Re: "flat" links in mail archives are badly named

On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 7:05 PM, Oleg Bartunov <obartunov(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 7:36 PM, Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 2:54 PM, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> Magnus Hagander wrote:
>>> > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 11:51 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > > Over in the issue-tracker thread,
>>> > > Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:
>>> > > > Evidently, the "flat" link is easy to miss. Give it a try.
>>> > >
>>> > > I submit that the reason people miss what that's for is that it's
>>> very
>>> > > unintuitively named. What about using "whole thread" instead of
>>> "flat"?
>>> > >
>>> > > ("flat" is fine as a component of the resulting URL. Just not as the
>>> > > button label.)
>>> >
>>> > That's easy enough to change. Another option might be "linear"? But
>>> I'm
>>> > guessing what you're trying to convey is especially the whole thread
>>> part,
>>> > rather than the "orientation"?
>>>
>>> I think "whole thread" is easier to catch for newcomers, so +1 for that
>>> (but keep "flat" as the URL itself.)
>>>
>>
>>
>> I've deployed this change on the system. It will trickle out to the
>> different threads as they expire from the cache.
>>
>>
> +1
>
> May be move the link to some more visible place than end of header line,
> which people usually ignore. I suggest to replace "Thread:" by "Whole
> Thread:" and make it linkable. Also, add explanation text into ALT tag.
>
>
I'm not sure that's a good idea. That seems to overload a lot of meaning
into that field which if anything would be more confusing. Many people will
probably just think it's another header.

That said, I'm not saying it shouldn't be made more visible, I just don't
think that is a good way of doing it.

--
Magnus Hagander
Me: http://www.hagander.net/
Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/