Allow comments/threads per node/edge/topic

[keyserj]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. I want to be able to ask questions, add suggestions, mention thoughts on other people's topics. Right now, I can only score other people's topics, and to convey anything more, I need to do so outside of the tool (e.g. in a meeting).

Describe the solution you'd like

• threading per node/edge/topic
• notifications
  • in app? email? probably ideal to have a user config)
  • maybe this should be a follow-up issue
• also possibly a follow-up: user profile pic (to help distinguish comments)
• setting to enable/disable per topic
• creator should have power to resolve comments

Questions:

• do we need to add flagging/reporting/banning?
• do we need to add a warning when clicking on links?

Describe alternatives you've considered

Additional context

• this will probably make #198 even more desirable

Technical ideas

[keyserj]

Design notes:

Comment UX:

Notification UX:

• Table at /notifications
  • header: mark as read/unread button
  • per-row: bold if unread
  • checkbox to select
  • message
    • keyserj commented on keyserj/mta-congestion-pricing: "blah blah blah..."
  • link to source
  • time
  • unread

Comment Schema:

• id
• authorName
• topicId
• parentId
• parentType ("topic", "node", "edge", "comment")
• content (length 10k)
• resolved
• createdAt
• updatedAt

Notification Schema:

• notifiedUsername
• (not needed right now) sourceId (for marking as read on view of the source)
• (not needed right now) sourceType
• message
• sourceUrl
• time
• unread

Notable functional decisions:

• one level of threading like Google Docs (shouldn't need more than one level, and UI overflows with more)
• just generate a profile pic for now (e.g. https://avatar.oxro.io/avatar.svg?name=keyserj&caps=1)

Questions:

• want comments before posting on HN because that helps enable async collaboration, but is it worth adding notifications?
  • in-app notifications (at least viewing a table with read/unread) seem required to not miss comments for me
  • email notifications seem required to not miss comments for infrequent users, and these would be the intent for async usage
  • but email notifications seems like a huge pain because
    • setting up an email service seems like a lot of work
    • allowing users to unsubscribe (ideally by topic vs by thread vs all notifications) sounds like a lot of work
    • probably should inform users when they sign up somehow that they'll get emails for comments?
• what to do about comment.parentId's type?
  • parent could be a topic, whose id is a number, but parent could also be a node/edge whose id is string