Can we enable threads please?

[deft dirge]

It would save so much confusion when there are multiple conversations going on.

[timid canopy]

The general consensus is 'no'.

I'm sure the mods can explain!

[vague shale]

I am personally for trying it out on the more popular channels ... when a lot of people are introducing new questions to a busy channel it does become difficult to keep track of the discussions

[timid canopy]

But in a busy channel anyone who isn't there at the time won't see the conversation at all.

Unless they read the entire chat history

[deft dirge]

I'm not sure. With a much less cluttered chat history, organized by the original question / topic, it's more likely for ppl to dip into conversations they are either interested in learning from or contributing to.

I guess it would be contingent on EVERYONE complying with sticking to threaded conversations. I'm not sure there's any way to force that.

[timid canopy]

Which isn't gonna happen

It'd also end up with even more "channels" on teh channel list

Not that I'm against them. I think threads are great. I just don't think they'll solve the problem you think they will.

[peak pollen]

I think we have 2 groups with different goals...

1 group (the question askers) wants this server to be a QA only place focused only on providing support

The other group (includes many answerers) wants this server to be a place for UE related people to hang out and occasionally help each other when possible

That's why we keep having these conversations about questions getting lost in the chat; but the thing is the only people upset about this situation tend to be newer users or people who only care about getting their questions answered

[coarse carbon]

yep I get it, it sucks to not always get an anwser but that also gives you time to find one or learn on your own and that I think is much more valuable than always having the anwser

[deft dirge]

That makes a ton of sense. I fall 70% in category A right now and 30% in category B.

[deft dirge]

Fair enough. I guess the questions I'm asking are above the average level of most users. Haven't had a single one answered yet

Looking at the conversations though I think the majority of the convos here are QA until you get into like the dev-hangout or industry channels

Maybe the solution is to clearly have QA channels (with threading) and hangout channels (without)?

[peak pollen]

The problem is that group A is forgetting this is a community server not an official one....

So nobody is here except because they feel like hanging out.

If we make it all about QA nobody will want to come here to answer stuff.
(For an example, see the official forums. Also I didn't get into it but those exist so if you want threading go there)

[deft dirge]

The official forums are so dead. I have unanswered questions there from 6-7 months ago.

But I get your point. Very valid

[peak pollen]

Looking through your post history I see a ton of it is in #blueprint so maybe you actually are asking things the people who hang out there don't know (most of the people with detailed UE knowledge are in #cpp )

[peak pollen]

That's cause "all of us" hate threaded conversations that take forever to play out... we like realtime conversations

[deft dirge]

Appreciate the tip.

[coarse carbon]

yep I do a LOT more BP than c++ but I hang out there as there's less constant questions (also EIS, profiling or UMG too)

[deft dirge]

I hear what you're saying - #blueprints is a lot of the blind leading the blind. I can answer a lot of questions there because I have 35 years of (regular) enterprise software programming experience and a lot of the beginners just struggle with basic programming concepts. when it comes to UE-specific stuff I'm a lot less confident in my answers

This begs the question for me (though this might not be the right place to ask it). Where do the "experts" go for those more advanced questions?

[coarse carbon]

usually I go to the specific channel or I dig into the source code

[peak pollen]

we ask the 10 or so regulars in #cpp or we realise we need to solve it ourselves and look through the source

not that that's how it should be... 😄

[dusk lark]

Just want to voice my support for this and it's actually for a bit of a different reason. The thing in my experience that threads help with the most is not in the moment discussion, but rather they vastly improve the experience of searching for past information. Right now in #cpp I searched for something releated to what I'm working on and am having to wade through like 3 simultaneous discussions just to read the conversation I actually care about. We turned on threads in a speedrunning discord I'm an admin in strategy discussion channels like 2 years ago for this exact purpose and have never looked back

Also the in the moment discussion can still be a big deal too. Concrete exmaple being this: #cpp message
Xero completely missed the context of what Streamsnipe is asking about despite there only being a few minutes of time between messages

[peak pollen]

I didn't miss their context, they didn't give a proper explanation of what they were trying to do initially.

...and that was mostly because they were new and had incorrect assumptions about how Dynamic Multicast delegates work

you can see that if you read the rest of the conversation

[peak pollen]

I don't think anybody disagrees that searching/looking up past info may be easier in threads (although Discord search is buggy to begin with)

The thing is that threads kill the moment to moment conversation around here and then you have nothing to search later at all.

