I would like a reply to the "Reply" issue

[DappledThings]

Just thought I'd start another thread to get more attention on this again as there has been no answer as to whether it is even being looked at.

A few comments on MNHQ's recent thread about the new feature pointing out nobody asked for that but a lot of us have asked you to fix this.

To summarise: The button marked Reply does not do what it says. It adds a post, it does not do a reply. MN has no reply feature but, bizarrely, chooses to have a button that pretends it does. This leads to threads full of "replies" that have no context and are impossible to follow. Plus posts saying "sorry, not sure why my reply didn't work, I clicked reply"

can’t believe this thread was started in early November, and it’s now mid-January, and no resolution.

MN really don’t give a shit, do they?
And it's my second thread on the subject. First one I started in September 2022!

And then at some point before Jan 2023 they added the bottom bar but seemingly still no reply button - see screenshot below? So if you wanted to quote it was still under the 3 dots but there wasn't a misleading button as far as I can see?

From this thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/4712323-unable-to-quote

But everything on the mobile site was under the 3 dots except bookmark.

Oww does that mean the useless reply button is hidden on the mobile site?

Not any more - sadly we can all see it now - but I think it used to be.

See screenshot from linked thread here.

When the change happened is a bit of a mystery to me though!

It doesn't matter how far back you look - threads from many years ago now show the Reply button, even though it wasn't there when the threads were created.

I've been checking a friend's threads from 2016 and I can see Thanks and Reply on offer.

I remember when the Quote button was on the toolbar at the bottom. I didn't have a smartphone then, so I never used any other device, other than my laptop.

Now I use the desktop app on my phone as well as the laptop.

Anyway - MNHQ are not telling the truth about the previous location of the Quote button. It wasn't always under the ellipsis. I may be getting old but I can remember where it used to be, and I can also remember when the Thanks button appeared, and I wondered where the Quote button had gone to.

Some users from a long time ago still haven't managed to work out where the Quote button has disappeared to. Those users are as guilty as the newer ones in imagining that the Reply button actually quotes anything.

I recall when the Quote button was introduced. It was a game-changer. Such an improvement to the site.

Now it's hidden, and many threads are an incomprehensible series of disjointed posts which make no sense whatsoever.

I am not sure why MNHQ is so opposed to putting things back the way they were.

I quite like the Thanks button but I'll gladly sacrifice it to have some clarity back on this website.

Yes, you’re right @Papillon23 . Well done for finding that thread @whinge but the screenshot on the MNHQ OP of where to find Quote on the mobile site has been taken after the ellipsis has been clicked- what you are seeing is a drop down menu but it looks like a sort of post-specific toolbar.

The reason that we have false-remembered Quote being a one-click option at the bottom of every post is that there were no other “interact” type buttons there, just the bookmark and the ellipsis to open up the menu of possible interactions. It also appeared with much bigger type than the current drop down accessed from top right so it felt more like a toolbar than a drop down.

That’s why you need old screenshots@TheShellBeach .

I found this, which is very interesting: look at the post visible in the background. It shows a “Post Toolbar” with a button called “add message”. It’s on an OP though, and you can’t see the same button in the post below.

Does anyone know when Reply came into being?

I mean, bearing in mind it does nothing at all, surely MNHQ didn't announce its introduction with a fanfare of any kind.

I do wonder why OPs in particular bother to start threads when they clearly don't read them.

You only have to look at some of the incomprehensible threads on here at the moment, to see that the OP isn't reading what's going on.

Although, to be fair, when I've mentioned this to some people, and pointed out that the Reply button doesn't work, a lot of them do say "thanks - I was wondering why I thought I was quoting PP and nothing happened" so I suppose some people do read.................................

The thread that @whinge discovered definitely confirms that Quote was not behind an ellipsis on the desktop when first introduced @TheShellBeach.

Some users from a long time ago still haven't managed to work out where the Quote button has disappeared to.

I suspect there are some users who don't even realise there is a quote button.

As to when Reply was launched @TheShellBeach (mobile site comments only) I think that the conclusion we can draw is that “Reply” has been sitting innocuously under the ellipsis beneath Quote since at least 2020.

We don’t know if it was there before Quote was introduced in 2020 , but it is not mentioned as a new feature in the announcements of the launch of Quote at that time.

I think that when Quote and Reply were next to each other in the drop-down on the mobile site, nobody got confused because you would not assume that a Reply included a quote when there was a separate quote button right next to it. And most people were not even going into the ellipsis anyway they were using “add post” to add their non-quoting posts because it was an option immediately visible on the same screen.

If Reply was in there on its own before quoting became possible that didn’t matter because, well, nobody expected to be able to quote.

