, and people who come into the channel expressly looking for help. This really comes down to whether or not we want to serve the latter.

[opal heart]

I am not sure off the top of my head, but probably. I know Manny can do basically anything with forum channels, and forum posts are essentially threads under the hood.

Why would Manny need to close a thread?

[flat shoal]

Sorry I meant archive, just to prevent things getting clogged

[opal heart]

Oh, I am not worried about that. Threads and forum posts both auto-archive after a period of inactivity.

I like forum channels more than threads because they have tags, posting guidelines, and sorting/display options.

[flat shoal]

Oh sweet I didn't know threads do

[flat shoal]

I prefer threads because I hate the forums, but it still allows people to take a complex issue into a separate space without intimidating anyone else

[gilded tusk]

Have you all tried doing a test run of Threads? Try it out for a week, see if the worries of the implementation are true. If so, disable it

Take a poll from the user base after week of implementation

[errant parrot]

We try to be slightly more responsible with decisions that affect the nearly 100,000 people here. A "push the button and see what unfolds" isn't the approach we typically take here, but we've been considering these things for quite a long time, and have looked at the core underlying issues and finding better design solutions for those issues. By all means, continue discussing it, as view points and feedback are important, and it's definitely useful, but please don't think we don't and haven't continued to explore these topics many times, and will continue to do so ^_^

[opal heart]

A "push the button and see what unfolds" isn't the approach we typically take here...
Indeed. The larger we get, the less willing I am to manage the server in this way.

[errant parrot]

agreed, at a point, it becomes a risk management issue, and less of a let's wing it issue

[opal heart]

Precisely.

[gilded tusk]

I’m sure y’all have investigated inner workings of other Servers with a large user base? I wonder how they’re managing busy text channels

[errant parrot]

what works for one large server, doesn't mean it works for others

[flat shoal]

I'm in a discord around pc help. When it was text channels it was lively, with people asking questions as well as general chit chat. Now it's gone to forums and general chit chat is nowhere to be seen. Nowhere near as active as it's former self. It very much feels like "you are only here to answer a question" and the sense of community has evaporated.

[errant parrot]

We are definitely looking at other servers, talking with their staff, discord itself, it's team, etc etc it's a process, and one we don't take lightly ^_^

[flat shoal]

Forums have a bad habit of evaporating the light hearted community spirit. They turn it into expressly a place for qna, which is a big part of my resistance

[gilded tusk]

I’m just making a case for Threads 🙂

[flat shoal]

It's also why I think of threads as a good middle ground. While they are a half baked implementation, they more than serve their purpose as a temporary place for people to move a lengthy process too

[flat shoal]

Me too :P

[gilded tusk]

Any democratic votes go on in this server for feature implementations? I’m half joking

[errant parrot]

that feedback section is one of the ways people communicate these things, just as you're doing now. This is you casting your vote ^_^

[gilded tusk]

That immediately gets rejected lmao

At least can still chat about it and not locked

[errant parrot]

it's not locked and is being talked about?

[gilded tusk]

Right, just setting to “rejected”before conversation begins sets a false narrative to people looking at #969360633386655744

[flat shoal]

now that is a fair point. I could see how that might discourage people casting their vote on threads

[sturdy tundra]

It's been discussed plenty of other times though, and no new points have really been made.

[flat shoal]

a fair point

[sturdy tundra]

If there's something new to be said then great, but so far this has been a lot of repeating the exact same reasoning as multiple other people have previously. If "Rejected" is primarily used for things that have been discussed ad-nauseum then I see no problem with it.

[errant parrot]

looking at the message count (80 atm), compared to some other threads that have far less and yet still got implemented, is not a good metric for comparison, as the moment you begin comparing it, the concept falls apart.

Not all ideas are immediate winners, and nothing new was particularly brought up in this iteration of the discussion. Trust, once someone makes an argument for them that really resonates, or the feature matures into something truly useful for this server, it will be implemented.

[gilded tusk]

Going back to archive convos, I’ve read people are mostly neutral and others are for it. There’s a minority that are wholly against it

[gilded tusk]

If the topic continues to be brought up, then the topic hasn’t been resolved and the issue persists with lack of organization in chat channels when it gets busy

[errant parrot]

users tend to only view things from their perspectives, and that's good for anecdotal things, and are important.

