Undo the newest comments first; go back to oldest so that we can follow the conversation
Duplicates 3
comment sort
Your new comment alignment is unsatisfactory
Please revert back to older comments first instead of newer comments first. Newer comments first is a terrible idea. Those who reply to comments are out of order and make no sense becaue everything is inverted.
Replies 38
Make the "Sort Order" sticky so folks can choose it once rather than constantly overriding the default. Sticky sort would stay that way after page refreshes and on other articles as well. Everyone gets what they want.
The default "Sort by" should be "Oldest". Let folks choose the alternative viewing style by selecting "Newest" in the "Sort by". Don't force new things unnecessarily and turn their world literally upside down.
Remember New Coke?
Not everything new is good.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
I sort on oldest first, and then I get the situation in the picture.
so where is the next comment, also the "next" link does not work. Clicking on it has no effect, and its the end of the page.
I agree. This is a travesty!
Especially you can change the sort order but the next time you come back to SA website it defaults back to the other method. It doesn't stick!
You can resize the comment box by clicking and dragging the resize handle in the bottom right corner of the text box - see picture below
But it doesn't remember the new size, and its still too small by default.
It is also very hard to grab the resize tag to make it bigger.
The next link for the last comment often seems to be active but since its the very last comment it doesn't work. This happens every time when there is only 1 new comment, but it happens other times as well.
Thanks for all of your feedback. We are continually monitoring user behavior to see how well comments are working and monitoring all of the feedback to improve our comments.
About the next and previous buttons for comment notifications: from what I read below, the only clear problem is that if you click on a notification and then switch the sort order, it should take you to the first notification... I can get that issue fixed asap. The next and previous buttons are meant to help the user scroll down to the next new comment or reply in the page, and it works regardless of the sort order (next scrolls down the page, prev scrolls back up). If you have a specific problem with this functionality, please let me know clearly how to reproduce it and I will get it fixed ASAP. Copy paste the URL from the address bar in your report since this is how the "New" marking is activated. Thanks, Jacob
SA Jacob: Suggest you try reading comments of 100 or more for an article for yourself to see what the problem is. But I will pitch to Marvel for an idea of 2 very misunderstood superheros, Endfirsto and Outofcontexto, who try telling stories and plans to others starting at the end and moving towards the beginning. But have no problem if you return to the old default and have an option for those who want to read the end of books first.
I've published an instablog post with a detailed explanation of why we changed the comment system. Please feel free to comment on that post: https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/3-david-jackson/5283480-changes-ordering-comments
How can the comment sort be permanently set to oldest first?