Today, group chats launches on Deadspin. We'd discussed the goals of group chats - by putting the author's discussions first, it provides "a space for author and reader, author and source, author and critic to speak on even footing". But how does it actually work? Here's a quick explainer.
When you first view a post, you'll see discussion highlights below the post. The group chat highlights includes discussions that the author of the post has participated in. If the the author of a story recommends or replies to a comment from a reader, then all replies from that reader will be displayed in the highlights. If you leave a reply and the author doesn't engage with it, then it's displayed under additional replies (see screenshot). Highlight discussions are grouped by threads.
When group chats launched on Jalopnik last week, we got a lot of feedback about not having an easy way to browse discussions on a story. We've added a broader view of the full discussion on a story. The "All Replies" section contains the same content as the discussions in the prior format. Popular discussions appear first and less important discussions toward the end.
With this new full width layout, visual discussions look great, like this post about the best car cutaway diagrams or this Photoshop contest. Even lengthier discussions become more readable.
We'll be rolling out group chats to the rest of Kinja over the coming week. As with any new feature launch, we'll continue to make improvements and fixes based on your feedback.
A Few Improvements to Group Chats