Just a heads up that we’re introducing threaded comments in an effort to make comment sections more streamlined, and enable commenters to respond directly to each other. I know some folks love threaded comments and some hate them, but we’re trying them out, so… please be patient if you’re in the “I hate them” group. We’re also adding “Guest” designations to our guest bloggers so that it’s clear who’s a regular contributor and who’s guest-posting. Try the comments out, and let us know about issues / bugs / suggestions.
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Is there any way to have some kind of line of demarcation between the original comment and the replies? Right now, it just looks like nested blockquotes on the original comment, and I’m not sure that it visually makes clear that this is a separate conversation happening.
I’ll be playing around with some helpful CSS styling tomorrow, but right now it’s 4am and I’ve been trying to go to bed for the last hour and a half!
Go to sleep!
My main frustration with threaded systems comes when long conversations lead to comments being formatted into extremely thin columns. Hopefully your system won’t do this?
I’ve set the nesting to only go 4 levels deep. That should be reasonably workable, I think.
I’ve also noticed that the reply disrupts the comment numbering system, which is going to be a pain for referencing earlier comments.
Part of the threading idea is that you don’t have to remember the number of the comment, since you reply directly to it. If you need to refer in a new thread, you can just quote the comment instead.
Good morning all! Yes, I noticed that first thing last night. I’ve seen a plugin which overrides that, so that you get the first level comment as #X, then the next level of replies as #X.1, #X.2, then replies to those as #X.1.1, #X.5.3 etc.
Each comment also has a permalink (perma = does not change) which one can use to reference it, which has the advantage of being clickable and taking readers directly to that comment.
I am generally in the “hate them” camp but I’m happy to see how it works here. I don’t comment much but I do read most threads, especially the longer ones, and my main problem with threaded comments is that it’s hard to know which comments are new since you last checked – since, rather than new comments simply being added to the end of the thread, they can turn up anywhere within it. So to me, that’s why it’s harder to follow a conversation because you have to remember which ones you were following, which comments were there last time and which weren’t, etc.
Don’t know if there’s a way using some sort of cookie thing or whatever that “new since your last visit” comments can be highlighted? I imagine not, and that’s why I think threaded comments might not work out well here…
That is the main problem I have with threaded comments as well. RH Reality Check does have a ‘new since you were last here’ thing, but you have to be logged in to for it to work. It is very helpful, though.
I haven’t seen anywhere else that does that.
I rarely comment here anyway, but one problem that can plague threaded comments is when commenters reply to the first thread merely to put their comments near the top of the page, not because they’re actually replying to anyone. I hope that’s an official no-no here.
Hopefully less of a problem here than with a system like Disqus, which literally pushes later threads onto different “pages.”
Chase, that sort of bump-gaming sounds like a very bad idea indeed, and we’re working on ways to let readers notify the moderators about various different types of problematic comments. We just want to find methods that aren’t even more subject to gaming they system (e.g. up/down votes get gamed way too easily, as do flag-this-comment systems – we want something better).
my main problem with threaded comments is that it’s hard to know which comments are new since you last checked – since, rather than new comments simply being added to the end of the thread, they can turn up anywhere within it. So to me, that’s why it’s harder to follow a conversation because you have to remember which ones you were following, which comments were there last time and which weren’t, etc.
Don’t know if there’s a way using some sort of cookie thing or whatever that “new since your last visit” comments can be highlighted? I imagine not, and that’s why I think threaded comments might not work out well here
That’s my main concern as well. If you happen to see a comment when it’s listed in the “recent comments” column then it’s easy enough to find, but they don’t stay there very long, so if you miss it, you won’t find it just by looking at the end of a thread that interests you. You’d have to go back through the entire thread looking for “replies” you haven’t seen before, and given that we often have threads that are hundreds of comments long, that’s probably more work than most people, including me, would be willing to do. So a lot of comments will get missed that way, absent a “new since your last” visit category like one commonly sees on message boards.
Donna, it was largely seeing how well the threading of the comments works at Captain Awkward which moved me away from the Threading Is Satan’s Work camp and into the Threading Can Actually Work Quite Well For Long, Involved, Nuanced Discussions camp.