Currently speaking at least, my individual concerns are about the relationship between people who ask questions, and those who answer questions.

Threads minorly aids those who ask questions (by isolating it away from other people's questions and answers), but greatly harms discoverability of the question (collapsing it into a single message, rather than an ongoing easily discoverable visible conversation), and adds additional friction for someone answering a question.

Questioners are those requesting a service, Answer(ers?) are those providing a service. In that exchange, especially since it's not a compensated service, the one providing the service should not have additional friction for discovering the need for the service, or for actually performing the service.

Threads hinders both, while adding very little value in exchange for the cost of it.

Hopefully they will continue to flesh out the threads feature, which we give feedback to discord directly about, and it'll either become a feature we can find more value in than cost, or we will discover a creative way to utilize it in a way for this server properly.

Initially, it seems like a good idea up front, but once you realize that implications of implementing it, it currently will likely harm the desired goal of matching up those who are asking a question, and those capable of answering them, and not a risk we are currently willing to take as it currently stands.

[oak compass]

Well all you did was basically making a duplicated post. It was already discussed and rejected. I don't see why it shouldn't be marked as such.

You could have brought up your points in the previous posts too

We are also still kinda running in circles. I have yet to read a new argument

[sturdy tundra]

If it continues to be brought up with the exact same points that have been rejected with no changes to the feedback then it absolutely has been resolved - just not in a way that you like.
Not that I think anyone is wrong in bringing it up again, especially if you weren't aware of the previous feedback - searching through the feedback forums is kind of a pain (and is one of the problems with such an archive in the first place, though it's also because discord's search functions aren't great in general) - but it doesn't change the response.

[oak compass]

(and I was someone who voted for Forums (and originally Threads) due to similar reasons)

[errant parrot]

I supported Forums, but have yet to be convinced on threads. Though I too also desire better organization of the massive amount of data here, and everyone will benefit from that. I just don't think the small benefit of Threads is worth the cost of harming the relationship between those who ask, and those who answer. Nor do I think it actually aids in organizing the majority of the information, it'll only organize tiny pockets of information. So we are working on a more global approach to the server, and working on solutions to aid in the organization of all of the data, rather than tiny amounts of it.

[gilded tusk]

Thanks for sharing the behind-the-scenes and the approach for managing the relationships and discourse in the server (Questioners and Asnwerers 😄)

The previous posts I read were Forums related, and there was no clear answer and/or similar argument to mine

[errant parrot]

i mean, that's the goal right? ultimately to play match maker, matching someone with a question to someone who is capable of answering it, but that's a pretty challenging thing to do, so we're always keeping that in mind. Or this server would just be a single channel, and everyone can try to fight for attention lol, but too much splitting and you add a ton of friction, and then people won't apply the effort to discover problems to begin with. Then it'll just be a server of people asking, and nobody answering because it's too much friction.

[flat shoal]

I see your points about threads, but personally think forums hurt it more. I can't speak for anyone else but part of the reason I'm active here is the ability to have chit chat, and forums suck that away, by making it solely focused on problem solving.

[errant parrot]

It's always a fine balance we try to maintain. We don't want it to be too hard for people to ask, and we want to reduce friction for those who can answer.

[flat shoal]

I also still hold firm to the fact that forums wont change why a lot of questions don't get answered, and that is because they're not asked well.

threads wont either mind you

but they can help by temporarily diverting a large conversation

i would agree about the searching things, but I doubt how many people actually search these things, when you have common problems that have been pinned and get asked multiple times a day.

now that also isnt to say that threads aren't half baked. they are, they're an awful implementation, but I feel they serve this sole purpose rather well

Because one problem I have noticed exist, is newcomers discouraged from asking things for sake of interrupting something

which might help to be mitigated if an advanced topic can be guided into it's own temporary subcategory

[errant parrot]

I peronsally want to use Forums to act like sub channels, the forum threads themselves act as sub channels, so they are staff created topics, and the forum threads act like sub channels for discussion regarding that branch of a larger subject.

