As outlined in this post, today we will be rolling out the second of several upcoming experiments related to the commenting feature. Labeled in the original announcement post under Phase Two, the changes being experimented on in this phase will redirect users who are attempting to have subjective conversations about the contents of a Q&A post to Discussions instead. Users will see “Ask a follow-up question,” which will redirect the user to create a discussion.

During this phase of the experiment, from the dropdown, users can comment under the post, ask a follow-up question in the Discussions space, or say thanks (the first phase, rolled out earlier this month). It will look like this:

We’ll initially be rolling this out to users with more than 50 reputation points. We will then do a second, incremental rollout for all users, in which the same dropdown will be shown to users with less than 50 reputation points. Since those users won’t have enough reputation to comment, if they attempt to use that option, they will instead be invited to suggest an edit to the post or start a discussion. This flow will be an MVP and something we’ll iterate on if we see it constitutes a significant entry point for suggested edits or discussions. It will look like this:

We are also working on a discussion modal, and adding an entry point to discussions in the comments section, pointing to discussions that were started as a result of the new dropdown introduced in this phase. The latter will look like this:

We’ll be monitoring this post for the next month until March 27 and will also continue to review the feedback already shared on the original post linked above. The next phase will show a prompt for users with less than 15 reputation points who attempt to vote, inviting them to use the “Say Thanks” feature instead. As before, we will also have a follow-up post for this phase of the experiment. Please report any bugs you may run into, as well as any feedback you may have in individual answers below.

March 13 update: Today we've rolled out the entry point to discussions originally outlined near the bottom of this announcement. This is being rolled out gradually as we assess impact to the database.

Additionally, in response to your feedback, we've altered the copy in the dropdown, so it now looks like this:

The copy will differ for questions and answers, as appropriate. We'll be tracking how this change affects user interactions with the pop-up, in addition to all the previous things we were measuring.

The incremental rollout for users with less than 50 reputation points originally mentioned in the post is also underway as of earlier this week.

As outlined in this post, today we will be rolling out the second of several upcoming experiments related to the commenting feature. Labeled in the original announcement post under Phase Two, the changes being experimented on in this phase will redirect users who are attempting to have subjective conversations about the contents of a Q&A post to Discussions instead. Users will see “Ask a follow-up question,” which will redirect the user to create a discussion.

During this phase of the experiment, from the dropdown, users can comment under the post, ask a follow-up question in the Discussions space, or say thanks (the first phase, rolled out earlier this month). It will look like this:

We’ll initially be rolling this out to users with more than 50 reputation points. We will then do a second, incremental rollout for all users, in which the same dropdown will be shown to users with less than 50 reputation points. Since those users won’t have enough reputation to comment, if they attempt to use that option, they will instead be invited to suggest an edit to the post or start a discussion. This flow will be an MVP and something we’ll iterate on if we see it constitutes a significant entry point for suggested edits or discussions. It will look like this:

We are also working on a discussion modal, and adding an entry point to discussions in the comments section, pointing to discussions that were started as a result of the new dropdown introduced in this phase. The latter will look like this:

We’ll be monitoring this post for the next month until March 27 and will also continue to review the feedback already shared on the original post linked above. The next phase will show a prompt for users with less than 15 reputation points who attempt to vote, inviting them to use the “Say Thanks” feature instead. As before, we will also have a follow-up post for this phase of the experiment. Please report any bugs you may run into, as well as any feedback you may have in individual answers below.