[dusk lark]

Ok maybe I messed up and thought some of their extra context was given a little earlier, but again it's all spread out over multiple pages so it's still hard for me to parse the conversation

[peak pollen]

and right now the tide has been in favor of the moment instead of making past conversations accessible

[peak pollen]

this Discord is less about searching and finding an answer (although that is valid and appriciated)

it's more about jumping in and asking

[dusk lark]

Fair enough but I'll provide another point in favor. I now have some extra information of my own that I want to add to that discussion. If it were in a thread I could just post it and all would make sense but instead I now have to find the end of the conversation and make a discord reply, cluttering the current discussion and making those interested have to jump back and do the same dance I just described.

[peak pollen]

I dunno it didn't stop people from creating a bunch of posts threads about same this topic in this feedback channel.... and we use forums here which is just a better version of threads

threads are just garbage

and they expire

[dusk lark]

You mean like little fake channel button that appears under the channel their in? Tbh I don't really care for that feature at all anyway. The actual thread itself never expires

[peak pollen]

this duplication is what would happen

[peak pollen]

well that's what threads are and that's what this request was for

[dusk lark]

Isn't duplication already an issue without threads? I'm not really sure that someone asking a question that becomes a duplicate thread is really an issue. Also you could just reply to the question with a link to an existing thread if it's a known duplicate

[peak pollen]

My point is that threads won't solve duplication, forums won't either... so give up... nothing will and it doesn't matter

if search failed you just ask again

[dusk lark]

Duplication was never one of my grievances

[peak pollen]

ok so what is your reasoning for trying to follow old conversations over just asking people active right now? if not trying to avoid duplication?

UE is a constantly evolving topic, old info isn't always useful to start with

[dusk lark]

Well firstly there's no guarantee you'll get an answer (my questions are somewhat routinely missed completely already and I'm not exactly gonna pester people to respond to me). If you can search and see a discussion about what you're doing it's really good to be able to follow that discussion.

but yeah if you search and don't find anything or if it's old and outdated then sure ask again

[peak pollen]

if nobody responds just delete the message and paste in again later

people are here from all over the world

we're in and out at different times

[dusk lark]

Idk this seems like a totally orthogonal issue. I don't much care about questions getting missed or discussion duplication. To try to sum up my position:
Currently if I want to engage with a discussion in progress/after the fact I typically need to parse through several competing concurrent discussions. This can be difficult and easily lead to missing context that otherwise would be clear in a linear thread. This is (in my opinion) an issue for both in the moment discussion AND reviewing something after the fact, with the latter being what I was trying to emphasize with my first message as the existing discussion here mostly revolved around in the moment discussion

That is all. If you disagree that's fine too.

[vague shale]

threads are currently enabled in #blueprint as a trial run atm

the way I see it is threads solve 2 main problems: When channels are busy threads make it easier to respond to people and keeping a discussion on a specific topic in one (or fewer) locations rather than spread all over the place between other offtopic responses

[coarse carbon]

I could see having them in the main general channels like blueprint but past that i don't see them as very useful if anything they tend to be a hindrance usually if I don't get an answer I think further on my problem and make sure I'm not approaching it in the wrong way 🤷‍♂️ usually I am and I solve my own problem. Threads/forums are a solution looking for a problem imo. If you want threads or forums then why not use the forums? It's more official and has actual responses that you can follow up on later. Just my two cents

[maiden galleon]

I would love to see this. My number one issue with using Discord as a support platform has always been the fact that multiple conversations drown each other out.
Not only are some questions instantly getting completely buried and missed if they have bad timing posting, but like others have pointed out already it's just a headache to follow along when multiple conversations are overlapping.

[warped sedge]

It is enabled right now in #blueprint

Though currently it doesn't seem popular

[vague shale]

the people like it, it just isn't being used that often for many reasons

#blueprint message

9 hours left on this poll

[pseudo fossil]

I LIKE IT MAN

[vague shale]

can the people who are voting no on that poll explain why they don't like threads?

[eternal radish]

Show yourselves 🔨

[timid canopy]

I didn't vote, but I just feel that the threads are gonna get lost in the conversations too.

Plus each active thread you look at is gonna make the channel list even longer.

