@Amire80 brought up one possible issue at T89563: The date of a Flow post should link to the post link (permalink), that being a link can make copying the title harder (e.g. you can't just triple-click the way you can to copy a Phabricator task title, most other headings on the web).

There are several aspects to discuss here:

The purpose of the permalink. I assume there are two main purposes for it: (a) get the url to share/link/mention it elsewhere, and (b) view just the current conversation (maybe opening it in a new tab).

The need to make it more prominent. Do we think there are problems of findability with the current solution, or do we think it is used often enough and deserves an easier to access place?

The solutions. Depending on the above we may want to increase the prominence of the permalink at a different level. I collected some ideas below and their possible impact:

• Using the title as entry point. It makes sense since the title represents the post, and the user may find natural to click on it to "open" it. One issue of making it that prominent is that we may be encouraging users to access the topic page where there is not much added value there compared to the board (and navigating back has a cost since we are not keeping the previous scroll position in the board). As it has been commented, link interferes with the text selection, so it would make it more complex to copy the title: users may need to navigate to the topic page and then copy the text from there.
• Using the timestamp as a permalink. That is common practice in several discussion services and may fit in users mental model. Currently the timestamp is used as a shortcut for history, but we may want to change that if history is not accessed often.
• Using 'x comments' as a permalink. In some way this represents the topic conversation so it won't be surprising that it "opens" the conversation. Turning the label into a link adds one more interactive element but this is only noticeable when the user tries to interact with it so I won't expect much cognitive overload.
• Show an additional link icon when hovering the topic header. Showing a link icon when hovering the title header may be an explicit way to indicate the presence of a permalink (as opposed to having a mechanism to "open" the topic). It adds another element but only to the topic in focus. Mobile/touch interactions will rely on the "..." menu.

I think making the title a link is problematic for the reasons Pau said.

In T89783#1053196, @Pginer-WMF wrote:

There are several aspects to discuss here:

The purpose of the permalink. I assume there are two main purposes for it: (a) get the url to share/link/mention it elsewhere, and (b) view just the current conversation (maybe opening it in a new tab).

Mostly (a) I think.

• Using the timestamp as a permalink. That is common practice in several discussion services and may fit in users mental model. Currently the timestamp is used as a shortcut for history, but we may want to change that if history is not accessed often.

I still think this is a good option. It's okay to demote history in my opinion.

• Using 'x comments' as a permalink. In some way this represents the topic conversation so it won't be surprising that it "opens" the conversation. Turning the label into a link adds one more interactive element but this is only noticeable when the user tries to interact with it so I won't expect much cognitive overload.

This is reasonable. However, hidden links (can't tell it's a link until you hover) are problematic on mobile. People will probably expect the timestamp to be a link (thus, less problematic, but how much less is unclear). However, they are less likely to expect the "x comments" to be a link.

• Show an additional link icon when hovering the topic header. Showing a link icon when hovering the title header may be an explicit way to indicate the presence of a permalink (as opposed to having a mechanism to "open" the topic). It adds another element but only to the topic in focus. Mobile/touch interactions will rely on the "..." menu.

I like this idea, though it does add another prominent icon. It could be a clutter issue in theory, but in practice is probably okay (as long as there's a mobile fallback).