multiple-reply

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A multiple reply (multireply) is a reply written directly in response to multiple previous posts.

Current silos do not support multireplies. All current silos (and most software) only support posting a reply to a single other post.

IndieWeb Examples

These indieweb reply post permalinks visually represent that the post is in reply to multiple other posts, and show those other posts as context for the indieweb reply.

Aaron Parecki

Aaron Parecki occasionally posts multireplies using p3k on aaronparecki.com, since at least 2012-10-17. E.g.:

Tantek

Tantek Çelik once in a while posts multireplies using Falcon on tantek.com, since at least 2013-132, but got displaying a multi-reply reply-context working as of 2013-186. E.g.:

Ben Werdmuller

Ben Werdmuller posts multireplies using Known on werd.io, e.g.:

Kyle Mahan

Kyle Mahan has experimented with multiple replies to follow the context of a single-threaded conversation. For example:

Jeena

Jeena has added multiple replies be able to make easier to read threads on his own website. For example:

Silo Limitations

The problem.

Twitter

Below is a collection of Twitter posts that reply to multiple other posts. The replied-to posts are all referenced with equal weight. In these cases, the presentation suffers because only a single original post is displayed, even though the intent is to reply to all posts equally.

Brainstorming

Reply to one and mention multiple

There is a subtle difference between a multiple-reply post, and a post that is in reply to a one post but mentions multiple people (or other sites/links). Below is a collection of posts which are in reply to a single post that have many other people mentioned. The presentation of these is acceptable, because only a single post is actually referenced.

Multiple Reply in Silos

Note that Twitter only allows a single status id for setting in-reply-to-status-id - so at some point in your publishing flow you're going to have to decide which is the *primary* post that you're replying to.

  • This might not be the case — if you treat twitter as a notification system, it makes sense to create a POSSEd reply tweet to each of the multiple replies, all with the same shortlink back to the canonical copy. This could in theory irritate people (note Branch’s multiple tweet sending irritations), but provided you kept it to a max of one per author, it shouldn’t be a big deal.
    • I plan to experiment with this approach --Waterpigs.co.uk 11:05, 31 August 2013 (PDT)

As of 2013-12-19, Twitter show a list of people a reply is in-reply-to when viewed as part of a feed. Tweet permalink pages don’t have anything similar, and tweets can still only be in reply to a single tweet ID.

Another example from 2015-04-21:

twitter-multi-reply-20150421-124937.png

showing use of ", and 1 other" as a way to show either/both more than 2 in reply tos, or in reply tos to people you don't follow (not sure which is happening).

Discussion

  • What is the UX flow for this from an author perspective? I'm asking because I suspect most systems don't allow for this because it's an UX problem (assuming manually copy-pasting multiple URLs that the post is an in-reply-to is not a solution). -Www.sandeep.io 17:42, 7 July 2013 (PDT)
    • Manually copy-pasting multiple URLs that the post is an in-reply-to is a solution, and perhaps the best one so far. Consider it a challenge to improve upon it. - Tantek 17:48, 7 July 2013 (PDT)
    • My current flow is clicking my reply button on the first post I'm replying to (see [1]) and then manually copy/paste the other URLs I'm replying to. Aaronparecki.com 22:59, 1 September 2013 (PDT)

Related

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