[coarse carbon]

I don't like them as reading a chat flows more naturally imo like busy chats it could be handy but I feel like it hides info more than it keeps chat moving just my thoughts 🤷‍♂️

[vague shale]

you just need to right click the thread and "Leave Thread" to remove them from the channel list

[vague shale]

they will only be enabled in the "busy" channels

[coarse carbon]

If that's the case then I'll gladly change my answer

[vague shale]

no need to change it, just want to have a discussion.. the poll was just to start it

[coarse carbon]

Honestly that was my only big gripe was in smaller channels it would lead to a ton of threads (at least that what I've seen in smaller servers) so if it's only for bigger channels I like that 🤘

[vague shale]

they might only be activated on #cpp and #ue5-general

as well as #blueprint

[timid canopy]

That's just a hassle.

[vague shale]

it is possible for the thread author to set the auto close timer to 1 hour

by default it is 3 days

[timid canopy]

They aren't gonna though 😛

[warped sedge]

That's my gripe with them. When they were used it felt like it broke the flow of conversation. They were quickly forgotten about and seldom used, and threads still got buried anyway

[flint garden]

You don't have to participate in every thread. Neither do you need to convert every question into a thread. They are a tool for cases where multiple discussions overlap and it becomes hard to follow. You can simply not use them if you don't want to. I'm sure you'll be fine (:

[kindred adder]

Threads make sense to me. Not everyone wants to be part of every conversation.

Especially “why won’t anyone answer my question?” and “where’s the documentation?” which drag on and on and pollute the channels regularly

[warped sedge]

That's the thing with me. I don't like them so I don't use them. But their existence doesn't impact me, unlike a move to forums

It would be useful to see them more in practice over an extended period

[flint garden]

Yeah I think it's fair to simply say one doesn't use them, at least atm, but if others want to use them it's fine.

Full on "no I don't want that", is just not gonna cut it I believe

[peak pollen]

I deleted my feedback earlier because I realized I just don't care about this enough, but I think you're incorrect and that it's not clear cut.

It all depends on how much usage Threads get. If nearly everything goes in a Thread it will be annoying for the people that don't like them.

Do what you want with the server, but the more it deviates from a chat room the less I personally want to use it.

[flint garden]

And that's fine. Can't make it work for everyone.

We have almost 110k users (ignoring the prune button). There will be people unhappy with and without threads.

Unlike forums, I think they aren't that bad. If you really don't want to use the Server anymore over the existence of threads then that's totally fair, but I don't think I would want to adjust anything due to your decision. The people who would like to use threads still use the server without. So I'm sure the people who aren't happy about threads can manage the once in a while popping up thread.

And if not, then well, that's how it is. Pretty sure there are more important things in life than the thread option on some community discord server. :P

Pretty subjective overall though.

[peak pollen]

I think you're missing the point I intended, because I'm not trying to say anybody should be adjusting anything due to my decision.

I was attempting to get across 4 points:

• This is a change to the current nature of the chat.
• Some people prefer the current nature of the chat. I am one of them.
• How much this matters to people like me will depend on how much it gets used.
• I personally prefer the server to be more of a chat room than a forum.

My personal preference doesn't and shouldn't count more than anybody else's I only mentioned it to state my stance.

The only reason I made that post was in to response to a post you made dismissing this viewpoint as invalid (or Full on "no I don't want that", is just not gonna cut it I believe).

I generally agree with you if some people want to use it and some people don't it's probably going to be fine; but if it gets lopsided one way or another it's going to annoy one group or the other.

It's fine to make assumptions about what will happen and I think we agree on the outcome, but I think some of the things you have said have been overly dismissive of perfectly valid viewpoints to discuss.

[peak pollen]

Nobody said it was that important and I even said I deleted more detailed feedback earlier because I don't care what this server does that much.

I've noticed changes get implemented with or without users wanting them.

So don't go making things out to be a bigger deal than they are. Either you still want feedback and the thread is open or you don't and it should be closed.

[flint garden]

It's poorly worded I guess. What I meant is that people just saying "No I don't want this." without feedback aren't going to stop much. And that's just my personal opinion.
We have had the same stuff with "I want this." situations, where no proper reasons were named and the request was thus denied.

[peak pollen]

I haven't seen many of those but yeh they do happen. If that's what you inteneded, understood.

[flint garden]

I think I'm just annoyed at the discussion and situation overall. I might have chosen the wrong words, so apologies for that. I would really like to try the feature and I really don't think it will cause that much trouble, especially after seeing its usage in #blueprint .

It's just so exhausting to suggest utilizing a feature that objectively could help the server's weakpoint, which is that questions often spam away other questions, but then instantly getting tons of negative feedback from a few or a small group of people (no matter who they are).

