All I want is a small hidden pony

March 10, 2015 7:58 AM

It would be great to have disclosure widgets on the Recent Activity page, allowing users to collapse and expand the display of each post shown.

I often find myself wanting to skip past several recently-active posts to get to the one I really care about. I don't want to remove those other posts from my recent activity, because I'll get back to them another time. But I don't want them cluttering up my page right now.

When expanded, the display would be just as it currently is. When collapsed, it would show... well I'm not sure exactly, but much less. Maybe the title of the post, the summary of the number of comments, and the first couple of lines of the most recent comment.

This would be most useful if the site remembered my selections across visits, but might be handy even without that.

The feature would be especially great in the mobile site, but I'd also like it on the full site.

posted by alms to Feature Requests at 7:58 AM (14 comments total)

Thanks for the suggestion. We're thinking about some changes to Recent Activity, especially how we handle longer comments. We'll consider this as well.

In the meantime, you might bookmark the Manage Threads in Recent Activity page. It gives you a view of the threads in your Recent Activity by title. We show it on mobile devices as a way to remove threads from Recent Activity. But you could also use it as a quick reminder of threads that you've participated in without seeing recent comments.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:00 AM on March 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

This would be awesome.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:19 AM on March 10, 2015

I would ride this pony and hug it and squeeze it and name it George.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:52 AM on March 10, 2015

Collapsible Pony!
posted by Tomorrowful at 2:11 PM on March 10, 2015

Yes! I have been thinking of making this exact same meta recently. I agree!! Except I don't know why it would be called a "disclosure widget." But this is something that I really want, especially when I'm viewing things on my tiny phone.
posted by sockermom at 2:21 PM on March 10, 2015

In the meantime, you might bookmark the Manage Threads in Recent Activity page. It gives you a view of the threads in your Recent Activity by title.

Huh, for me, that page doesn't show threads I've added to my activity via the nifty new feature. Is it supposed to?
posted by moira at 2:34 PM on March 10, 2015

Seconded! Er, rather: fifthed or sixthed!
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:55 PM on March 10, 2015

Is it supposed to?

Yep! It should be showing them now—sorry about that.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:06 PM on March 10, 2015

Just to throw this out there, I've thought it might be nice for the "most recent comment" to not scroll off the page in recent activity threads. Sometimes it says, "54 since your most recent comment, last 10 shown below...," and I forget what it was that I said. Perhaps it encourages going back to the thread and getting all the comments between then and now (which is probably a good practice), but sometimes it's also nice to just get the gist of how things have developed since you last participated in the thread. If it was up for consideration, maybe the most recent comment could be in a highlighted box, or in a pop-up when you hover over "most recent comment."
posted by SpacemanStix at 5:27 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

So, this would be a proof of concept of my above idea. If it's no good, feel free to discard it to the dead pony heap.

I mean, the pony farm in the sky where all the rejected ponies get to run around forever in golden fields and sleep in barns with the cleanest hay and drink honey water from the nearby streams.
posted by SpacemanStix at 5:55 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Since "your most recent comment" is a link to the comment, it feels like your proposed change would actually reduce functionality, SpacemanStix. I like that Recent Activity shows the most recent activity, rather than getting stuck at my most recent comment in a thread.
posted by Lexica at 10:09 AM on March 11, 2015

Yeah, my gut feeling is that featuring the separated-by-non-displaying-comments older comment would be making things a little more confusing in general for not a real clear win. Sometimes threads are moving fast enough, or you're checking in infrequently enough, that a lot of comments go by, and that's okay; either you remember what you said last, or you don't and you can really easily go find out.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:26 AM on March 11, 2015

Doh, maybe I didn't explain it very well. My thought is that it would operate exactly the same way it always has (by listing the most recent activity), it would simply add the last comment right before.
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:26 AM on March 11, 2015

Yeah, my gut feeling is that featuring the separated-by-non-displaying-comments older comment would be making things a little more confusing in general for not a real clear win. Sometimes threads are moving fast enough, or you're checking in infrequently enough, that a lot of comments go by, and that's okay; either you remember what you said last, or you don't and you can really easily go find out.

Okay, that's cool.
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:28 AM on March 11, 2015