@Toby
I don't like the current one: "Last reply X hours ago by AAA".
It feels weird on the discussion list. That sentence is repeated over and over more than 10 times.
How about this one:
Or showing only 1 avatar:
Edit:
I forgot to mention that the timestamp should be thread start time instead of last reply time. I think it makes more sense because generally people don't care about last reply time as long as they know whether there are new unread messages or not.
Darmawan I don't like the current one: "Last reply X hours ago by AAA".
It feels weird on the discussion list. That sentence is repeated over and over more than 10 times.
Agreed. Ideally you could just have it say "time username" to eliminate all static text but oh well 
Toby Wild idea: What if usernames aren't bold? The reply icon might still draw unwarranted attention to it, but at least your eyes wouldn't be juggling the icon and username.
Otherwise abbreviating time is probably fine. I'm not sure if this is a 66-post problem, at least not for the beta, so whatever works works.
That's the point
At least for me, last reply time seems unimportant because the "discussion list" page is already sorted by the newest reply. So it's kinda...overkill?
Ok, I just realized that the discussion start time and OP username is already displayed as a tooltip...so my idea is irrelevant.
Sorry to dig this up again, but the repetition of "Last reply" is really getting on my nerves. It's also less than ideal on mobile, because it pushes the important info (time/username) off of the screen in some instances.
I'd like to revisit the idea of removing the "Last reply" text altogether. As Toby mentioned, it could be confused with information about when the discussion was started. However, I feel like people will quickly catch on to what it actually represents (last activity), by virtue of the fact that the discussion list is ordered by it. I do like that it puts the time and the username front and centre, with no distractions. The important thing is that the username isn't immediately next to the avatar.
Anyway, to try it for yourself, paste this into your browser's URL bar and press enter:
javascript:app.translator.translations.core.discussion_replied = '{ago} by {username}';app.cache.discussionList.refresh();m.redraw()You can try other variations by altering the {ago} by {username} part – let me know what you think!
That snippet isn't working for me, even after I told Safari to allow JS from the Smart Search field ...
Would you also be removing the "Started" in that case?
Dominion It works for me, Safari, OS X Yosemite. It needs to be used on the topics list.
Fastidious It needs to be used on the topics list.
Aha! I'll give that a try.
Toby I pretty much prefer it exactly as you just provided it, that is {ago} by {username}. Short, clean, to the point.
Hmm ... I don't really care for the idea of leaving the "when" and "by whom" and removing all indication of exactly what happened. Yes, people will catch on eventually, but it's a bit clunky compared with the rest of the interface. For example, you could remove the word "posts" from the scrubber displayed to the right of this thread. People would be able to figure out what it means ... but why put the user in that position?
Being telegraphic in some places and not in others makes for somewhat uneven presentation.
If the length is the only problem, then perhaps you could get rid of the "Last" and just leave the word "Reply"? (As an alternative, perhaps it would be a good idea to revisit the arrow icon suggestion by wizgriz. It doesn't have to be an arrow. Perhaps we can come up with a pair of icons: one to represent the OP and one to represent replies?)
Failing that, I hope you will at least leave the "Started" and "Last reply" strings as two separate strings, so translators can add in verbs if they feel the need.
Dominion The problem is not the length, but the repetition. Leaving the word "Reply" doesn't fix that. Removing the word "posts" in the scrubber isn't comparable because it's not repeated for every item in a list.
Maybe you're right that we should leave the word "Started" there – certainly when sorting the discussion list by Newest or Oldest, it would be needed. But when sorting by recent, I think knowing that "something happened 2 minutes ago" is enough. Thoughts?
Certainly there is not the same motivation for removing the word "posts" from the scrubber. But the comparison was just to demonstrate how fluent can seem better than telegraphic.
But I can see why the repetition bugs you. The problem I'm having with the solution is, by the time I'm looking at the
x minutes ago by User
I've pretty much forgotten how the discussions are sorted (assuming I've even bothered to think about that). So without the "last reply" that information gets tied directly to the title ... which makes it seem like info about the OP, not about the latest activity. So we end up with another username/avatar mismatch, no matter how much space is between.
I think you could get away with removing the verb, if you could make the four options in the drop-down menu a little more clear. That is, the word "reply" doesn't appear in the drop-down menu, so if you remove it from the posts, it won't be anywhere. Perhaps you could change:
... to something like this:
That adds the information you're removing from the individual topics (but it also adds volume to the menu).
EDIT: Nothing's ever easy. I guess minimalism comes with its own set of challenges.
