simple interface for showing waht kind of content you want to post

Vinnie writes:

i think if we switch to a post photo/link/video/files we turn intosomething like ning.  Although that's what ppl may end up doing(posting a single link as a thread), i don't know if we want todifferentiate upon those mediums just yet.  Forcing thread vs. replyalways keeps the mentality of a conversation as opposed to just files.

also, for posting a poll, i believe there is a ticket openthat would also prompt a user to ask their own poll at the bottom ofthe poll widget (so it's always within view.)

Wojtek writes:

the dynamics of a tumble blog are perfect for this, a forum notnecessarily, unless you show this while typing a post to addmetainformation on what you're pasting in, then it's actually a reallyinteresting approach and much could be done with it.
this is somewhat what we'll have for filtering things out tho

Paul writes:

Everything would still be contained within a post etc... it just makes people aware that they can insert all kinds of media.

Let me stress that I am trying to say this all within the context of apost.  So you say 'start a conversation'... and then buttons like thesewould come up... because I think showing a photo, a link, etc is aconversation starter... so we want to make it as obvious as possiblefor people.  It still defaults to 'post' as well.

Samuel writes:

I agree that we should make it easier & more obvious to peopleto start threads with media. Videos and pictures and links are whatmost people pass around. Original content (a full text post) is greatbut also quite a bit more work than just passing along something yousee elsewhere.

We need to encourage discussion for sure, but the catalyst forit can be something as simple as a photo and a one liner. Also mediamakes for a more pleasing first user experience. Landing on the frontpage and seeing lots of photos and videos is much more inviting thanlots of text.

Text filled discussion posts and media aren't mutuallyexclusive though. There's a lot of use cases for a forum and people canchoose which way they want to go; by making it quicker to create athread based on a certain type of content we're not necessarilyencouraging one choice as much as makign it easier to choose. Disqussdoes this pretty much in the way Paul proposed. We're doing this nowwith Polls (just a worse interface). I would think only a few optionswould be best. No more than four or so.

In discussing this with Andrew and thinking more about it, I think perhaps what we just need is a better editor. We can solve a lot that way. That's another thread of discussion though.

I agree... I hate this Yahoo editor even more than the previous one for some reason... I know you guys don't feel that way but thats a moot point.  The point is we should make it as slick as possible and as minimal as possible.  Things should just 'happen'.