A Question about Ordering Comments
Now that I have regained control over the editing function, I want to raise the question of the order in which comments are presented. I have gone back and forth between “most recent first” and “oldest first” and I would like your feedback on this question.
In the process of trying to keep you all up to date on the status of the website, I realized that I was very annoyed by the fact that my announcement that we have regained the ability to edit the structure of the pages came at the end of the comment thread on the last community update because it seemed to me that there was no reason to believe that everyone would scroll down to see it, which makes me think that “most recent first” works better than “oldest first.”
If I recall correctly, I switched the comment order to oldest first in response to a complaint from Safe Bet’s Amy.
Please comment on your preferences.
I am also going to transfer this thread to a new category of “Bindlesnitch” (without the asterisks) so that I can create a page where all of the community updates can be gathered together.
11/25/2020 @ 1:21 pm
I vote for newest first
11/25/2020 @ 1:49 pm
It would help if people identified the person they are addressing if the comment is directed to a particular individual…
It would also help immensely if we could edit our comments on another person’s post as well as our own….
Chronological order is critical to the conversational aspect of a comment stream.e.g.:
I speak;
You speak;
I speak;
They speak;
I speak…
Etcetera and so forth….
The last comment in a comment stream should be the most recent comment in the thread…
11/25/2020 @ 6:09 pm
I vote oldest first. I find it easier to follow the thread downward so it reads continuously rather than skipping around. What I automatically do is go to the main page and see where the latest comments on the site are, then go check them out. That’s how I know there’s been activity on the site, aside from if there’s a new post.
11/25/2020 @ 7:29 pm
That’s very interesting, using the most recent comments to see which threads have new comments in them. In point of fact, that’s exactly why inserted the most recent comments section, which I believe is unique to Bindle. (I didn’t invent it. Someone else wrote the code for it. I just applied it.)
Then, I completely forgot the logic behind the most recent comments section until you reminded me of it with this comment.
11/25/2020 @ 6:45 pm
Oldest first makes the most sense to me. I studied English in college. The classes were a huge part of the learning process. I see the text of a post as the text of a class. The comments in chronological order are the participation of the class. You may have one view of Edgar Allan Poe while reading him, or with the professor introducing him, and then your view will evolve as you engage with classmates. At the end of an hour, you may likely have an entirely different view of the text. Most recent comment first is like having the class come in one at a time, and then leave before the next student arrives.
11/25/2020 @ 11:18 pm
Bitey,
But does the Reply and indentation feature screw that up?
For example, Greenheron recently commented on a post of Ron’s concerning the photo of the Trump supporting woman at the top. She did a direct reply to Ron and I think figured out afterward that I’d already made the same point earlier but it was now lower in the thread. (This is not an invitation to rehash the content of that conversation, just to talk about the pluses and minuses of Reply sequencing.)
11/25/2020 @ 11:19 pm
In fact, I have an older comment than this one further down in the thread here.
11/25/2020 @ 7:36 pm
So far we have two for the oldest first and two for newest first. Stalemate because I am of both opinions. As for now I will leave it be as it is because the less I tinker with the site the better off it is.
11/25/2020 @ 9:02 pm
That’s 3 oldest to 1 newest, Alan.
11/25/2020 @ 11:14 pm
Alan,
If you came up with the idea of the most recent comments feature on the home page, good going. It’s quite helpful. I go to it every time I log on, which can be several times daily.
11/26/2020 @ 8:41 am
Slow on the uptake here but count my in the oldest first column. Newest first encourages people to not read the comments and they start spouting off about things that have already been decided.
Also use the @whoever you might be addressing because the sorting isn’t always perfect.
11/25/2020 @ 11:24 pm
Bitey: Three to one? Really? I guess I can’t count anymore.
Kosh: If I remember correctly we had that feature on OS, didn’t we? Maybe I was just remembering it.
11/26/2020 @ 3:16 am
“The last comment in a comment stream should be the most recent comment in the thread…”
Oldest first!!!
11/26/2020 @ 9:11 am
I think we did have it on OS.
Myriad:
Are you aware of the feature we’re talking about? If you go to the main page, the one you get to if you go to the green Bindlesnitch on the top of this page, on the bottom right – you really have to scroll down to get there – you’ll find a list of the newest comments on the site, newest first. Because the site has so little activity, you can easily track every conversation on the site.
11/26/2020 @ 9:12 am
This also means that if you comment on an old post, everyone can be aware of It.