I do agree that after a while the complications of following new comments tends to slow down the rate of responses, but given how often on a typical thread the same things end up getting repeated by newcomers to the thread? I’m thinking that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Most particularly, I’m pretty sure that threading will help greatly in containing the derailing attempts by malicious driveby twerps.
This.
I comment very sporadically, because I tend to be busy during the day. I’m not right now, so I’m commenting a lot more. I usually don’t even manage to read long comment threads. Having to read them multiple times to find new comments seems like way, way too much work.
Here’s where we run up against core capabilities of the software framework. I don’t think there is a way to make WordPress do that at all, although if anybody else does know how, then please pass on a Useful Link.
As an infrequent commenter, I know I’d be more willing to participate knowing that I can reply to individual comments. I agree Alison, though, it’s harder to find the new comments in a threaded commenting system, a problem I’ve had with Gawker and Jezebel. After a while it gets tedious checking each thread for new comments.
And I just got the killfile working again, too. Damn and blast!
So far, I have seen LJ/DW get threading right, and LJ get the new comments indicators right. Everything else is crap, largely because I can’t tell when there are new comments. Fie, woe, &c.
I actually like threaded comments, but only if the thread aren’t so deep that the later comments in a thread turn into those thin columns. Looks like that’s not going to be the case here, so that’s good! Is there a way to format them the way LJ does it, so that there’s an “expand” button and the threads could be expanded and collapsed?
If the “Reminder to Guest Bloggers” thread is any indication, I already am not that happy with how threading is working, because it takes much longer to read new comments, whether by going up and down looking for them or by clicking individually on “recent comments” from the right hand column, to the extent I happen to see such comments for the brief period they’re there.
Some places have a “last 24 hours” link to find new comments; would that be any easier to implement than a “new comments since you were last here” link that would necessarily have to be different for each person?
I don’t know from WordPress, but there do seem to be plugins that show “unread comments” for each viewer since their last visit, based on cookies. Something like that might be helpful on a very active blog like this one to show comments that are new to you, but too old to still be on the “recent comments” list. I see links at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-unread-comments/ and http://lonelycloud.wordpress.com/2010/10/29/worpdress-plugin-smart-unread-comments-reloaded/
Thanks Donna – I’ll investigate. One problem we have specifically at Feministe is that many plugins which work well for smaller blogs with shorter histories don’t scale to cope with the immense database of previous posts/comments we have here. But maybe one of these will!
I have always preferred threaded comments to Feministe’s usual style, so I am happy with the new experiment; I hope it works out.
oh, boo… I hate change– particularly when it comes to technology/formatting, etc. Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out this “threading” business.
*Sits in corner, sulking*
I’ve always been in the LOVE threaded comments camp. This actually makes it easier for me to follow along with what people are saying. For me, I take advantage of the control f feature and search for the commenter who I was responding to, or to the last comment that I read.
sabrina: That only works for me if I comment in each thread I want to read, and then comment in each subthread, should that happen.
Usually, with threading, I end up subscribing to the post and hoping I know what thread it’s from, even with LJ/DW’s threading style. People taking the time to say who they’re responding to has always seemed more useful to me for larger blogs.
The other bad thing about threaded comments that a lot of sites do (I’m looking at Slate now, mostly) is to put new comments at the top and old at the bottom. So if I want to read comments in chronological order, I have to scroll WAY down to the bottom and then read from the bottom up. This is highly frustrating and please don’t start doing that here.
However, I don’t comment very often here or anywhere else, although I’ve been a regular reader here for at least the last 8 or so years, back when it was pretty much just Lauren. So I’m thinking of ease of use for someone who likes to read comments more than to actually say something.
This newfangled system frightens and confuses me. I have yet to get over the trauma of switching to Timeline! I SHAN’T BE BACK!
I’m excited to see how this works out. I hadn’t realized people hated threaded comments with such a passion. I guess I can see how it’s annoying if you feel you must read every comment on every post as it happens, but hopefully it will help with misunderstandings. It’s sad how confusing and argumentative the comments get to be.