I began this spontaneously mid-June and at the start out July it was too soon for a new one. But now's a good time for another one. Post your feature requests / bug reports / feedback here.
Create a bug tracker. The idea of a monthly feedback round was well received but it'll get disorganized. Better to aggregate them in a dedicated space. You could release the source code to Gitlab or w/e (which is also good for generating visibility on Hacker News at some point) and it'll come with its own issue tracker.
Bug: when you click on the reply button under a comment multiple times, it opens just as many boxes. It should only open one box.
Medium-priority
These points will make this feel like more of a complete webapp.
Your own name (with a link to your profile page) should be displayed in the header. Left of the mail icon is a place that makes sense. Right now, if you don't know your username from the top of your head, you have to look for one of your posts to find the link to your profile.
Dynamically add titles to webpages, based on the title of the post or sub (and perhaps with " - Matrix" appended). This helps users navigate their tab and browser histories (and it looks more polished, of course).
Add a link to the previous conversations you had with someone on profile pages. Right now it's tucked away under mail -> read read mail -> expand conversation (in a mail you had with them).
Separate the post submission buttons from context-dependent buttons. It's easy to overlook "read read mail", "send a message" and "start a chat" when they're lumped together with the global buttons, you will think it's simply a menu that doesn't change and not read it. I think it's better if there's one blue title for "New post" and another one (between new post and sub of the week) called "Actions".
Implement expanding for text posts. I'd put this under low priority if it wasn't for chan view looking weird right now. Currently it expands links/embeds but not regular text, since that isn't available.
Bug: the chat window breaks when you expand it twice. It will show a floating titlebar, while the chatbox stays in the sidebar and just increases in length. To reproduce: pop out the chat into a floating popup, then close it, then pop it out again.
Notify a user when you start a private chat. Right now the feature feels useless, it won't get read nor archived. A notification could be as simple as a regular PM sent to the user that contains the link to the chat.
Bug: the comment box stays filled in with the content you wrote even after clicking submit. This happens to me under Firefox. (I know you can't reproduce this, but I can't be the only one who runs into it.)
Minor
Rename "Read read mail" to "notification history", that name is more sensible. I overlooked the button at one point because I simply read it as "read mail" and thought: I'm already reading mail, I have none.
Make the sidebar sticky. Text is more readable if the lines aren't too wide, like in a newspaper, so it's actually better to use part of the width for other things. Plus this makes it easier to keep track of chat and navigate the website.
Implement chat history.
Indicate connection status in the chat box. If you d/c or put your computer on standby while the chat box is open and you re-establish the connection, I think the chat just never updates. The user must refresh but nobody tells them that.
Base post URLs on the post titles. Just an idea that I came up with and it's a matter of preference. I figured: a random string is only necessary if there is redundancy. But the URL for this post, for example, could just be /c/Ideas4Matrix/August2024feedbackround, and a random string only needs to be appended if someone submits a post with that exact title to this very same sub.
I have a bit of down time while I am waiting on someone so I'm just responding with some quick notes.
Bug: when you click on the reply button under a comment multiple times, it opens just as many boxes. It should only open one box.
Yep. And the same issue existed for the edit button. I actually fixed that earlier today and just need to transfer similar code to the reply button.
The debate is whether or not to include a close button as well or if hitting the reply or edit button a second time is sufficiently intuitive. I have all permutations of those tasks in my todo (hence the edit button fix happened today).
Display the signed in user's name
Yep. I agree. I'm going to readd that to my list so it's on top. Another one is to make it easier to sign out.
Dynamically add titles to webpages
Good. Honestly that would have been one I would have overlooked.
Previous conversations on profile pages
Yep. That would be a good place to link that.
Separate typical post submission buttons from context dependent sidebar links.
Yes. Some of that was done before I had a segmenting the sidebar like we have on the front page. I agree. I'm trying to think of a good title for that segment. So it would have 'Send a message','Start a chat', and now 'Expand conversation' (that might need a rename for the context). Maybe I just title it User. The only problem with 'Actions' is starting a post is also an action.
Expand text view
Yep. Adding it back toward the top of the todo stack. I know that one is in there somewhere already.
Pop out twice breaking CSS
Yep. I'm aware of that one since the beginning. To be honest I've kept that one as low priority for a long time because I think very few people use the pop-out, much less twice. All tasks are ranked against other and against life. So TBH that one is probably going to stay broken for some time.
