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How can Yoomoot's system for viewing a question's root moot be improved?

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A root moot is a parent moot. If someone replies to a moot with a follow-up question, the replied-to moot (which could be an article, bookmark, question or answer) is the follow-up question's root moot.


For example, the root moot of this question is an answer called 'A better way to navigate back to a parent'.

By default, have the 50 rightmost pixels of the root moots column visible

Currently, the root moots column is completely hidden by default, so no-one notices. So I proposes that, by default, the rightmost 50 pixels (or thereabouts) should be visible. This way, anyone who opens the DB will be aware of the root moots column, but they won't be distracted by it and think that it is the main column which relates to what they're seeing the details views below.

Make the discussion browser's root moots column visible by default

Currently the root moots column is not visible until you scroll left in the discussion browser. So we could make it so that it's visible from the start, with the main column being second.


The disadvantage is that new users may be confused by this arrangement. Normally, we expect to see the main column on the left. But instead people will see the roots column and try and relate that with what is shown in detail (which relates to the main column, which is now the second column).

have 'see roots' text in the 'empty' (light gray) space of the the discussion browser scroller

this can be accompanied with an arrow pointing to the left.

this solution is subtle and minimal but good enough

Have a question's original root always visible above the detailed version of the question

If you look at the detailed version of an answer on its own (by clicking here, for example)  notice that a summarized version of the answer's parent question is shown above the answer.


We could do the same for root moots. So when you are looking at the detailed version of a question, you could see the question's root moot above it.


This gets a little complicated because a single question can actually have multiple root moots. So I propose the following:

  • If the question is in one of the discussion browser's follow-up questions columns, the visible root moot should be the one shown in the column to the left of that follow-up questions column (this will make sense to the user since this is how s/he has arrived at the question) 
  • If the question is in the discussion browser's main column, the visible root moot should be the question's original  root (since this is probably the moot which initially prompted the question)
  • If the question is in the discussion browser's root column, then either (we can decide later)
    • There should be no visible root moot or
    •  visible root moot should be the question's original  root

The disadvantage with making the root moot always visible in this way is that normally, you only see moots below the discussion browser if they are in the selected column in the discussion browser. So perhaps it would be inconsistent. Personally I don't think this matters.

Have a question's original root visible above the question PLUS have a 'see all roots' button

Have a question's original root always visible above the detailed version of the question  PLUS, if the question has multiple roots, have a little button underneath the root saying 'see all roots'.

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