How many of you use the mobile to search in this SITE?
On the desktop edition you can view the OP how make the TOPIC and this is posible via a custom CSS and this is not the tipical behaviour, the typical one is to see the last user who interact with the TOPIC but in the mobile versione is another things, and this is available via plug-in offers by discourse team…
Seeing the inmediate merge of both site in only one, on askfedora we use this behaviour.
A phone does not have enough real estate area to display much. A tablet, OTOH, when in landscape mode may be able to display similar to a PC, but in portrait mode may not as well.
While I do not use mobile for this site, real estate area on the device screen is a real consideration on design.
In this case, it doesn’t take more space, just changes what is displayed — one way shows the avatar for the person who launched the topic, and the other the avatar for the most recent person to respond.
I use the mobile version everyday. It is only my personal taste, but I prefer to see the avatar of the last person who interacted with the topic. I don’t know, but to me, it make it easier to see if someone replied, especially if I’m interested in a particular topic (yes, yes, I know, there is a number highlighted near the title, and other ways to know if a topic has received some replies). It is also useful to see if a particular person that usually write interesting answers (or troubles) has replied to many topics.