I could get along with it. 
Brainstorming: Can we find a small, decent icon that means something like "Last updated"?
Not to harp on it but I feel there's a solution with using icons to indicate activity if the only problem is still that font awesome icons are too bold (correct me if I'm wrong). The most obvious being finding an icon that isn't bold/distracting (like the hollow speech bubble on the right), and as wizgriz suggested before removing bold from usernames. I'd rather see different icons for different types of activity since that's dynamic information without the repetition (good!).
Toby
javascript:app.translator.translations.core.discussion_replied = '{ago} by {username}';app.cache.discussionList.refresh();m.redraw()
That to me looks like information about when the discussion started 
If "Started" is kept then as soon as a user sees that I guess they'd figure that no prefix = last reply and you sort of get away with it, but not an ideal solution in my opinion.
Toby The problem is not the length, but the repetition.
I was just thinking about this while browsing the topic list ... I guess the repetition never bothered me much, at least in part because the low-contrast presentation (as compared with the big bold titles) allows me to filter that info out.
But I can see why it might bother some. Here's an off-the-wall idea that might help...
What if the "Last reply by / Started by" line hidden by default, and only displayed when the user hovers over the thread? (I admit I'm not sure how that would work with touchscreen devices). Alternatively, you could use that behavior for threads with no unread posts only, and have threads with unread posts act as they do now.
That would help with the repetition (a plus) but also make the important info less accessible (a minus). I'm not sure how practical it is; I suspect the minus will be bigger than the plus. Also not sure how feasible it would be.
I hate to dig up this topic (it stresses me out!), but I had another idea.
First, a quick TL;DR for anyone new to this discussion. Back in July, the text below each discussion title in the discussion list used to say "Toby replied 5 hours ago". wizgriz pointed out that this was confusing, because the username was right next to the avatar of the discussion's author, and would often mismatch. Many others agreed so we started brainstorming solutions:
We ended up sticking with the "Last reply 5 hours ago by Toby" solution.
Now, my idea ... Let's break down what information we're actually dealing with here, in order of priority:
The current solution puts the lowest priority information (the what) at the front. This is especially troubling on mobile when there is often not enough room for the when and the who to be displayed.
The idea to get rid of the "Last reply" text solved this problem, but it resulted in the what being completely omitted. Even though it's the lowest priority, it's still a valuable part of the information.
So what if we were to simply take that idea, and add the what back onto the end? i.e. display all of the information in the order of importance?
5 hours ago Toby replied
Try it for yourself by going to the discussion list and pasting this into your browser's URL bar (make sure javascript: is at the start):
javascript:app.translator.translations.core.discussion_replied = '{ago} {username} replied';app.translator.translations.core.discussion_started = '{ago} {username} started';app.cache.discussionList.refresh();m.redraw()
It may not make complete grammatical sense in all instances ("3 Jan Toby started"), but I don't think that matters because the bits of information are distinguished by making the username bold. The important thing is that all of the information is there, simply and clearly, and in order of priority.
What do you guys think?
A couple thoughts spring to mind.
First, importance may vary; I'm usually more interested in the who than the when. But you're right: the what is least important, and repetitious to boot ... and it seems the repetition of relatively unimportant information in a place of prominence is what's causing the issue.
But I'm not sure that moving the what to the back is the answer. That's also a prominent place; it seems to me the middle spot is the best, most unobtrusive place for the what. That was one of the good things about the original phrasing; but that brings us back to the original problem.
I also think it would be a bit of a shame to end up with an awkward phrasing when Flarum does such a good job of being fluid and natural everywhere else. From this perspective:
Of course, I don't really have a horse in that race. When I translate Flarum into Japanese, I'll just do whatever I think is best. Oddly enough, the order you suggest here is just about perfect for Japanese...
Perhaps we can still find some other way to alleviate the mismatch between the avatar and the username. I was just wondering if we could indent the started/replied line, or insert an ellipsis, or do something to move it in a bit:
General UX, discussion list avatar mismatch
... Toby replied 5 hours ago
That would distance the username from the avatar and tie it more closely to the title. You lose the nice straight margin, but it would make the title pop a bit more (especially now that they're smaller) and you get to keep the natural English word order you wanted in the first place.
javascript:app.translator.translations.core.discussion_replied = '... {username} replied {ago}';app.translator.translations.core.discussion_started = '... {username} started {ago}';app.cache.discussionList.refresh();m.redraw()
Just in case anyone would like to try it out.
