I find the nesting of comments within threads too subtle. I can’t “see” the nesting and have to work at it.
In the context of programming languages the research (quoted in Steve McConnell’s books I think) seems to suggest that indenting by 3 characters optimizes the ability to “see” the nesting. Currently it’s one character only.
Increasing the nesting characters is not free of course as it leads to very deep indentation. But there are ways of displaying very deep nesting though eg displaying ! for every ten levels.
Agree that the comment nesting is a bit too subtle, though of course we still want deep nesting to be possible, which means the main content well on the site should remain fairly wide.
Absolutely, so many parallel lines get insane. What about something like Disqus where you click reply to someone and it creates a link to the post you’re replying to? Maybe that’d be cumbersome. Brainstorming...
Yes—Disqus does essentially the same thing, but instead of “Parent,” it says, “In reply to AstroCJ”—and that hyperlinks to the comment. Not a vast difference, but if you’ve been reading through a string of comments that’s, say, 30 comments long. There’s a top thread, 5 second level threads, and the rest of the 24 comments are between 3-6 levels deep as people respond to each other.
I just thought it might be helpful to re-see the name of the parent thread as you go down that deep. Maybe it’s just me, but I sometimes forget which higher-level comment started all the commotion and have to go back up to look. If I saw the name, I might not even have to click it—that’d be enough to remind me.
I find the nesting of comments within threads too subtle. I can’t “see” the nesting and have to work at it.
In the context of programming languages the research (quoted in Steve McConnell’s books I think) seems to suggest that indenting by 3 characters optimizes the ability to “see” the nesting. Currently it’s one character only.
Increasing the nesting characters is not free of course as it leads to very deep indentation. But there are ways of displaying very deep nesting though eg displaying ! for every ten levels.
Agree that the comment nesting is a bit too subtle, though of course we still want deep nesting to be possible, which means the main content well on the site should remain fairly wide.
I wonder if it would be easier to keep track if there were one or two more quiet pastel colors in the cycle.
Absolutely, so many parallel lines get insane. What about something like Disqus where you click reply to someone and it creates a link to the post you’re replying to? Maybe that’d be cumbersome. Brainstorming...
Do you mean something different from the “Parent” link beneath each post?
Yes—Disqus does essentially the same thing, but instead of “Parent,” it says, “In reply to AstroCJ”—and that hyperlinks to the comment. Not a vast difference, but if you’ve been reading through a string of comments that’s, say, 30 comments long. There’s a top thread, 5 second level threads, and the rest of the 24 comments are between 3-6 levels deep as people respond to each other.
I just thought it might be helpful to re-see the name of the parent thread as you go down that deep. Maybe it’s just me, but I sometimes forget which higher-level comment started all the commotion and have to go back up to look. If I saw the name, I might not even have to click it—that’d be enough to remind me.