On commenting schema
Sep. 12th, 2009 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrOne of the main reasons I got a livejournal was to be able to get comment notifications when I replied to people. And one of the main reasons I switched over completely was that I liked the comment threading and notifications, they created a much more vibrant discussion that I ever got at my blogger blog. I used to spend a lot of time in forums etc getting frustrated at having to constantly check all the threads I was in and being forced to engage with the WHOLE discussion on a post/topic rather than just the bit I was interested in, eg any time there was a troll everyone got derailed.
Having gotten used to lj style commenting I am loathe to get involved in any online discussions that don't have comment notifications and threading. Most places have comment notification now (Thank GOD) but most blogs and mailing lists don't have threading, or not to the full extent of lj. I was surprised in a discussion about comment policies at Hoyden About Town by some people who hate threading, but I guess I can see how that would be annoying if you always DO want to hear the whole conversation at once and don't like things splitting off.
I also am lazy and can't be bothered reading stuff I can't navigate entirely by my friendlists and email, though I'm not as bad as the people who refuse to read feeds or more than one flist (I have 4, though I never check my insanejournal) Thus I can't bring myself to engage with forums, even stuff like Starship Earth or the Jane Austen forums which aren't replicated elsewhere.
I remember when I had the feed to my blog people kept commenting on the feed (which I didn't get notifications for, and which vanished within a week or two) rather than clicking to get to the blog itself. This was very annoying.
Anyway, this post was inspired by wanting to comment on an article at the F word and discovering that their comment policy is "you send us an email, and if we like it we add it to a monthly comment digest". !!!
So how do you feel about commenting? I realise it's not a very exciting topic but I felt like talking about it :)
Having gotten used to lj style commenting I am loathe to get involved in any online discussions that don't have comment notifications and threading. Most places have comment notification now (Thank GOD) but most blogs and mailing lists don't have threading, or not to the full extent of lj. I was surprised in a discussion about comment policies at Hoyden About Town by some people who hate threading, but I guess I can see how that would be annoying if you always DO want to hear the whole conversation at once and don't like things splitting off.
I also am lazy and can't be bothered reading stuff I can't navigate entirely by my friendlists and email, though I'm not as bad as the people who refuse to read feeds or more than one flist (I have 4, though I never check my insanejournal) Thus I can't bring myself to engage with forums, even stuff like Starship Earth or the Jane Austen forums which aren't replicated elsewhere.
I remember when I had the feed to my blog people kept commenting on the feed (which I didn't get notifications for, and which vanished within a week or two) rather than clicking to get to the blog itself. This was very annoying.
Anyway, this post was inspired by wanting to comment on an article at the F word and discovering that their comment policy is "you send us an email, and if we like it we add it to a monthly comment digest". !!!
So how do you feel about commenting? I realise it's not a very exciting topic but I felt like talking about it :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 04:30 am (UTC):-)
I like notifications too.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 04:30 am (UTC)I avoid all forums basically because of this.
I tend to hesitate with commenting policies that screen everything first, or only put up the replies they like or want to make fun of. Too much room for being disingenuous about what kind of replies you are receiving, and not treating opinions that differ to yours fairly.
But then if you have trolling problems or people are being deliberately upsetting, I certainly don't know of a better option. :P
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 05:42 am (UTC)But I've seen conversations where the OP is clearly screening anyone who disagrees with them and yeah. Life's too short. It's funny when I see a post spouting crap and ALL the replies are positive and I think "Has noone with sense seen this but me?!" and then I hear they're screening comments and go "Ah" :)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 05:52 am (UTC)I didn't even realise you screened comments, then I looked at the from section of replying. :P
I used to have anonymous and non-friends screened. Particularly after Davyd made comments telling me to go kill myself, waaaay back in like first or second year. The only reason I stopped screening was because I kept forgetting to unscreen all the usual comments I got (yours and Thatchers before you both had ljs). I can't even remember what my settings are atm, after the great 'I hate all feminists'* comments from a month or so ago.
So yeah I see the point in screening and deleting sometimes, but I dislike cases where its done because someone disagrees with you, as opposed to someone being blatantly abusive. Which was kinda my point.
Out of curiosity am I allowed to know what that screened comment was about?
