People often ask me technical questions about the blog. “Do you use an astrocambio degengalator to massaultify your bacrogoggles?” In fact, I’ve had people get angry at me as if I was being intentionally unhelpful when they have asked questions and I have responded in ignorance.
I am telling you the truth, here, when I say that I am likely the least technologically proficient blog editor ever. I know how to write. Sometimes, when the mood hits, I even edit what I write. I know how to post it and then publish it on a WordPress format. Beyond that, I’m pretty must lost.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions, comments and complaints about our threaded (or nested – whatever term you like) comments. People “reply” to a comment, but their comment gets posted somewhere else. Sometimes, a comment finds its way to the bottom of the page and no matter what anyone does, it stays there. Sound familiar?
Usually, what people do at that time is complain to me. And what I do is answer the same as I answer most technical discussions. Doh! I don’t know. I don’t much understand threading and I certainly have no idea what to do when it goes haywire.
But there is a solution, one I would like to put forward for your discussion. We can simply turn off threading and all comments will appear in chronological order of their posting and stay there.
Obviously, there are pros and cons here.
On the pro side, the number of the previous comment doesn’t change. Comment 43 is always comment 43. On the con side, it gets hard to carry on a conversation when other comments intervene.
So, I’m interested in whether anyone has an opinion. A year or so ago, Tony (the technological mastermind who put this blog together) put up a poll about this, but there was not a lot of response. Here’s your chance to tell me what you think.
Do you like nested comment threads or would you rather have them chronological?
“I’m pretty must lost.”
HA! I LOVE THAT!
Now what were you asking?
As I just stated, I am much accustomed to chronological, and when one responds to a posting, in your case, just insert like this or something similar:
@47
(For response to posting 47, or whatever.
Most people handle it well once they learn that concept.
Chronological is the best.
no
But IF you decide to do ‘chronological’ comment placement, people can increase clarity by addressing someone they are responding to and quoting the salient point to be remarked on, before commenting or asking a question.
And if a person is commenting on a portion of the post, it is sometimes more helpful to all if the specific portion of the post is quoted as a reference for the comment a person wishes to make.
If there was a way that posts could be numbered in their order of posting, BUT also be threaded to other posts they reply to, that would be very nice. But that is having your cake and eating it to or what not. But I will fall back to the old line of if I am meant to respond to a particular post, and have that post be placed there so it is in context and people can understand, then God will see fit to work the blogging universe to allow that to happen. If that is not they way… Read more »
I like chronological. The other way makes it harder to keep track of. Ew comments. I am sure I must have missed a comment or two directed toward me because of this.
That should be “new” comments, not “Ew” comments.
I’ve had a few “ew” comments.
“Ram” comments work better with the nested thread. leave it alone. Blogging is no game for “ews” anyway.
@2, Bruce I agree. Other high traffic blogs do it this way and it works very well. Much easier to keep track.
Chronological means always knowing when there are new comments, and it fixes the nested problem. But the geek in me hates not seeing the nested problem fixed first, before going back to flat comments. 🙂
Also, there is always the option to use Disqus for comments, as many other sites have done.
Disqus is a good platform when it works, that is true.
If we can’t fix it to work consistently with threaded, then we need to change it to chronological so it all stays in order. I’m with the group that would rather stick with threaded/nested, though.
Can you not leverage your fame to get some help fixing this?
Each have some advantages, the nested being especially nice when carrying on a back and forth conversation with someone. Nevertheless, I prefer the chronological overall because you always know where to look for new comments.
Take the nested comments.
Shove them in a box.
Douse it with gasoline.
And set it on fire.
Take the ashes.
Re: 19
I’m with Rick.
Place them in an urn.
Go to the beach.
And throw the urn into the ocean.
tell us how you really feel.
Chronological. Eliminates my having to get out my Turbo Encabulator to decipher.
I love the nested comments. They make guerrilla warfare far easier. One guy can assault several people at once due to the nested comment thread design. A guy can come in, hit, and be gone to another nest before SBC Boss #3 can catch up with him and delete him. The nested comment thread is also better for the guy who wants to lay “bait” for passersby so he can ambush them and then run off to another nest in the thread and do the same thing to another bunch of innocent bloggers. Actually, this is how the Colonials defeated… Read more »
As a frequent hit-and-runner, you have a point. I even forget where those comments have been!
One thought on Disqus–I know I’ve seen it work well on some blogs, but you might ask Peter how well it worked him. I think he tried it and it just nearly imploded on him.
I do like it–connects to other profiles and such, but it just might not be as easy as it should be.
I know some pretty major sites use Disqus and it seems to work out. I use it, but I only get a handful of comments every rare now and then so I couldn’t say how well it works under volume.
I know Michael Hyatt uses it, and he’s consistently got over 100 comments per post, and it seems to work just fine for him.
I just remember Peter tried it a few months back and had some issues with it.
I know Hyatt pays for help when he needs it, and I think Peter’s more like the rest of us and has to do it all himself. I’m not sure if here at Voices we are in the “pay for tech” or the figure-it-out bracket.
I have never seen an issue with Disqus, when it is implemented correctly. As a “professional computer nerd” (as my wife affectionately refers to me :))….I have only ever seen have issues when it isn’t used properly within a site.
