Undo the newest comments first; go back to oldest so that we can follow the conversation
Duplicates 3
comment sort
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.
Your new comment alignment is unsatisfactory
Replies 38
Right now the "Sort by" selector doesn't remember your selection. It reverts back to "Newest" whenever the page is refreshed. Constantly resetting the "Sort by" is a pain.
This can be fixed. Make the "Sort by" selector sticky. That would allow folks to read stuff in the order they like to see it. The selected "Sort by" would apply across page refreshes and other articles. No more constantly resetting the sort would be needed.
I'm a traditionalist who likes to read stuff in the order it was originally written. For me this is helpful when following a discussion. So I'd set my "Sort by" to "Oldest". Sticky sort would stay that way on page refreshes and every article pulled up until I decide to choose otherwise.
For folks who like to read things backwards and out of context, they'd set "Sort by" to "Newest". It would stay that way for them until they choose otherwise.
To be consistent with years of prior operation 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.
Problem would be solved. Come on SA, you can do this. You'd make a lot of long time readers happy.
Me too. Not worth trying to find comments if this is how it is going to be.
"the only clear problem"
No. (A) Default to newest is not desirable (read things in chrono order) and (B) that you have to manually change setting every time you come to each page
217 nails it. Both A and B are bad. Especially B. Irritating.
Thank you...and how were we to know that? The handle you identified is barely visible. I would still not know of it had you not replied!
Thus your reply is another reason SA should have advised us in advance of this SURPRISE change, and also told us why these changes were made.
There's much to like about SA; however, if it intends to be is "user friendly"--it has a ways to go.
Ah. Great. I didn't read this before I posted above, thanks for sharing.
Agree. At least make it to where if you want old comments loaded first, but to have the "newest" comment as the default is bad.
I agree, there's nothing wrong with adding the feature, but it would be nice if they didn't make it the default on every story, or at the very least gave people the option to set the default back if they want to.
The other problem is that the comment box seems way smaller now. If i want to type something out I can only read about three lines of text which is really annoying to go back and read through if you want to proofread before posting.
Not a fan of either of these two changes.
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
"the only clear problem"
No. (A) Default to newest is not desirable (read things in chrono order) and (B) that you have to manually change setting every time you come to each page
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
Thank you...and how were we to know that? The handle you identified is barely visible. I would still not know of it had you not replied!
Thus your reply is another reason SA should have advised us in advance of this SURPRISE change, and also told us why these changes were made.
There's much to like about SA; however, if it intends to be is "user friendly"--it has a ways to go.
How can the comment sort be permanently set to oldest first?