Reversing/Controlling Comments?

[sarahG]

Most of my posts get a handful of comments, nothing major. However, a number of posts have a large amount of comments which comes across as overwhelming and possibly off putting to some. Also, on one page there's over 80 which means the page is pretty long to load and if someone else wants to comment they have a long way to scroll down. Also, the first comment is potentially over a year ago, so some people may see the first comment and not think that it's the first and not the most recent.

So my thoughts are
1. Set up comment pagination so that it only kicks in after say 10 or 20 posts. Have the most recent X posts on the first page.

2. Show the most recent X posts with a link to view all comments on that post.

3. Reverse my comments so that the most recent is first, but have them all on the same page. Include an anchor link above the first comment saying 'Leave a comment on this post' which will jump to the comment form.


A blog post will typically have oldest comment first, which is fine when it's a fresh post, but after a while it can appear outdated. If I reversed my comments I'd only want to do it on selective posts if possible.

Any thoughts on the easiest option to grasp? I don't want to put people off or confuse them by changing the traditional design/layout.

[Jeffro]

I know WordPress 2.7 will have comment threading and pagination features out of the box, you'll just have to add them to your theme. I believe you'll also be able to sort the comments from descending to ascending but I am not sure how you would do that for specific posts as the changes would be applied to comments.php

[athlon24]

@Jeffro
sarahG can do that sort of stuff, she just need some idea what's the right way to go.

@sarahG
i think, the third one is the best option. you just need to emphasize the date and time of comments so readers will easily notice that it is reversed. :D

[sarahG]

I know WordPress 2.7 will have comment threading and pagination features out of the box, you'll just have to add them to your theme. I believe you'll also be able to sort the comments from descending to ascending but I am not sure how you would do that for specific posts as the changes would be applied to comments.php

Cheers I didn't know 2.7 had those features (I've got a list to read somewhere I think... just not had the time to read it!), I wonder if a flag as a custom field could allow you to control the order on specific pages?

I may just wait for 2.7 to be released and have a play and see which option looks the best.

i think, the third one is the best option. you just need to emphasize the date and time of comments so readers will easily notice that it is reversed

Yeah, if you change the order you need to seriously point that out as most visitors are used to a standard order. Although when you have 80+ posts load on a page (okay I only have one post with that many comments but still) it can take a while, hence the thought on pagination too.

I think it sounds like 2.7 is going to bring about some interesting features for comments and is worth waiting to look at. Or I may have a look at the latest beta and see what it's like (because I'm impatient!)

[Indyan]

I dont like the idea of reversing comments. If there are a lot of comments there is a possibility of an engaging conversation going on. Now if the comments are reversed I would need to start reading from the bottom of the page to get into the conversation.

Pagination is probably your best solution.

[sarahG]

I like the idea of pagination, but then which order do you go in. What's on page 1? To me I think the most recent comments should be immediately available. Yes a good conversation may have got going but specifically in the posts of mine that have too many comments there's no real conversation there, most of them are just brief comments specifically to the post.

[navjotjsingh]

I agree with pallab to some extent. But to maintain flow of blog, either you should keep comments in all posts in reverse order or in straight chronological order. Mixing them up for specific posts will break rhythm for your blog's loyal readers.

[sarahG]

How does this sound?

If a post has say just 15 comments or less (which are most of them), it displays them oldest comment first and in normal order. If a post has over 15 comments then it paginates the comments with say 15-20 on each page, however the comments below the post are the most recent, and so you would go to the last page to read the first comments.

Thoughts? Confusing? Or is it just confusing because it sounds hard to visualise. I'm sure I've seen sites like this.

[Indyan]

Erm.. why do you want to display the most recent comments first while paginating? I dont see any significant advantages, but it will break your websites standard pattern and will also hamper conversation.

[sarahG]

Because if I go to a post I don't want to read comments from 2 years ago. I'd rather read something a bit more up to date. If I really want to, I want the option to read the older comments but reading through the last 10-20 posts will probably be of more interest.

A bit like opening a forum post, reading the first post and then clicking reply or going straight to the end. If you read through threads on here you can see people haven't read half of the comments already made as their post is pretty much just a copy of someone else's response.

If you go to a blog do you start at the beginning? By the very nature a blog site displays the most recent X posts.

There are pros and cons of each method hence my reason for asking.

[athlon24]

Think about this. After reading your post, the user will comment not because of another comment. It is because of the post. And sarahG is right, I am not interested with comments given 2 years ago. I will surely look at the latest comment and if I cannot see the context of the comment, that's the only time I will read other comments. If the user wants to make a conversation, I would rather go to a forum.

[sarahG]

Just thought I'd update this thread to say WordPress 2.7 contains the current options on comments

1. Select if comments are automatically closed after X days
2. Threaded comments so you can reply to a specific comment and your reply will appear after this comment and not at the bottom
3. Reversing the comment order so most recent first
4. Pagination of comments and the option whether to display the last page (so most recent comments) first.

Number 4 is what I'll be selecting!

[Indyan]

That's pretty cool. I may enable #1.
I am already using #2 via a 3rd party plugin. So I guess I wont be needing that.

[athlon24]

For me, maybe I will try to use number 3. But before that I will try to tweak the time shown on the comment. So I think I'll be needing help again pretty soon. :D