replying to a specific post within a thread

[kestrel]

we recently upgraded to vbulletin and user response has been overwhelmingly positive, but there's one problem that just won't go away. our old board software displayed threads in a tree format and allowed replies to specific posts within a thread, like so: http://www.ocston.org/HyperNews/get/.../polecats.html.

every week, there are one or more posts/emails asking how to do this in vbulletin. i've explained the 'quote' option dozens of times, but our users are unusually resistant. typical complaints include: "it takes up too much room", "when i edit the quote, i mess up the formatting", "too much effort for what should be a simple process", "i hate having to scroll through 100 posts trying to find the original quoted message" and so forth.

i need to find a better explanation or a new approach, and asking the developers why they decided against a 'reply to this post' option seems like a good start. i'd also welcome any thoughts or comments from other forum members.

thanks,

- kestrel

[Jake Bunce]

the quote feature works best for me.

[tubedogg]

What I can tell you in answer to your question about why flat vs threaded is a little history. vB was originally written by John Percival (who is still the lead developer), who created it under the intention of licensing/selling it to InfoPop as a php+mysql alternative to their perl+flat-file UBB. When IP wouldn't even talk to him about it, he removed all traces of IP coding and released his own product, in the same flat style of viewing as UBB because that's what he initially based it on. We have had some requests for a threaded view in the past, and as we are always looking for suggestions to improve vB, we are/will consider this for a future version.

Personally I find quoting very easy and much more to my liking than the threaded format. I am able to quote multiple messages just writing the [quote] tag and can edit it down to just what I want to reply to, or split up a paragraph to reply to multiple sentences in-depth.

As for an how to explain it to your users, maybe (if you haven't said this) tell them they can create their own quotes just by using the [quote] tag (as opposed to having to click the quote button on a message to use it). I would also consider making a complete explanation and making it a "sticky" thread, so users can quickly refer to it - that may cut down on some of the questions.

HTH