multiple-reply

A  multiple reply  (multireply) is a reply written directly in response to multiple previous posts.

Current silos do not support multireplies. All current silos (and most software) only support posting a reply to a single other post.

IndieWeb Examples
These indieweb reply post permalinks visually represent that the post is in reply to multiple other posts, and show those other posts as context for the indieweb reply.

Aaron Parecki
Aaron Parecki occasionally posts multireplies using p3k on aaronparecki.com, since at least 2012-10-17. E.g.:
 * http://aaronparecki.com/replies/2013/04/21/1/ (this is a particularly elegant UX/presentation -t)
 * http://aaronparecki.com/replies/2012/12/05/15/leweb
 * http://aaronparecki.com/replies/2012/11/19/2/devsummit-usa
 * http://aaronparecki.com/replies/2012/10/17/3/

Tantek
Tantek Çelik once in a while posts multireplies using Falcon on tantek.com, since at least 2013-132, but got displaying a multi-reply reply-context working as of 2013-186. E.g.:
 * http://tantek.com/2013/132/t2/been-t-since-day-joined-2006
 * Note that the Falcon / tantek.com to Twitter POSSE tweet copies could only thread to one of the originals being replied to (Twitter limitation, API and likely architecture), and thus Twitter is effectively showing/revealing less of the overall reply context than the IndieWeb post which at least links to all the originals being replied to.
 * http://tantek.com/2013/157/t3/pdf2013-third-rail-coffee-during-pdf13-break
 * http://tantek.com/2015/174/t1/homebrew-website-club-indieweb in reply to an indie reply, what it was a reply to, and the original post that was a reply to, in order to have it show up as a comment on all three of those indie posts.

Ben Werdmuller
Ben Werdmuller posts multireplies using Known on werd.io, e.g.:
 * 2013-07-07 http://werd.io/view/51d92304bed7de880fc087cb - multi-reply to a personal site post, and a post on a company blog
 * 2013-07-24 http://werd.io/view/51f01e17bed7de2b1d060400 - multi-reply to two personal site posts.
 * 2015-06-24 http://werd.io/2015/i-agree-with-you-its-not-possible-to-not-be - multi-reply to a personal site post, and to what that post was replying to, on his own site. Perhaps to have it show up on the comments thread on the original post without depending on or supporting salmentions.

Kyle Mahan
Kyle Mahan has experimented with multiple replies to follow the context of a single-threaded conversation. For example:
 * http://kylewm.com/reply/2014/03/21/1 (need to expand per above examples)

Jeena
Jeena has added multiple replies be able to make easier to read threads on his own website. For example:
 * https://jeena.net/notes/181
 * shows up on two ther websites but even on https://jeena.net/notes/178 where the thread originated

Silo Limitations
The problem.

Twitter
Below is a collection of Twitter posts that reply to multiple other posts. The replied-to posts are all referenced with equal weight. In these cases, the presentation suffers because only a single original post is displayed, even though the intent is to reply to all posts equally.


