Threads/forums forcibly auto-hiding after a week renders the feature completely useless for neurodivergents with ADHD and focus issues

I am a moderator in a >200 user server full of primarily neurodivergents with autism and ADHD. These are the kind of people who will spend $50 on fresh produce, and that produce will spoil in their fridge because they made the mistake of placing it inside a drawer where it was not immediately visible.

Threads and forums are completely useless to us because the UI will forcibly remove it from their screen in a week or less, and the moment that happens the thread has been effectively murdered.

Out of sight, out of mind - if it takes 3+ clicks to even SEE whether a thread contains a new message or not, that thread is effectively gone and over. Nobody will look at it. Nobody will open it. It might see some activity for the first week or two, but once it stagnates for a little while (and that WILL happen), making it disappear from the users' screens ensures they will forget it exists at all. I don't want that.

This would not be an issue if the thread would simply persist on the user's screen indefinitely, without forcibly removing itself. Threads would be an extremely useful organization tool for our discussions compared to regular channels, but the auto-hiding behavior just shoots itself in the foot and renders itself completely useless for us. Anything I write in a thread is essentially just shouting into a void, because it will be forcibly hidden in a short period of time.

It is good that threads are opt-in, it is useful to have channels not every user is automatically a member of. The problem is that it also forcibly opts us out in a ridiculously short period of time, and we are simply not going to regularly check the threads menu (or even remember it exists).

The solution is very simple - either allow the `Hide After Inactivity` timeout to be set to “Never”, or allow users to pin threads to their sidebar permanently. Ideally, both.

For now, we are likely going to code a discord bot that occasionally spams the channel with messages just to ensure it persists on users' screens.

yay yay

December 06, 2023 09:57

Literally!! This is why there are barely any threads in my friends' server, because the only active ones are image or text storages; I only remember those 1-3 threads when I have to put something in there or fish something out. My friends have made their own threads but everyone often forget those exist and aren't notified of new messages because they haven't added themselves to said threads.
The reason threads were added as a feature was to declutter unwanted channels, but what is the point when it ceases to exist from the people who made those threads themselves and only find it again months later😭? When threads were added I was a little taken aback that it didn't allow you to set it perma-visible so I'd very much like to see this happen.

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