Send a PM when starting a chat.
It should do that currently. It will send one if someone adds content to the chat and it's been longer than a certain time. It's either 6 or 12 hours. That logic should apply to the start of a chat. If they start one and then write to it, it should see there is no message within that time frame and add a notification. I'll have to double check that though.
Refilling text area after refresh
Firefox must be filling in forms way too aggressively. There may be a way for me to mark the element as no-fill or no-store. It's kind of ironic because you say you have this hyper-secure browser that refuses to persist data. Someone could add a hidden form element to a page and possibly extract something you wrote earlier like a password and then extract it out with javascript if firefox is auto-filling everything like mad. At the very least a user should have to initiate typing before firefox fills a form element with past data. Has anyone else seen this issue? After submitting a comment you should be on a completely fresh page.
Minor
Rename "Read read mail" to "notification history"
Yeah, I was being unreasonable when I wrote that. That's just me being pissed off at the English language. So notification history or Past-read mail.
Make the sidebar sticky
There are pro's and cons. Some users have told me they like the full use of the width so I know there are varying opinions between users for what's best. The other advantage of being able to scroll the sidebar with the page instead of making it fixed is it is a fail safe for if the sidebar is ever taller than the view port on some screens. In fact on my own screen I've lost the "chat notification" toggle even when I'm not on a screen with extra items in the sidebar. And oh man if I made both independently scrollable then this site would be like speakbits. Their CSS has a lot going for them, but the multiple scroll selections is not one of them.
Indicate connection status in the chat box.
Yep. The worst part is I had to limit reconnects to a finite amount when JC's client was connecting like mad when I tried changing the protocol some to support more features. I think part of me was debating on a location for that but I think I see a good spot in the top left with a little light. The alternative is spelling it out with more text, but then there is more debate over where to put it and how to style it. A guess if text then right above the chat notifications toggle in gray or maybe green/red text.
The debate is whether or not to include a close button as well or if hitting the reply or edit button a second time is sufficiently intuitive.
I think a close button isn't important and will just clutter the interface. Someone clicking reply and then changing their mind is uncommon anyway, and even when that happens, what's the problem with a floating comment box being present. You could have the reply button close it again, but it's important not to remove the content in that case. Data loss sucks. In my opinion just having the reply button doing nothing on the second click would be actually be better. It's also more predictable.
Another one is to make it easier to sign out.
Oh yes. Please don't tuck the logout button away in a dropdown menu. Maybe just put it in parenthesis or use a log out icon for it.
I'm trying to think of a good title for that segment. So it would have 'Send a message','Start a chat', and now 'Expand conversation' (that might need a rename for the context). Maybe I just title it User. The only problem with 'Actions' is starting a post is also an action.
You could call it "Our conversations" on the user page. And you could use "Page actions".
Yep. I'm aware of that one since the beginning. To be honest I've kept that one as low priority for a long time because I think very few people use the pop-out, much less twice. All tasks are ranked against other and against life. So TBH that one is probably going to stay broken for some time.
Haha, no worries. In all honesty it's difficult to decide what priorities to assign because I don't know whether to weigh them relative to each other or simply based on whether or not they're essential for a polished site. If everything is medium the priorities lose their meaning. In an issue tracker I would probably assign the priorities differently.
I will say this: I find the height of the chat box a tad too low for usefulness and that's the only reason I use popout. Making it higher would be a quick fix since I can already change the width.
(I'm actually making use of the bug. I prefer it in the sidebar anyway and the bug is my way of increasing the height right now.)
It's kind of ironic because you say you have this hyper-secure browser that refuses to persist data.
Floorp is based on upstream Firefox ESR. Librewolf (which I switched away from) is the one that focuses on privacy and security. However, it wouldn't surprise me if it behaved the same way. That one is also based on Firefox. It's rare for developers of a fork to have that kind of attention to detail.
Some users have told me they like the full use of the width so I know there are varying opinions between users for what's best.
There could be a toggle to show/hide it.
I think part of me was debating on a location for that but I think I see a good spot in the top left with a little light.
TheLounge puts a red bar at the bottom. That'd be an alternative, to replace the text area with a notification that it's disconnected. Although I personally like your idea better, it's easier on the eyes.
No.
I don't care much either way but it isn't a ridiculous request, right? Reddit does that too, although they append a unique string regardless. Oh yeah, basing the URL on the title helps with SEO.
