Timeline for Evolving comments: An experiment to encourage engagement and follow-up questions
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
15 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 19 at 12:29 | comment | added | NoDataDumpNoContribution | @Hoid "Default would be to have them collapsed." Is this true? People seem to report that by default nothing is collapsed. Maybe something has gone wrong. | |
| May 5 at 6:38 | comment | added | tkruse | The screenshot in the op does not even have any answer. Maybe that's the goal, remove answers and replace with comments on the original post. Very much like reddit. | |
| May 3 at 17:36 | comment | added | VLAZ | @user1079505 I'm saying that the mode by which you scroll hasn't been the issue. Having to scroll to keep all the relevant content in view is. | |
| May 3 at 16:23 | comment | added | user1079505 | @VLAZ maybe that's a matter of a preference and opinion, but to me hitting page down a couple of times is much easier than making multiple clicks to find the right thing. I'm here and not on reddit for a reason. | |
| May 3 at 15:45 | comment | added | VLAZ | @user1079505 I don't know why you're trying to show that "being able to scroll fast" was the issue. It never was - you could middle-click on the page, or use page up/down, or home/end for ages, before spinning wheels. The issue has never been the ability to scroll, it was the necessity to scroll in order to read the whole thing with potentially irrelevant content in between what you're actually here for - the questions and answers. Reddit does have the same problem - it's not build to expose content, it's to allow users to have infinite discussions spinning off it. | |
| May 3 at 13:58 | comment | added | NoDataDumpNoContribution | @user1079505 I believe it is. Of course scrolling is available, and Reddit is a fine site, but I don't use it for information retrieval. It's entertainment. We should make an experiment. One cluttered SO site like the one shown above and one cleaned up as much as possible and make a test, which site visitors prefer. The data will show us how much of an issue it is. | |
| May 3 at 13:46 | comment | added | user1079505 | I don't believe what you describe is an actual issue. These days we have mice with spinning wheels, touchpads, touchscreens – all that makes scrolling easy. Compare this with reddit design, where many answers are initially collapsed, and you need to make many mouseclicks to read the whole discussion. Present SE design is annoying too. You read comments, they make no sense, and only then you realize that they are answers to some collapsed comments, you need to click, and read again. Waste of time. | |
| Apr 30 at 19:04 | comment | added | TylerH | @Kaia Another user did so since your comment, and I just edited that bit to be very large/clear, for future readers. | |
| Apr 29 at 17:31 | comment | added | Kaia | @Hoid PLEASE edit the initial post with an image of the question with the comments collapsed. This is 90% of my hesitation with the proposal, and if the comments start collapsed I think that's a good start. | |
| Apr 29 at 14:21 | comment | added | NoDataDumpNoContribution | @Hoid Thanks for the reply. That would probably be better, but I hope you saw the point. With bigger comments and threading and the full editor, more and more space will be needed and the most important content, which would be the answers I think, will move further and further below on the page, reducing the value for visitors just wanting to read the answers. It surely depends on how the UI is done exactly. The idea seems to be to cram everything on a single page, and I just wanted to point out where disadvantages of that approach could be. | |
| Apr 29 at 14:00 | comment | added | Hoid StaffMod | The comments are expanded here just for demonstration purposes. Default would be to have them collapsed. This image was shared just to show the desired end state. Our first experiment will be just the UI changes: Bigger comments, different buttons and the updated user card. When the experiment starts, there will be a separate post on MSO for those users to offer feedback, and all the details of what the expected behavior should be. Threading and the full editor will come as a second and third experiment. | |
| Apr 29 at 11:29 | comment | added | VLAZ | Plenty of users right now don't read past the first answer. And some even confuse comments for answers (and complain why they don't answer the question). I don't have stats but from what I've seen either post, the latter group seems smaller than the former. And yes - both are composed of predominantly first-time users. At any rate, how would both of these categories of users take to the even-more-answer-looking comments? Seems like a good way to confuse both of them. | |
| Apr 29 at 7:32 | history | edited | NoDataDumpNoContribution | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Apr 29 at 7:20 | history | edited | NoDataDumpNoContribution | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Apr 29 at 7:11 | history | answered | NoDataDumpNoContribution | CC BY-SA 4.0 |