 * https://twitter.com/caseorganic/status/276277485539311616 (shows 0 originals)
 * In reply to:
 * https://twitter.com/njouannem/status/276277217124827136
 * https://twitter.com/igrzywinska/status/276277099281653760
 * https://twitter.com/darialev/status/276277091287330816
 * https://twitter.com/a2linebreton/status/276275132673191936
 * https://twitter.com/roiduecommerce/status/276272721229393920
 * https://twitter.com/Mullac42/status/276276822348529664
 * https://twitter.com/aaronpk/status/326065365589311490 (shows just the 1st original being replied to)
 * In reply to:
 * https://twitter.com/dybskiy/status/326063595332984832
 * https://twitter.com/skjain2/status/326063776510144514 (which somehow doesn't even show up as a reply on the original post that it's in reply to: https://twitter.com/aaronpk/status/326062195395928064)
 * https://twitter.com/oscargodson/status/326063992047034368
 * https://twitter.com/helloerica/status/326064591417274368
 * https://twitter.com/aaronpk/status/258548685737164800
 * https://twitter.com/t/status/333649785062060034 (shows just the 1st original being replied to)
 * In reply to:
 * https://twitter.com/jlsuttles/status/330099833383833601
 * https://twitter.com/ShaneHudson/status/330101071731118080
 * both of which were themselves in reply to:
 * https://twitter.com/t/status/330099362686439426
 * thus why a single follow-up reply made sense from a user point of view
 * https://twitter.com/t/status/342713415476862976 (shows just last original being replied to)
 * In reply to:
 * https://twitter.com/danachis/status/342631473171558401
 * https://twitter.com/placenamehere/status/342660102567886850
 * https://twitter.com/markwunsch/status/342660608841375744
 * https://twitter.com/tdierks/status/342660741565927424
 * the latter 3 of which are themselves replies to
 * https://twitter.com/t/status/342659742566580226
 * thus a more interesting example as the multireply does so to more than one thread
 * https://twitter.com/jaffathecake/status/554961787737870337 (shows just first original being replied to, which is his previous tweet - thus more like a follow-up multi-reply)
 * In reply to:
 * https://twitter.com/jaffathecake/status/554956375651270656
 * https://twitter.com/aral/status/554961565561417728
 * https://twitter.com/aral/status/554961565561417728

Reply to one and mention multiple
There is a subtle difference between a multiple-reply post, and a post that is in reply to a one post but mentions multiple people (or other sites/links). Below is a collection of posts which are in reply to a single post that have many other people mentioned. The presentation of these is acceptable, because only a single post is actually referenced.


 * http://aaronparecki.com/replies/2013/02/25/1/indieweb
 * https://twitter.com/caseorganic/status/324535915496218625

Multiple Reply in Silos
Note that Twitter only allows a single status id for setting in-reply-to-status-id - so at some point in your publishing flow you're going to have to decide which is the *primary* post that you're replying to.


 * This might not be the case — if you treat twitter as a notification system, it makes sense to create a POSSEd reply tweet to each of the multiple replies, all with the same shortlink back to the canonical copy. This could in theory irritate people (note Branch’s multiple tweet sending irritations), but provided you kept it to a max of one per author, it shouldn’t be a big deal.
 * I plan to experiment with this approach --Waterpigs.co.uk 11:05, 31 August 2013 (PDT)

As of 2013-12-19, Twitter show a list of people a reply is in-reply-to when viewed as part of a feed. Tweet permalink pages don’t have anything similar, and tweets can still only be in reply to a single tweet ID.



Another example from 2015-04-21:

http://aaronparecki.com/uploads/twitter-multi-reply-20150421-124937.png

showing use of ", and 1 other" as a way to show either/both more than 2 in reply tos, or in reply tos to people you don't follow (not sure which is happening).

Discussion

 * What is the UX flow for this from an author perspective? I'm asking because I suspect most systems don't allow for this because it's an UX problem (assuming manually copy-pasting multiple URLs that the post is an in-reply-to is not a solution). -Www.sandeep.io 17:42, 7 July 2013 (PDT)
 * Manually copy-pasting multiple URLs that the post is an in-reply-to is a solution, and perhaps the best one so far. Consider it a challenge to improve upon it. - Tantek 17:48, 7 July 2013 (PDT)
 * My current flow is clicking my reply button on the first post I'm replying to (see ) and then manually copy/paste the other URLs I'm replying to. Aaronparecki.com 22:59, 1 September 2013 (PDT)

Related

 * Activity Streams supports multiple-reply: "Objects of this type (comment) MAY contain an additional inReplyTo property whose value is an Array of one or more other Activity Stream Objects for which the object is to be considered a response" - http://activitystrea.ms/specs/json/schema/activity-schema.html
 * post
 * comment
 * in-reply-to
 * Comment Presentation