GitLab/Hub is appropriate for many reasons, but Projex.Wiki is also available.
I like all your ideas. Yes, navigating is not intuitive or easy. A good layout and CSS could help. And people would use more.
My top issues are 1) chat time/date stamp 2) chat doesn't indicate when it needs a refresh, thus the thing you type is obliterated lost forever, frustrating you to abandon or try to retype. Also, 3) maintain longer chat history, perhaps logged each day. 4) Might be nice to have every day indicated with a "---2024-08-05---" breaker (Universal time would be fine).
Good idea. I haven't seen too many spammers so far. I'd like to hold off on that for as long as spammers will let us. I'm going to add it to my todo anyway that way the reminder will be there if the spammers do go mad.
That and deleting accounts that haven't posted since creation and are beyond a significant age. That would help prevent spammers from skirting around such a change by just making accounts now.
I also want to add, because I mentioned it, what I meant by "making it easier for trackers to sync", because it is interesting.
I'm thinking about adding my task system into matrix as something users can operate with collectively. It's the same system I posted called todo4 https://lab.gvid.tv/x0x7/todo4.
It would need to be reworked to be added here and to become collaborative. The way todo4 works now is currently "muti-user" but that just means multiple lists. Each list has a title space and a ranking space. The way it would need to be reworked to make it collaborative and so that "users" are 1:1 with matrix users rather than with separate lists would be to make it so ranking spaces can subscribe to multiple title spaces and temporarily unsubscribe to them. Then title spaces would have user sets for read, add, remove permissions.
I want to do this not really for bug tracking on Matrix but because Matrix is becoming a place to talk about and collaborate on projects, and I want to lean into that.
So that's part of why minor issues go unfixed. They have to compete with making new things. That does spread me a little thin.
On the issue of using a bug tracker, and this might not be a response you like, but the problem is that I basically live out of a bug tracker. Everything I do actually comes out of one. My current task is "2972: 0 Put all tasks from the august feedback thread into the insert file". The problem comes, and I have tried this, when I try to have more than one. When many matrix tasks end up in my main system, which I want them to be so they can be assessed against other things, and they also exist on another system keeping both sync'd I've just found isn't ever realistic. I've tried. I'm currently working on some code that may fix that, but that is being worked on for entirely different reasons.
So one of my concerns is that if you guys add bugs to a tracker you might think that I am actively working out of it even thought I'd be really spending my time in my main system.
It could still have value for your own sense of tracking things but I don't want users to think I'm there when I'm not.
I personally like these feedback threads. They fit well into my main system which is like a probabilistic stack. Think like a min-heap but more probabilistic. It lets me sample the top tasks and re-evaluate them against each other. This means that getting feedback on an issue even if it's come before can be productive because new added tasks do go at the top of the heap where it can get another chance to compete against potentially higher priority tasks. Two of my other fears with having a formal bug tracker for the site is that someone might see that it's already been added to the tracker and not mention it again. Or someone knowing how it works might just copy-pasta the whole bug tracker to a feedback thread which I also wouldn't like. I kind of want to keep these threads in the form of a natural conversation so that what comes up is a proportional reflection of wants.
I suppose though also if we did have a gui bug tracker on the site I could add tasks to my main system to pull tasks from it into the main system every now and again.
So these are just pro's and con's to it. Perhapse even me voicing some of these drawbacks is enough to mitigate against them. I am for sure adding it as a task to my main system because even if something has a 15% chance of being productive it goes in because a big part of it is deferring evaluation. But it would still have to compete. Adding a bug tracker could easily have 70% chance of being positive. Maybe even 80%. But I find I can only complete about 10-15 tasks a day (depending on how long form or short form they are on average). I'm adding 45 from this thread. So to be honest the ones that tend to win that competition are the ones that are 100% pro, and there are many.
That's actually why timestamps in chat hadn't been added in quite a while. There was a downside even if small. At the time that was last evaluated it was more difficult to keep the front page active and one of the things new visitors look at immediately are how old are the top posts, and improving that conversion rate was basically the single highest strategic priority. Not having timestamps in the chat did two things. It added plausible deniability for inactivity when the site was at its slowest. And two having the chat be slightly less useful increased people's interaction with posting (the main function of the site and the one on which the site is judged by passer bys). That is to say there was some downside, and so it didn't compete against things with pure upside.
But in regards to the bug tracker it is entirely possible that I would change my mind and it would become a 100% pro. That's why I add things to my system even things that are only 15% because you never know how something will evaluate a week from now when you've thought about it longer.