Could someone tell the old guy what Disqus is?
Disqus is a commenting system that is easy to drop-in to WordPress (and other) sites.
http://disqus.com/
I checked out the whole disqus thing and they had a demo with Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill and Elvis. I’m not really comfortable talking with the dead.
Just kidding. You might give disqus a try, Dave. All I know is a while back, the threaded comments became impossible on one discussion I was trying to moderate. What can it hurt to try something out? It’s not an irreversible decision.
Elvis is not dead.
He runs the snack shack at the Almyra Country Club, Barbecue, and Dive Shop.
I took it upon my self to start a forum just for this very reason! See if it suits our needs. I think you’ll see that it keeps everything nice and organized, and it’s no trouble to go back and find a previous post. If it takes off the ground, I will go ahead and buy a domain name specifically for the forum, but right now, my wife and I agree that we can’t justify buying a domain name unless enough people are benefiting from it. So go ahead and try it out! Make it your own, for the glory… Read more »
Nick,
You’ve put some work into that! But the problem with forums is they aren’t real conducive to the news feed style posts and discussions that happen in blogs. Whereas forums present a buffet of topics to bounce around, a blog serves up a handful of specific meals at a time. Where a forum gives room for people to bounce around 100 topics, a blog helps keep the focus on a few items.
Suggestion: Try flat comments for a week or so. Give it enough time to get over the initial newness. If it doesn’t work, go back to nested (and fix the bug! Has to be an issue in the theme somewhere.)
I think Rick, @14-21, dislikes the nested structure.
I seem to be in the minority here, but I liked threaded comments.
(I’ll admit, though, that I’ve never had any trouble with comments mysteriously appearing at the bottom of the page. Heck, for that matter, I only comment about once a week, so my opinion should probably only count for a small fraction of a vote. Like any good semi-anonymous user of a completely free internet service, I’ll probably act all dramatically chagrined by any changes, only to eventually learn to love the new format and eschew any further changes. It’s the circle of internet life.)
Zack,
I like them, when they work.
I prefer nested for the sake of discussion continuity, but I also hate nested because I usually lose track of comments. Once a thread hits 75 comments or so, it gets difficult to keep up with it. Chronological comments, while a little harder to track discussion-wise, at least make it easy to keep up with all comments.
(In reply to 0 [root]) (Last Read 34)
How about chronological but with two more * required * fields to post:
In reply to
Last comment read
That way even us lurkers can follow who is arguing with who.
Ray
That forum has the capability of doing RS feeds, for what it’s worth. At any rate, it was mentioned on another topic here about hashing out exegesis on various verses which Calvinists handle one way, and others (shall we say “non-Calvinists”) handle another way. If there is still interest in doing that, feel free to avail yourself of the forum I mentioned.
I prefer nested. There are some people I don’t really care to interact with, so nested helps me ignore some people and can help cloak me from them as well.
BTW, is there bit of a relationship here between preference for nested v. chronological and the age of the person?
But we can always find you Andrew. You cannot hide completely, even deep down in the nest.
That’s one value–it also allows one to avoid an overall argument stream. You can see when two people start going at it,and can skip down to the next nest beginning.
Comment: 40
Reply: 40a, 40b, 40c, etc.
Nested is best
The votes are in.
Nested has been tested
Nested bested the rested
Nested gets crested.
Nested wins!! Obviously, Nested Threads are the choice of the SEC — A proven winner!!
Yes, but to prove that, we’re going to have to play a semi-final game against a lesser system, then play again, all while battling a committee made up primarily of people that are against us.
Sad but true. With greatness comes the constant assault from those of the lesser achieved. It is the burden both the SEC and the Crested Nested must bear. of course, it is a sorrow much desired.
I prefer chronological comments.
Threaded comments, especially when one wishes to comment without having it posted hither and yon, can be very frustrating and, what is worse, can be a distortion of the discussion. So much so that the point of the discussion gets lost. Is that intentional on some one’s part. Once in a while, threaded can be helpful, especially when one wishes to reply to a specific comment. Messing begins when one is making a chronological comment, and it gets posted as a reply or inserted where it makes no sense at all.
Hmmm. It would be nice to change the view. I don’t suppose anyone’s blog service even does that yet.
I have noticed two things that “break” the threaded comments. One was when I used the app on my phone to reply to a comment that was already at the lowest thread level. The comment was forced into some strange no-mans land and the rest of the thread went haywire from there. The other times that I saw the thread break was when a parent comment was deleted without deleting the consequent responses. That set off a chain of random comment placements. There is probably a technical way to fix these, but I imagine it would involve some research. I… Read more »
The main problem with the threading is it requires practice to get right. That reason alone is enough to warrant removing it.
The comment numbering seems to change when comments are removed. That makes efforts to rely solely on comment numbers to reference previous thoughts confusing on occasion.
I think the utter earthiness of the confusion actually adds to my enjoyment of the comment streams, to be honest. I’m tempted to vote to keep the threading because it seems more likely to produce humility…
I prefer Great Commission Comment format.
So Dave are you going to try the chronological posts for a while?
I like nested/threaded MUCH better.