Comment by mortenjorck
9 years ago
For me, at least, the most frequent use case for collapsing a thread is in the middle of it, when the discussion has veered off into territory in which I have no interest. In this case, I need to either scroll back up and find the originating post of the thread in order to collapse it, or scroll down until I find the beginning of the next thread.
What I'd like to see is a control that takes advantage of this right-side position of the collapse button to add something like the following, perhaps only visible on rollover:
[-] all
In which the `all` link collapses all the way up to that thread's OP, immediately revealing the next thread below.
That's precisely the hack I mentioned a few comments back on ... some subreddit somewhere.
Essentially, the left-hand indent zones are collapse regions for the post topping that level of the hierarcy. It's sheer brilliance.
Can't find the sub, though I've looked for it. I thought it was a science one. Maybe politics -- somewhere I don't often go. Hrm, no, not there either.
100% agree with when the desire to collapse a thread occurs.
I think this old reference is on par with your comment, at least it's how I view and agree with it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11355675
Realizing many comments down that you are wading into unwanted territory makes the side column incredibly useful to pulling the rip cord as it were.
Each comment has a significant vertical footprint(at least 2 lines after the upvote triangle) on mobile so maybe this opinion is biased, but I am also of the mindset that users shouldn't be alienated to a separate app to cover a relatively simple wart removal.
Heck, having a visible column in the left position to flick up or down for a collapse or return to parent becomes increasingly useful. But now I'm on a new tangent.