But I also want to share the items I'm adding to my main system:
Make matrix auto fill / suggest the common subs as you type
Make a bug tracker users can see on Matrix
Make the reply button on a comment toggle rather than clone additional comment boxes on Matrix
When a user is logged into matrix their username appears where the login link was, and it links to your own profile
Add a log out link to matrix when the user is logged in
Matrix adds content to the <title> in <head> to reflect the post you are looking at
The profile page of a user also links to "expand conversation" but instead it reads "Our conversations"
Seperate post submission buttons from ones that are generated on a user profile page ("submit post","submit text"),("Send a message","Start a chat","Our conversations") and call the new section 'User'
Seperate post submission buttons from ones that are generated on a user profile page ("submit post","submit text"),("Send a message","Start a chat","Our conversations") and call the new section 'Page actions'
Rename 'sidebar' area in sidebar to 'post' because sidebar is too generic for one area of the sidebar
Make the popout chat on matrix have better CSS
Make it so the popout chat on matrix doesn't break if expanded twice
Make it so users can expand text posts on matrix
Double check that starting a new private chat with a user notifies them
See if I can mark the textarea of matrix as no-autofill or no-store to prevent firefox from refilling it's content. And or have javascript at the page load empty it.
Rename 'Read read mail' to 'Notification history'
Rename 'Read read mail' to 'Past-read mail'
Rename 'Read read mail' to 'Past mail'
Make the matrix sidebar position fixed if it is not overflowing the page
Make a matrix theme with the sidebar position fixed
Double the matrix chat history
Triple the matrix chat history
Make it so a user can get more matrix chat history by scrolling up (infinity scroll)
Add a red or green light to the top left of the chat area to indicate connection status on matrix
Add a span between the chat area and 'chat notifications toggle' that shows connection status in grey. It expands when there is any content besides connected, with an animation.
Make it so if the chat is not connected a red bar appears below the chat indicating that the user is not connected
Add a red light to the top left of the chat area that appears when the chat is not connected to matrix
Add a picture of a pie to Matrix
Add many pictures of pies to my matrix bot queue
Increase the height of the chat window by 20% on Matrix
Add timestamps to chat
When you type in chat it will double check its connection status and show a red bar under the window if it would be smart to refresh
Double the matrix chat refresh limit
Triple the matrix chat refresh limit
Pressing up in matrix chat while it is empty will retype the last thing you sent
Add day breakers to matrix chat '--2024-08-05--'. Use the client's locale time
Add email verification to matrix to prevent spammers
Style quote blocks on matrix better with a virtical left border
Style quote blocks on matrix better with a different background color
Style quote blocks on matrix better with a different text color
Style quote blocks on matrix better with a different text color grey
Style quote blocks on matrix better with a different text color green
Style quote blocks on matrix better with a virticle left border, a different background color, and different text color
Style quote blocks on matrix better with a virticle left border, a different background color, and different text color grey
Style quote blocks on matrix better with a virticle left border, a different background color, and different text color green
Make matrix auto detect links to a community '/c/community','/s/community','/v/community','/r/community' within the markdown conversion
I have my todo list spread across multiple systems and I feel your pain. There needs to be one system that contains everything. I'm making these monthly lists because it felt chaotic to make a separate post each time something occurred to me (as well as to increase engagement). I'm actually glad you're considering creating a bug tracker when you think about it longer.
But with a bug tracker you could still import them into your todo4, right? The difference would be mostly how frequent you import, once a month, or as new requests are submitted.
But if you do decide to implement todo4 here after all, I have a cool idea, inspired by org-mode: if a line starts with TODO it becomes a task that's implemented into their list. To other users it presents a button that adds it to their own todo list. If the line contains @someuser in it, it doesn't get added to their own list, because you're suggesting it as something for them to do. They get notified and can accept it with the button.
TODO implement todo4 into Matrix @x0x7
It makes sense because this is markdown which is similar to org-mode. And this definitely maintains the conversational style.
That's actually why timestamps in chat hadn't been added in quite a while.
That makes sense. It's good to be strategic about these things. I will remove the web chat from Rabbit Hole and re-add it later so that I can make a separate promotion post on Saidit saying that I added that feature.
But if you do implement it, then an increased default width for the sidebar will be even more important. I hope you don't mind my nagging about that. It doesn't need to be 40%, but wider than it is now.
