Yes, I _do_ tend to read every comment on a thread. Or, sometimes, none, but usually if I’m bothering even to look at the comments on a post then I’m going to look at them all.
I don’t eat at restaurants with literally no menu. If a restaurant has a large intimidating menu, I read it all anyway; if I visit it a few times I will get to know what I like. I won’t be helped by a menu that says “Something containing chicken. Something containing turmeric. Something roughly round in shape.” which is roughly what the collapsed comments provide. The menu is only useful in so far as it (together with my past experience, the overall look of the place, etc.) gives me a good enough mental picture of each dish to have a good idea whether I’ll like it.
(An important distinction between visiting a restaurant and visiting Less Wrong: When I go to a restaurant, typically I intend to each a roughly fixed, fairly small number of dishes. I don’t generally go to LW with the intention of reading three comments and then leaving. I don’t so much mind there being no menu if what there is instead is a great multitude of little snacks I can try dozens of without feeling ill.)
Collapsed comments don’t (for me; I must stress that I’m not claiming to speak for anyone else) give me any useful view of what’s available; seeing the first few words of a comment tells me little, and I try not to prejudge things too much on the basis of author or score.
Expanding comments that are new since you last visited is a good idea. If I could get that (on all posts, not just ones with 50+ comments; why would I want that restriction) without any collapsing of comments I haven’t read yet, that would probably be useful. I’m interested in tools that let me read all the comments efficiently. I’m interested in tools that help me decide which comments are worthy of more attention. I am not interested in tools that try to decide for me which comments I will want to read. If I want that then I can go and read Facebook with “top stories” mode turned on instead of LW.
Sure. But the thing I was saying might be useful (which, I understand, has nothing to speak of in common with what’s on offer right now) is auto-collapsing all comments I can be presumed to have read or decided not to bother reading on the grounds that they were already there the last time I visited the discussion. That would be useful even on posts with <=50 comments. (At least, it would be useful there if useful at all; it might be that I’m wrong in thinking it would be useful.)
Perhaps another question – so long as comments are expanded like normal, is there anything you feel like you-in-particular are lacking re: the “be able to read all the comments easily” thing?
(Curious how to related to Recent Discussion in particular – do you use that part of the site?)
I’m not feeling any glaring lacks. Of course it’s possible that there are possible changes that once made would be obvious improvements :-).
I do use the “recent discussion” section. I actually don’t mind the collapsing there—it’s not trying to present the whole of any discussion, and clearly space is at a big premium there, so collapsing might not be a bad tradeoff.
Nod. That’s where I found single line comments most important and the use case I originally designed them for. (And then I was actually a bit surprised when I turned out to prefer them on lower-karma comments on large comment sections, without much modification)
Yes, I _do_ tend to read every comment on a thread. Or, sometimes, none, but usually if I’m bothering even to look at the comments on a post then I’m going to look at them all.
I don’t eat at restaurants with literally no menu. If a restaurant has a large intimidating menu, I read it all anyway; if I visit it a few times I will get to know what I like. I won’t be helped by a menu that says “Something containing chicken. Something containing turmeric. Something roughly round in shape.” which is roughly what the collapsed comments provide. The menu is only useful in so far as it (together with my past experience, the overall look of the place, etc.) gives me a good enough mental picture of each dish to have a good idea whether I’ll like it.
(An important distinction between visiting a restaurant and visiting Less Wrong: When I go to a restaurant, typically I intend to each a roughly fixed, fairly small number of dishes. I don’t generally go to LW with the intention of reading three comments and then leaving. I don’t so much mind there being no menu if what there is instead is a great multitude of little snacks I can try dozens of without feeling ill.)
Collapsed comments don’t (for me; I must stress that I’m not claiming to speak for anyone else) give me any useful view of what’s available; seeing the first few words of a comment tells me little, and I try not to prejudge things too much on the basis of author or score.
Expanding comments that are new since you last visited is a good idea. If I could get that (on all posts, not just ones with 50+ comments; why would I want that restriction) without any collapsing of comments I haven’t read yet, that would probably be useful. I’m interested in tools that let me read all the comments efficiently. I’m interested in tools that help me decide which comments are worthy of more attention. I am not interested in tools that try to decide for me which comments I will want to read. If I want that then I can go and read Facebook with “top stories” mode turned on instead of LW.
To clarify, only posts with 50+ comments have collapsed comments, so it wouldn’t make sense to expand comments on posts with less than 50 comments)
Sure. But the thing I was saying might be useful (which, I understand, has nothing to speak of in common with what’s on offer right now) is auto-collapsing all comments I can be presumed to have read or decided not to bother reading on the grounds that they were already there the last time I visited the discussion. That would be useful even on posts with <=50 comments. (At least, it would be useful there if useful at all; it might be that I’m wrong in thinking it would be useful.)
Ah, yeah that makes sense.
Perhaps another question – so long as comments are expanded like normal, is there anything you feel like you-in-particular are lacking re: the “be able to read all the comments easily” thing?
(Curious how to related to Recent Discussion in particular – do you use that part of the site?)
I’m not feeling any glaring lacks. Of course it’s possible that there are possible changes that once made would be obvious improvements :-).
I do use the “recent discussion” section. I actually don’t mind the collapsing there—it’s not trying to present the whole of any discussion, and clearly space is at a big premium there, so collapsing might not be a bad tradeoff.
Nod. That’s where I found single line comments most important and the use case I originally designed them for. (And then I was actually a bit surprised when I turned out to prefer them on lower-karma comments on large comment sections, without much modification)