The problem came when Reply was promoted to the Post Toolbar all on its own without Quote beside it. It lost the context that explained that it did not quote. As so many have said, hard to understand why it was moved at all.

What I found interesting looking at the desktop and mobile site screenshots from that time side by side is that desktop had the option to “add message” on every post. Mobile site had either “add post” on the thread toolbar or “reply” behind the ellipsis.no “add message” anywhere. So different terminology on the two sites.

Over to you @MNHQ. MNHQ has been on the other thread about this in Site Stuff started by Errolthedragon yesterday and said it was being looked at and they would update. I posted there to say please update this one too.

I appreciate that they might not know WHERE it is, but they can see the quotes in the thread so they’d have to realise it does exist somewhere, surely?

To be fair to the posters who aren't sure where it is I've seen more than one assuming it's a feature only available to those paying for premium. Not saying all of them believe that but I've definitely seen multiple posters surprised to learn it's available to everyone.

True! All the more reason to put it on the Post Toolbar!

And also, it’s a while since I used the app but I know it’s only partial on there- you can’t quote a post that already contains a quote.

FYI.
Seems odd she posted there but not here, but hey ho.Other thread

I think I just used to make sure I read the whole thread, and then the reply box itself was at the bottom of the page, I guess because of the way I had it set up. So then I just typed in my response. Or just scroll down if I really needed to reply immediately.

The really stupid thing about the thanks button, apart from nobody else being able to see it too, is that you don’t know that somebody’s done it unless you constantly go back and look at your own posts, which would be weird. So the combination of that, and others not being able to see it, makes it pretty much useless. If it was an “agree“ button, and you could see how many people had agreed, it would have value to other readers too.

I agree with your comments on the Thanks button, @MediumWell

The really stupid thing about the thanks button, apart from nobody else being able to see it too, is that you don’t know that somebody’s done it unless you constantly go back and look at your own posts, which would be weird.

@MediumWell you can opt to receive a notification if someone thanks your post, it’s in Settings.

I also often scroll past my own old posts on a thread I’m on and the thanks icon is quite easy to spot.

Thanks, I didn’t know about that setting, I suppose it’s an opt in if you do, vs opt out. I don’t often go back to my own posts so wouldn’t know otherwise.

Ha ha I don’t spend a lot of time re-reading what I wrote and congratulating myself. I just mean that I might be scrolling through a thread looking for something someone else has said and will scroll past my own, presumably you have them in a different colour so they stand out?

Oh I see what you mean! For some reason whenever I do that I can never find the post that’s being referred to, so I’ve given up!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/3920629-First-crack-at-a-new-quote-feature-please-check-it-out

This was when quote was launched. Quote was definitely on screen for desktop users, not mobile users.

It's almost like MN's design team don't realise that the norm has moved on massively from 20 years ago. 20 years ago when forums were the main thing on the internet, all posts being in line, and Reply going right to the bottom to save your finger from scrolling on a longer post/loading a million pages, were normal and expected and so people who are familiar with those norms will have understood that, and might retain that understanding even if they came across MN for the first time today. (Though, honestly, even then?)

I admit to being a web oldie and loving/missing the golden years of forums before social media took over. I really value that MN still retains this format because I think all posts in line is a very good format for discussion. I could expand on this but it's off topic. Anyway, it's a GOOD thing that MN has this and I don't want to see it change.

But people who regularly use the internet today are more familiar with threaded discussion, like FB or reddit or twitter or basically every other thing on the internet now, algorithms which simply bump the "best" threads to the top () so scrolling isn't necessary anyway, faster internet so no need to limit the amount of data being loaded by using pages, and the idea of a reply button individually on each post all going to the same general place would seem redundant, so you'd quite naturally assume that reply being on every post will mean that this is some kind of targeted reply to THAT post, whether threaded or tagged or quoted. The one they see most often is quoting, so they likely assume that is what it will do.

When they see that the quote does not appear on their own thread, my guess is that they then assume oh, it's just me who can't see it. I can see everyone else's quotes, so they must be able to see mine, even though I can't. Because, again, they are used to more dynamic modern social media sites where what you see is different from what other users see.

It's not that the format of MN is wrong, but the button is misleading because it's relying on outdated assumptions people haven't had for about 10 years. Because the norms have changed, it makes sense to change the prompts for users in response to that so that they behave in the way that current users are likely to expect. Especially if you change the layout to make it LOOK like it's not a clunky 1990s forum. Because when you go on those old, 1990s/2000s layout forums, the reply button makes sense, AND they have all the quote/thanks/etc directly on that post too and it doesn't look cluttered (any more than the layout looks cluttered because it's dated).

@Heather37231 for the life of me I can’t find this setting!