(Also, there's a subtle difference to consider between fixed width and percentual width with a min + max width. I'm just adding this for completeness. I see that it switches to a fixed width the moment you change it manually. You're already doing this right, although it's still interesting to explore the alternatives.)
In my IRC client I just have HH:MM as the format even without square brackets so that it saves width.
Another suggestion: make it so that if you click reply while text from that post is selected, it will quote that text (just like on Reddit).
This is now where I put the queue for next month's thread.
Low-priority: site search.
Low-priority: change comment sorting method.
Low-priority: if you submit a text post with a one line body, it hardly stands out as it's sandwiched between a big title and big body. Make it stand out better.
Medium-priority: Default to the New page or to Age having score 5.
Low-priority: link for self posts in the topbar.
Low-priority: Allow (un)subscribing to/from communities and change the topbar dynamically.
Low-priority: Highlight Hot or New by default, don't confront new users too much with configuration.
Low-priority: ping groups.
Low-priority: make the chan mode actually look like a chan where comments are embedded and the medium is displayed within a dedicated frame instead of expanding below it.
Low-priority: Introduce a tag / community cloud.
Low-priority: saving posts.
High priority: website needs a redesign.
Low-priority: topbar alphabetical order.
High priority: fix invidious again.
Medium priority: provide comment history on the user's profile, not just submission history.
Log in
Here's my own feedback.
High-priority requests
Medium-priority
These points will make this feel like more of a complete webapp.
Minor
I have a bit of down time while I am waiting on someone so I'm just responding with some quick notes.
Yep. And the same issue existed for the edit button. I actually fixed that earlier today and just need to transfer similar code to the reply button.
The debate is whether or not to include a close button as well or if hitting the reply or edit button a second time is sufficiently intuitive. I have all permutations of those tasks in my todo (hence the edit button fix happened today).
Yep. I agree. I'm going to readd that to my list so it's on top. Another one is to make it easier to sign out.
Good. Honestly that would have been one I would have overlooked.
Yep. That would be a good place to link that.
Yes. Some of that was done before I had a segmenting the sidebar like we have on the front page. I agree. I'm trying to think of a good title for that segment. So it would have 'Send a message','Start a chat', and now 'Expand conversation' (that might need a rename for the context). Maybe I just title it User. The only problem with 'Actions' is starting a post is also an action.
Yep. Adding it back toward the top of the todo stack. I know that one is in there somewhere already.
Yep. I'm aware of that one since the beginning. To be honest I've kept that one as low priority for a long time because I think very few people use the pop-out, much less twice. All tasks are ranked against other and against life. So TBH that one is probably going to stay broken for some time.
It should do that currently. It will send one if someone adds content to the chat and it's been longer than a certain time. It's either 6 or 12 hours. That logic should apply to the start of a chat. If they start one and then write to it, it should see there is no message within that time frame and add a notification. I'll have to double check that though.
Firefox must be filling in forms way too aggressively. There may be a way for me to mark the element as no-fill or no-store. It's kind of ironic because you say you have this hyper-secure browser that refuses to persist data. Someone could add a hidden form element to a page and possibly extract something you wrote earlier like a password and then extract it out with javascript if firefox is auto-filling everything like mad. At the very least a user should have to initiate typing before firefox fills a form element with past data. Has anyone else seen this issue? After submitting a comment you should be on a completely fresh page.
Minor
Yeah, I was being unreasonable when I wrote that. That's just me being pissed off at the English language. So notification history or Past-read mail.
There are pro's and cons. Some users have told me they like the full use of the width so I know there are varying opinions between users for what's best. The other advantage of being able to scroll the sidebar with the page instead of making it fixed is it is a fail safe for if the sidebar is ever taller than the view port on some screens. In fact on my own screen I've lost the "chat notification" toggle even when I'm not on a screen with extra items in the sidebar. And oh man if I made both independently scrollable then this site would be like speakbits. Their CSS has a lot going for them, but the multiple scroll selections is not one of them.
Yep. The worst part is I had to limit reconnects to a finite amount when JC's client was connecting like mad when I tried changing the protocol some to support more features. I think part of me was debating on a location for that but I think I see a good spot in the top left with a little light. The alternative is spelling it out with more text, but then there is more debate over where to put it and how to style it. A guess if text then right above the chat notifications toggle in gray or maybe green/red text.
No.
i like pie. this place needs more pie.
