Can you link to a particular comment that does the awkward truncation thing? Our truncation process is supposed to address that using a method similar to what you describe. But if you give me a working example I can look into it.
re: “Magical Algorithm” vs “Oldest”: what you’re problem running into here is a hard-coded edgecase. Very Old Posts were published before LessWrong had a threading system (or indeed, before LessWrong even existed – originally published on OvercomingBias.com). In those cases, some old comments actually only make sense if read in chronological order, and we override the usual settings.
Can you link to a particular comment that does the awkward truncation thing? Our truncation process is supposed to address that using a method similar to what you describe. But if you give me a working example I can look into it.
re: “Magical Algorithm” vs “Oldest”: what you’re problem running into here is a hard-coded edgecase. Very Old Posts were published before LessWrong had a threading system (or indeed, before LessWrong even existed – originally published on OvercomingBias.com). In those cases, some old comments actually only make sense if read in chronological order, and we override the usual settings.
Here you are: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLbkrPu5STNCBLRjr/applause-lights?commentId=wqTug9AggXcKxfgXt
Or https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/48WeP7oTec3kBEada/two-more-things-to-unlearn-from-school?commentId=Keof7iH7obZsRuM2B