* I do not think this statement is true, even though I do have many issues with feminism which I'm sure you've picked up on by now.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 06:06 am (UTC)A useful way to keep track of screened comments is to look back at your archive with the "View subjects" option, at least on dw it tells you what posts have screened comments. Not that I have remembered to do this for ages until just now :)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 05:19 am (UTC)--and the site all but died. My original f-list on LJ was almost 100% my cronies from over there. LJ had threaded comments.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 05:47 am (UTC)And even if many of the people online like unthreaded conversations, they're not the ones who'll flock to a threaded site. When the conversation about comment policies started at Hoyden I was all "You should have threaded comments!" but then I realised that if many of the commenters there see it as a refuge from threading then even if most people online prefer threading it might not be good for that particular site and it's patrons. (Even if it would be good for me:))
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 05:34 am (UTC)I... am rather like those people who enjoy getting the whole conversation. I do read every thread in a post if the subject interests me, and the only reason I don't sometimes is that opening threads and checking which one has gotten comments since I last read it is rather annoying and time consuming. That's something I enjoy about non-threaded places like the JA forums. But... I like threading, too! It's one of the reasons I love the AO3 software.
Comment notification is awesome. I always make the forums send me notifications if I'm responding a thread, unless I specifically don't want to follow the conversation (only happened a couple of
rather wankytimes).Er, it seems like I feel like talking about it, too!
(And I'm stupid, I commented on your dw feed first. D'oh. Rather à propos, no?)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 06:15 am (UTC)(And I'm stupid, I commented on your dw feed first. D'oh. Rather à propos, no?)
Indeed. The funny thing is just last night I decided to skim the last few posts on my dw and lj feeds to make sure noone had commented, and noone had. So you're special :) EDIT: Huh, I see no comment.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 02:32 pm (UTC)Heeh, a pluralistic society indeed! I wonder how JA people see threading.
(And I think that I should get myself an unfold all threads add-on--which I know exists--it would be the best of both worlds, I think. :D)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 02:33 am (UTC)Ooh, look what I found!
Date: 2009-09-12 08:46 am (UTC)http://alias-sqbr.livejournal.com/262121.html?view=flat
I just found it after this conversation reminded me vaguely that something like that existed.
Re: Ooh, look what I found!
Date: 2009-09-12 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 06:55 am (UTC)Also, wrist pain = resenting stuff that means extra unneccessary clicks and tabs.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 08:45 am (UTC)Huzzah! http://alias-sqbr.livejournal.com/262121.html?view=flat
(eg add "?view=flat" to the end. Which I'll admit is an extra step, but only one)
*looks at this page in that view*
Ewwwwwww
*switches back*
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 09:18 am (UTC)Without notification and with threading, it's a pain in the arse if you dip into a thread more than once, as you can't just pick up where you left off and read all new comments.
LJ subthread-hiding, on the other hand, is absolutely hideous unless you can expand things quickly and easily without going to new pages and such - is that just paid journals?
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 12:03 pm (UTC)Anyway, thanks, I may check those out.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 01:48 am (UTC)Nope :)
I prefer to live in the OpenID ghetto, simply to prove it can be done.
Fair enough, I have enough of a contrary nature to understand that impulse.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-13 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 10:36 am (UTC)and I love being able to pin a comment thread. I get grumpy at lj appearing to delete those pins though. I keep meaning to find out whether or not there is a time limit on those or not, because one of the communities I'm on sometimes has lag times of months on the comments (fic search community. I'm one of the culprits on that too - I looked back for a search I thought I'd seen, saw one I hadn't that I knew the answer to. I think it was 8 months after the original post...)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 01:53 am (UTC)Huh. You know I guess that's one advantage to some blogs: they allow you to subscribe to the rss feed for the comments, and I can't see any easy way to do that for lj comments.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 05:16 pm (UTC)I prefer threading since it allows for better topic-sorting. (And I always feel weird trying to cram A NOVEL of replies into one post, rather than machinegunning a lot of little replies to different people.) I get SO VERY CONFUSED trying to read nonthreaded stuff, especially without quotechunks to let me know exactly what's being replied to. (That, er, may be more a comment on my brainpower, though. >_> )
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 01:56 am (UTC)And yes! Non-threaded=confusing! And then I'm never sure if people are replying to me or not, and thus whether or not I should reply to them etc.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 05:26 pm (UTC)i like online conversations to be a group discussion, not a series of spiralling, partly connected dialogues. i want to be able to engage whoever on whatever, not be ghettoized into a subset of discussion with most people ignoring it to do their own thing.
if other people prefer it, that is okay!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-12 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 01:59 am (UTC)What's fisking?
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 11:40 am (UTC)My first thought was to wonder how they ever have a conversation! But perhaps they don't want people who read their blog to converse with each other and with them?
no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 12:12 pm (UTC)