I think a close button isn't important and will just clutter the interface. Someone clicking reply and then changing their mind is uncommon anyway, and even when that happens, what's the problem with a floating comment box being present. You could have the reply button close it again, but it's important not to remove the content in that case. Data loss sucks. In my opinion just having the reply button doing nothing on the second click would be actually be better. It's also more predictable.
Oh yes. Please don't tuck the logout button away in a dropdown menu. Maybe just put it in parenthesis or use a log out icon for it.
You could call it "Our conversations" on the user page. And you could use "Page actions".
Haha, no worries. In all honesty it's difficult to decide what priorities to assign because I don't know whether to weigh them relative to each other or simply based on whether or not they're essential for a polished site. If everything is medium the priorities lose their meaning. In an issue tracker I would probably assign the priorities differently.
I will say this: I find the height of the chat box a tad too low for usefulness and that's the only reason I use popout. Making it higher would be a quick fix since I can already change the width.
(I'm actually making use of the bug. I prefer it in the sidebar anyway and the bug is my way of increasing the height right now.)
Floorp is based on upstream Firefox ESR. Librewolf (which I switched away from) is the one that focuses on privacy and security. However, it wouldn't surprise me if it behaved the same way. That one is also based on Firefox. It's rare for developers of a fork to have that kind of attention to detail.
There could be a toggle to show/hide it.
TheLounge puts a red bar at the bottom. That'd be an alternative, to replace the text area with a notification that it's disconnected. Although I personally like your idea better, it's easier on the eyes.
I don't care much either way but it isn't a ridiculous request, right? Reddit does that too, although they append a unique string regardless. Oh yeah, basing the URL on the title helps with SEO.
GitLab/Hub is appropriate for many reasons, but Projex.Wiki is also available.
I like all your ideas. Yes, navigating is not intuitive or easy. A good layout and CSS could help. And people would use more.
My top issues are 1) chat time/date stamp 2) chat doesn't indicate when it needs a refresh, thus the thing you type is obliterated lost forever, frustrating you to abandon or try to retype. Also, 3) maintain longer chat history, perhaps logged each day. 4) Might be nice to have every day indicated with a "---2024-08-05---" breaker (Universal time would be fine).
What's new
I'd just like to list what are in my opinion the most important recent changes.
More changes are documented in /c/Matrixdev.
Thanks Larry. A lot of these are gold. I'm going to be responding deeper in a little bit.
Email verification to prevent spammers.
Good idea. I haven't seen too many spammers so far. I'd like to hold off on that for as long as spammers will let us. I'm going to add it to my todo anyway that way the reminder will be there if the spammers do go mad.
That and deleting accounts that haven't posted since creation and are beyond a significant age. That would help prevent spammers from skirting around such a change by just making accounts now.
Further requests, all low priority
Thanks for the note on the quote block styling.
As far as I can tell those links do work.
https://matrix.gvid.tv/c/Funny
Or you mean auto url detection. That is a good idea.
I mean the ability to just write /c/Funny and it being a hyperlink, just like how /r/anything works on Reddit.
I also want to add, because I mentioned it, what I meant by "making it easier for trackers to sync", because it is interesting.
I'm thinking about adding my task system into matrix as something users can operate with collectively. It's the same system I posted called todo4 https://lab.gvid.tv/x0x7/todo4.
It would need to be reworked to be added here and to become collaborative. The way todo4 works now is currently "muti-user" but that just means multiple lists. Each list has a title space and a ranking space. The way it would need to be reworked to make it collaborative and so that "users" are 1:1 with matrix users rather than with separate lists would be to make it so ranking spaces can subscribe to multiple title spaces and temporarily unsubscribe to them. Then title spaces would have user sets for read, add, remove permissions.
I want to do this not really for bug tracking on Matrix but because Matrix is becoming a place to talk about and collaborate on projects, and I want to lean into that.
So that's part of why minor issues go unfixed. They have to compete with making new things. That does spread me a little thin.
Ok. I'm adding all of these to my own todo list.
On the issue of using a bug tracker, and this might not be a response you like, but the problem is that I basically live out of a bug tracker. Everything I do actually comes out of one. My current task is "2972: 0 Put all tasks from the august feedback thread into the insert file". The problem comes, and I have tried this, when I try to have more than one. When many matrix tasks end up in my main system, which I want them to be so they can be assessed against other things, and they also exist on another system keeping both sync'd I've just found isn't ever realistic. I've tried. I'm currently working on some code that may fix that, but that is being worked on for entirely different reasons.
