On commenting schema

[alias_sqbr]

One 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 :)

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

I've been experimenting with view=flat and am finding it a bit confusing since lj comments are written on the (reasonable) assumption that they're being read threaded. I should probably also investigate that script, but that would involve effort :)

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

Your comment prompted me to investigate. I've installed one option, but it didn't work for me, even though it should've. I will poke around a little to see if I can discover the problem/another alternative. If I find anything, I'll be sure to let you know!