For instance, a Forum for programming, but a thread for CPP, BP, Verse, Python, etc etc
or
A forum for networking Materials, with threads for MG, Substrate, HLSL, etc etc
or
a forum for platforms, and having dedicated threads for each of the platforms

However, before we implement more forums, we made the community creations area forums driven, with user created threads, to let that cultivate for a while and monitor it's before and after performances.

[errant parrot]

we are working a solution for this as well

[flat shoal]

this doesnt solve any of the issues that have been raised though imo. one forum thread for each category doesn't offer anything over the text channels apart from a shorter channel list. which discord recently let us customise anyway

[errant parrot]

the metrics don't support this, new comers don't appear shy at all to ask questions, however, they ability to ask a question properly is still an issue.

[flat shoal]

its a really tough balance to strike

#blueprint message
#ue5-general message
#ue5-general message

this si the sort of thing im on about

[errant parrot]

it allow for the concept of more channels for things to be more segmented for organizational purposes, since generalized questions are fine in generalized channels, but niche questions in niche topics are still a major challenge as we often times don't have places that are clear for them to post their niche question in.

[flat shoal]

I just have a feeling that if a not insignificant amount of people need to apologise for interrupting and ask where they can ask something, there are probably more that just go away.

granted i have no hard evidence to back that up

just an educated guess

[errant parrot]

Many newbie questions are asked, all day long, they are fairly easy to answer as long as the question is asked in a way that doesn't require knowing their project inside out, but there are so many specialists in here as well, and they are better suited for specialized questions / answers. Forums would allow for that without slamming the server with TONS of new channels, hense why i support using some forums as sub channels. One of the threads within that forum channel being for generalized conversations and questions.

but, that's just my personal take on it, not that we are moving forward with that, just that that's what I'm in support of ^_^

[errant parrot]

sure, but you just linked situations where people did ask their question, and "interrupting" didn't prevent them, if anything, they were being overly respectful, but that hardly seems like an issue lol, specially compared to the opposite situation we see from time to time

[errant parrot]

potentially, but metrics doesn't currently support this being the case, thankfully at least.

it's challenging to address situations we don't know if they truly exist or not

but metrics currently point to that not being the case

[flat shoal]

oh yeah, which is why I added on what I did.
It identifies people think there is something overtly rude about posting there question, which might suggest more that never do.
I'm glad the metrics don't support this however. I never want that to be the case, and I'm glad it's just a case of people being polite, rather than feeling that they're being rude :D

[errant parrot]

i responded before reading the messages after, because of me typing between the messages ^_^

[errant parrot]

agreed, we don't want that either, new people not feeling ok asking their question will cause great harm, so we watch that carefully ^_^

[flat shoal]

Hm, I'm still not sure I fully understand the benefits of this. But it would probably be something best seen in action I guess :P
I just don't want it to end up like the below, where what once was a bustling channel turns into a ghost town, because all of the regulars that answered stuff there, no longer had the place for the chit chat that kept them there.

[errant parrot]

same, don't want that either

which is why we are taking so long rolling out anything regarding forums or threads and applying it very carefully

[gilded tusk]

Maybe to help solve the organization without implementing a segmented conversation (threads) and least resistance for "Answerers", if a user is asking a Question they could insert a label to highlight their text. This will help separate the walls of text/scrolling. This will help with search function too

Could do a whole StackOverflow 'Resolved' set up, thats leaning into forums territory. Somewhat of a middle ground

[flat shoal]

That's my main opposition for something like forums. A system like what is show there doesn't invite the general on topic chit chat and related banter that is currently offered. it moves to existing solely as a qna, which, as much as i like helping people, just isn't fun at all. I feel once the conversational aspect is removed, it becomes more like work, and working as a help desk for nothing, much like regular old forums :P
I have just yet to see a help system that doesn't evolve to that

that's what i mean by "removing the sense of community"

[errant parrot]

currently, that's not a feature of discord's capability, unless done through the bot with some /question command or something, and then the bot posts your question for you with a different layout that makes it stand out among other messages, but again, that is only catering to the person who's asking the question. People who ask questions, have zero friction doing so, the hardest task they have to do is posting it in the appopriate channel, a command would add additional friction to simply asking the question. We are not a substitute for official tech support, we are a community.