So one of my concerns is that if you guys add bugs to a tracker you might think that I am actively working out of it even thought I'd be really spending my time in my main system.
It could still have value for your own sense of tracking things but I don't want users to think I'm there when I'm not.
I personally like these feedback threads. They fit well into my main system which is like a probabilistic stack. Think like a min-heap but more probabilistic. It lets me sample the top tasks and re-evaluate them against each other. This means that getting feedback on an issue even if it's come before can be productive because new added tasks do go at the top of the heap where it can get another chance to compete against potentially higher priority tasks. Two of my other fears with having a formal bug tracker for the site is that someone might see that it's already been added to the tracker and not mention it again. Or someone knowing how it works might just copy-pasta the whole bug tracker to a feedback thread which I also wouldn't like. I kind of want to keep these threads in the form of a natural conversation so that what comes up is a proportional reflection of wants.
I suppose though also if we did have a gui bug tracker on the site I could add tasks to my main system to pull tasks from it into the main system every now and again.
So these are just pro's and con's to it. Perhapse even me voicing some of these drawbacks is enough to mitigate against them. I am for sure adding it as a task to my main system because even if something has a 15% chance of being productive it goes in because a big part of it is deferring evaluation. But it would still have to compete. Adding a bug tracker could easily have 70% chance of being positive. Maybe even 80%. But I find I can only complete about 10-15 tasks a day (depending on how long form or short form they are on average). I'm adding 45 from this thread. So to be honest the ones that tend to win that competition are the ones that are 100% pro, and there are many.
That's actually why timestamps in chat hadn't been added in quite a while. There was a downside even if small. At the time that was last evaluated it was more difficult to keep the front page active and one of the things new visitors look at immediately are how old are the top posts, and improving that conversion rate was basically the single highest strategic priority. Not having timestamps in the chat did two things. It added plausible deniability for inactivity when the site was at its slowest. And two having the chat be slightly less useful increased people's interaction with posting (the main function of the site and the one on which the site is judged by passer bys). That is to say there was some downside, and so it didn't compete against things with pure upside.
But in regards to the bug tracker it is entirely possible that I would change my mind and it would become a 100% pro. That's why I add things to my system even things that are only 15% because you never know how something will evaluate a week from now when you've thought about it longer.
But I also want to share the items I'm adding to my main system:
I have my todo list spread across multiple systems and I feel your pain. There needs to be one system that contains everything. I'm making these monthly lists because it felt chaotic to make a separate post each time something occurred to me (as well as to increase engagement). I'm actually glad you're considering creating a bug tracker when you think about it longer.
But with a bug tracker you could still import them into your todo4, right? The difference would be mostly how frequent you import, once a month, or as new requests are submitted.
But if you do decide to implement todo4 here after all, I have a cool idea, inspired by org-mode: if a line starts with TODO it becomes a task that's implemented into their list. To other users it presents a button that adds it to their own todo list. If the line contains @someuser in it, it doesn't get added to their own list, because you're suggesting it as something for them to do. They get notified and can accept it with the button.
TODO implement todo4 into Matrix @x0x7
It makes sense because this is markdown which is similar to org-mode. And this definitely maintains the conversational style.
That makes sense. It's good to be strategic about these things. I will remove the web chat from Rabbit Hole and re-add it later so that I can make a separate promotion post on Saidit saying that I added that feature.
But if you do implement it, then an increased default width for the sidebar will be even more important. I hope you don't mind my nagging about that. It doesn't need to be 40%, but wider than it is now.
(Also, there's a subtle difference to consider between fixed width and percentual width with a min + max width. I'm just adding this for completeness. I see that it switches to a fixed width the moment you change it manually. You're already doing this right, although it's still interesting to explore the alternatives.)
In my IRC client I just have HH:MM as the format even without square brackets so that it saves width.
Another suggestion: make it so that if you click reply while text from that post is selected, it will quote that text (just like on Reddit).
Progress August 6:
Yay!
Here's another one: make it possible to submit to multiple communities simultaneously. (Is 'community' what the /c/ stands for, btw?)
This is now where I put the queue for next month's thread.
Progress August 7:
The reply button now toggles the reply box instead of making additional boxes.
Progress August 11:
I made it so domains that are known to cause problems when embedded not only don't expand but the expand option isn't present.