I envision a method in which we do away with "comments" as separate entities (a somewhat artificial distinction, perhaps), and can reorganize the structure of a forum/blog as easily as we can manipulate a file tree in Windows Explorer, or using a tabbing/backtabbing hierarchal structure similar to the one found in Word, but more powerful.
I hate forums, and I hate blogs. a) My problem is that whenever I myself write blog posts, I find half way through that it would be better off as two (or three, or more...) separate posts. b) Forums are still not very well designed; the default protocols for running them SUCK. c) Furthermore, discussion threads that arise from things like comment threads often wander far afield, and in many cases things that get mentioned in comments would be better off as separate posts.
What I propose is some sort of forum-esque protocol that would allow users to say "Well, hm, this idea would belong over here a little better, let me backtab this a couple times, and call it a level zero post." Perhaps an arrow or something would indicate that was originally in the comments thread. One often comes up with new ideas or suggestions or whatever, and then realizes that not everyone is going to follow this comment thread this far down, or wants to be able to thread it properly and title it.
I've seen a few blogs/journals that do something like this: Instead of clicking on "comment", you can click on "Blog this!", which allows you to write the post yourself in your own blog, and in the comment thread it creates a placeholder post that says "I just blogged about this in my journal (link)."
**Yes, you could just do that anyway, and tell people about it, but that's considered poor netiquette, but more importantly it's inefficient and it's rather common, which seems to indicate that it's worthy of automation.
**Wikis allow something similar, but not really. I think that what I'm proposing might be the next element of Web 2.0, although that might be an amazingly hubristic claim!
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I like the idea, but I cannot see how to do it. Some kind of wiki auto cross link?
If nothing else, maybe a check box to ALSO make this comment a new idea?
Yeah, there you go, something along those lines.
Something I'd like to see done is perhaps more non-linear blogmapping, although this is kind of a crazy concept. It's basically like a flowchart approach to blogging, actually. I can link one blog post to another by topic. Commenting can be one type of linkage, and then it automatically becomes a new node. Either a flowchart or 3-d bubble diagram to map it all out; search for "concept map" to see what I'm talking about. There was a sexy 3-d object manipulating one that I saw before once, which allowed you to build some crazy complex stuff, and essentially fly around in it. Unnecessary, but sexy.