And some of that being really really subjective, down to the nature of "I don't like it, if you add it I will use the server less."

[peak pollen]

I just see a future where after it's enabled it becomes standard practice to use threads for all questions and eventually they are forced

[flint garden]

While having tons of users not using the server cause their questions remain spammed away and unanswered.

[flint garden]

#blueprint already shows that isn't happening

could partially be cause people don't know they can use them

Like, I'm not dismissing the problem of the original chats becoming non-chats.

And I know that's a big topic for the regulars.

[peak pollen]

I just don't think that's what's happening in #cpp at least....

I think the questions not being answered are due to timezones or due to being poorly worded/too much effort to answer....

Threads only helps with timezones out of those issues

[flint garden]

What I believe is that #cpp will then also not create threads.

Or maybe someone who was against them will actually be happy to be able to answer someone in a seperate "channel" if the rest of the channel is going banana again

But this is all theory of course

[peak pollen]

This is why I'm still talking... I only care about one channel 😄
(I don't like switching which is why I don't like threads or #programmer-hangout being created)

[flint garden]

Especially if the regulars aren't actively using them, they will naturally be less used.

Which is totally fine

I mainly want the option to exist

If #cpp has them enabled but you all don't create them, either cause the channel is not full enough or fwiw you don't like them, then that's fine

But if I go to #cpp for example and I see that someone asked a question in the middle of a big discussion, I want the option to pull them into a thread.

And I fully understand if you for example then don't participate in that specific little thread

Idk if that makes sense. The idea is not to destroy the chatty nature of e.g. #cpp

[peak pollen]

Like I said (and other have as well) I'll happily ignore them, but I'm against them becoming manditory for questions in the future

[flint garden]

They will not be mandatory

People can't find pins, or read channel description

I doubt they will stick to any such rule if it would exist

And I would also not want that

I want threads as an optional tool

[peak pollen]

I bring this up because this and forums are intrinsically tied topics and both have been asked for

[flint garden]

I think forums will never make it beyond what they are now

And fwiw forums for what we use them atm are okay

It helps us staying organized with request discussion

And the community creation ones with the gallery mode aren't too bad either

But that's probably all there will ever be

This is only about threads, and only in some channels, and only optional

[peak pollen]

I'm just saying.... this server loves to abuse vertical space in the channel list.....

It's a good thing Favorites and Filtering exist now

😄

[flint garden]

Yeah that's also one of those pain points

Lots of people ask for more channels

For the least usuable features

I also count to that sadly, cause I hoped for some of the gameplay features to have more usage, but the channels died down

So you have the ones that don't like the big channel list

And you have the ones that don't mind and want more channels to have more topics

And then we sit between those two groups, both shouting at us :D

[peak pollen]

I think we have a lot of people who are just frustrated they didn't find help with minimal effort so we need to make changes to accommodate them:

• Make a channel for their niche topic instead of just going in the existing more general channel
• Change to threads/forums because their question was drown out (maybe in BP, but doubt in CPP)
• etc

[warped sedge]

Threads were always my preferred middle ground personally.
If you don't want to use them, you can ignore them easily
If you want to avoid the hustle and bustle, it's great to jump away.

One of my worries about them is Discord's thread cap, the auto deletion of threads, and their discoverability. It could lead to valuable info getting lost.
Though then again, I'm kidding myself if I believe anyone actually uses the Discord search here :P

[flint garden]

Threads are searchable iirc

We discussed that internally before even trying them in #blueprint

And the Threads list at the top should still show them even after they auto archive

[peak pollen]

Yeh I also thought those would get more action but I think that's because people don't understand what they are

[flint garden]

I don't think they auto delete

[flint garden]

Right, it's an issue with the names, similar to "game-design" channels

[warped sedge]

I could have sworn some discussion previously in one of these where that was brought up

Could be wrong though

seems you're right on searchable threads though, so that's nice

[flint garden]

And also cause the stuff in question #modular-gameplay-plugin and #game-features-system aren't really shown outside of Lyra (or are even part of it?)

[flint garden]

I think that was patched

It's one of the big reasons we decided to try them now

[warped sedge]

That's pretty neat

[flint garden]

And I can still see all of the threads in #blueprint if I want to

Not saying it's great

But they aren't lost

[peak pollen]

They aren't part of Lyra, those are in the engine; but yeh Lyra is their biggest showcase currently

[warped sedge]

Have Discord fixed the thread cap?