[gilded tusk]

Having this many Channels, 50+ in the server is a good compromise to segmenting and handling conversation mixing

[errant parrot]

A community of peers, not customers (why we don't allow advertising) or staff (which is why it's a community and not a help desk)

[gilded tusk]

Also users are generally good about conversation and 'waiting' their turn to not muddle an Answerer helping out

[errant parrot]

We choose the chanels carefully, and with Epic always coming out with some new system, it's a task of ours to monitor conversations and try to determine if a topic is "worthy" of a dedicated channel, or should just stay in the generalized conversations.

[flat shoal]

that's why i stick around here more than any other place im in. it is a community, unlike a lot of other discords. its a bonus that i can use my knowledge to sometimes help give back to it :D

[errant parrot]

Like, I personally believe Strata/Substrate should have it's own channel, out of Materials, but the audience for it isn't there yet, so for now, it'll stay generalized in the #materials channel, until that changes at least.

[flat shoal]

im sure there's still some people salty about the lack of #lyra :P

[errant parrot]

same ^_^

[errant parrot]

another use case potentially for my Forum's idea. We could have a forum for Official Sample projects, and in there, a thead dedicated for Lyra and each of the other ones, It is just weird to have a channel dedicated to one sample project and not others

[flat shoal]

thats the sad thing about a lot of these things. there's a lot of cool features, there just isnt a lot of people sharing their knowledge of them. leading to dead channels like #automation

[errant parrot]

I'd also like soft skill channels to be more existing here, but they aren't appropriate for channels, they would fit better into my forum dedidcated threads structure better though

[flat shoal]

I do think a master "resources" forum would be good, with the threads being a compendium for each place. like all the pins in one place.
maybe even a manny command to submit an idea for a resource into a mod only channel where it can be considered, and easily added.

would allow for much easier manangement of resources, as well as keeping them updated

[errant parrot]

we are working on a solution to solve that issue

[flat shoal]

you could also have a lesser staff role, where more trusted members of the community have permissions to post useful resources themselves

[errant parrot]

same for this as well, working on a solution

[flat shoal]

the lesser staff role that only has access to post in the resources forum would also lift some weight off the staff team too.
would mean a moderator doesnt have to be pinged every time there is a really useful resource. sadly some good things get lost because people are busy.

[errant parrot]

it'll likely involve a request "pin resource" type of command on the bot, then it'l get approved or denied, and then a context aware (channel appropriate) command that will spit it out of the bot as a list. You've likely seen the first interation (bare bones) version of it with the /faq command

but we'll see in the near future how that pans out, it's an on going process

[flat shoal]

whereas if you gave the option for some people to have the power to collate resources, but not any real moderation power, it could serve as a great benefit to having more accessible ue resources, as well as not adding more to the mod's already full plates

but anyway that's just my rough 10 second spitball of an idea

although if you do such a thing you're obligated to give it a cool name like "Keeper of Knowledge" :P

[errant parrot]

We will be branching out the staff eventually into more roles in general, some of them dedicated to specific more isolated things. We have some great expansions for capabilities of the community as a whole, that will begin manifesting when they are ready ^_^

[flat shoal]

sounds great, i look forward to it!

[errant parrot]

^_^

side note, curiously enough, 3 of our top 10 most active channels are forum channels (in the past 30 days)

[flat shoal]

im guesing theyre the community creations ones?

[errant parrot]

yea

well based on exposure, not messages

[flat shoal]

I've noticed a lot of people tend to try it as free advertising. Join the server with no prior messages, advertise game, never come back :P
Its a bold strategy, but I'm not sure it works very well :P

[errant parrot]

and each day on average 66 hours of voice communications happen in voice chat

which is bonkers too

[errant parrot]

game devs aren't typically marketing geniuses lol

[flat shoal]

fair point 😆

[flat shoal]

that is bonkers considering i never actually see them that busy, maybe 7 or so people.

[gilded tusk]

Thanks for all the insight and opening up the conversation so we may hear some thoughts of what goes behind feature implementation.

@flat shoal @opal heart Thanks for the good convo

[flat shoal]

no problem!

[grizzled oar]

Honestly 66 sounds low xD I was expecting hundreds

[errant parrot]

just average per day, pretty bonkers, that's not idle time, that's speaking time, actual voice transmission