Not exactly sure of the scenario you describe, but it shouldn't matter.

Straight comments will give you the posting box on the comment page (like 'threaded w/comment box'.) All comments will appear flush left.

'threaded w/comment box' comments made from the box on the comment page itself will, similarly, appear flush left. But, if the comment is made from the [add a comment] link immediately following another comment already made to the page, then the new comment will be entered through a posting box on a seperate page and will appear indented under the comment whose [add a comment] link was clicked.

There is a problem in that if you switch a page that already has posts and comments on it to a 'straight comment' style, the system doesn't flatten any comments that are already indented. Instead, it will just show any (all) comments that are already flush left. This is more just that I don't know how to handle this situation rather than a bug.

Now that I think of it, it might be possible to have the comment page "flatten" any threaded comments into a straight style. I'm going to investigate this. The hard part, of course, is that if you can make that change, you should also be able to undo it by changing back to 'threaded' (and have the flattened comments pop back to their original style.) I'm going to look into this now.

Side note: I believe I might have my terms messed up. I think 'nested' is really what I mean instead of 'threaded'. I think 'threaded' would be if the comments were allowed to nest (indent) but the indented levels are never shown all on one page. You'd see the leftmost comments, and if any of those comments had comments you'd just see it indicated and you could click through to see just the comments one level down (which would then be flush left.) I'm going to check into this and if I'm right switch my language to match the rest of the world.

More on comments:

I agree that 'threaded w/posting box' is probably the best all around solution. This way you strongly encourage straight comment style (which I like better too) while still giving the option of allowing people to make indented comments directly under any comment they choose. Still, most people will probably just use the posting box already on the page, whether they understand the difference or not, and this will produce straight comments. That was my idea in putting the box on the comment page: try to get straight comments without enforcing it.
- jim 1-15-2002 7:16 pm


My experience with using the comment feature to do an interview recently leads me to believe that "straight comments" is a better option for non-initiate comments. "Threaded w/posting box" gives the guest (or new person with a cookie) a choice, and--for this interviewee, at least--the [add a comment] command at the end of each comment was more tantalizing than the box at the bottom of the page. I wanted to avoid nesting, so that in the final editing process I could move comments by deleting and reposting them, and I didn't want strings of comments to disappear. One suggestion: could more space be added between each "straight" comment? The comment page tends to clump them all together.
- tom moody 3-06-2002 9:04 pm [add a comment]


Yes, I agree with you. I'll add another space in between comments.

I was debating when to bring this up, so I'll float it here where maybe no one else is looking (since you seem sympathetic.) In the new system there is only one option for comment style. Straight, with the posting box. This is done for reasons of economy on the back end (this saves space and processing time, as well as solving the problem of deleing nesting sub comments when a parent comment is deleted.) But I actually think it's better too. I never liked the nesting because there is no mechanism to deal with too much of it. What if everybody nests their comments? Pretty soon each comment would just be single letters down the right hand edge of the page. And that's not even taking into account future mobile devices we might be reading this on. Maybe you can see 5 or 10 nests on a big monitor, but what if you were trying to read it on a Palm Pilot?

Anyway, that's my big admission. I did away with this choice and didn't even ask for opinions first. I'm still hoping no one will care too much. I'm glad that you came to the same decision independently. Maybe I'll point any dissenters in your direction ;-)
- jim 3-06-2002 9:23 pm [add a comment]





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