[flint garden]

I have no clue

[warped sedge]

I don't remember if it was max number of threads, or max thread contributers, but either way it doesn't seem great.
Par for the course for Discord though it seems :P

[flint garden]

I think from what I read it's 1000 active threads and unlimited archived threads

I don't think we will reach those numbers

[warped sedge]

Ah, I thought archived threads were capped too

[kindred adder]

Adding another spanner to this sideshow. Personally I support threads all the way. But when I’ve tried to mandate in similar collaboration environments people struggle with correct usage initially and it can take quite a while to get the right behaviors. Used properly, threads are a great way to organise complex discussion topics. I guess the question is if our diverse user base can handle the extra moving parts.

[vague shale]

ya threads are great for when a channel is active with 5+ chatters talking about 5+ different topics at once and for explanations of complex things that may take a while to communicate

we can also organize pins with them, pin a thread and update that thread with links or advice about a topic

[flint garden]

Yeah we don't have a lot of threads in #blueprint at the moment. But I think that's cause there were no threads before and there are non anywhere else, so no one even considers that they are a thing when posting there.

[timid canopy]

It may be the every day user who doesn't read the feedback/announcements doesn't even know they're turned on.

Yeah.

[onyx breach]

With the the enormity of this discord, it is absolutely absurd to me that threads are disabled

[coarse carbon]

They aren't they are just limited to specific channels

[primal karma]

can we please enable threads in #profiling ?

[flint garden]

There doesn't seem to be that much traffic. Why do you think it's needed?

[primal karma]

Didn't know this is judged by anything, yet alone traffic
Seems to me as a functionality thing

Im sometimes very active in the #profiling channel
Sometimes there is a need to exchange multiple messages, media etc.
To be honest now i think of it i dont know why i didn't see it before

#profiling is the ideal channel for having threads, the nature of the channel is basically to get a solution for a real issue, and this can take many step sometimes, gathering data, asking, exchanging data/media back and forth, keep in touch for a while, i mean insight is complex on its own, all of that its an ideal case for using threads if its needed
frankly im surprised it isn't enabled already cuz basically why not

i could even invert the question and ask why not, really, i dont see any reasonable argument to not have it, if someone doesn't need it, then just dont use it and that's it, being it enabled doesn't seem to me to have any downsides or issues, after all its totally optional, not even that i need it, but if anyone want to use it then why not? and technically this could be asked for all ue question channel

the other thing is that i do manage some of this things thru DMs cuz if the amount of data and its not ideal, not everyone wants to talk with ppl thru DMs and if its DMs no one can see it, search for it, if its a thread in channel its searchable, so the knowledge is for everyone with similar issue if they need it

[coarse carbon]

I don't know maybe it's just me but I find I interact waaaay less if comments are in a thread vs just in order, to me it's much easier to follow along even if I'm not responding currently for example if someone gives bad advice in a thread the odds I'm gonna see it are 0 vs if it's in a chat I'm way more likely to see it but that's just like my opinion man

[flint garden]

@slender ferry could you enable Threads in #profiling ?

[slender ferry]

Sure thing

[primal karma]

thank u

[primal karma]

well i guess it depends on the case, thread is not something to start with i think, more like a place u eventually land if its needed where u already have ppl interested to talk about specific things

and im not even the one that asks questions in #profiling , im the one trying to provide solutions and sometimes a thread would be helpful at that point

[coarse carbon]

Fair enough 🤷‍♂️ lol

[urban harbor]

Porque los dos. Why not have both options and satisfy everyone?

Edit: Oh didn't see its already shipped

[dense plume]

How about threads in #animation ? 🙂

[stark goblet]

May I suggest a separate threaded "General2" channel.
So we get the best of both worlds, and relieve some of the pressure on general 1

[flint garden]

General is already threaded or not?

Creating another channel just splits the community.

[north atlas]

Could we more generally enable threads across all of the development channels? My use case is not for active conversations but old ones. In good StackOverflow-like behavior, I searched for the answer to my question before posting it, and I found dozens of people with the same problem, but none of them were able to find an answer, potentially why the question kept getting posted over and over again. I ended up finding the answer on my own, but if I go and reply to one of the questions, no one will be able to see my answer in the future & will keep posting the question over and over. If threads were enabled, I could answer the question in a thread & then anyone searching for the question later will find it.

[coarse carbon]

Replies should show in the search if not you could do this

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