In Drupal out-of-the-box, there are four available ways to lay out comments:
- Flat, expanded
- Flat, collapsed (titles only)
- Threaded, expanded
- Threaded, collapsed
To add another wrinkle, there's the option of having the most recent comments at the top vs. new comments added at the bottom. In my experience, on blogs, the most common practice is to have flat expanded comments in chronological order, while on community sites that are not old-style bulletin boards (phpBB, FUD, vB, etc.) the practice is to have threaded, expanded comments posted in chronological order (sub-threads in chron order, comments within threads in chron order).
But lately, people have been playing around with that paradigm. I note that here on Groups.Drupal, comments are threaded, expanded and in reverse chronological order -- kinda. (Subthreads are in reverse chron order, but comments within threads are in chron order.) Personally I find this rather confusing, especially if the "new" comments are not clearly tagged.
What are the approaches you all have been trying out? What do people seem to respond to? Any best practices to share? How much do/should user expectations and existing conventions influence the formatting and layout architecture of a community site?
Comments
Think outside the thread
Who says you have to even have comments on the same page? :P
Depending on the type of site, a totally different approach to comments might be warranted.
One issue with long comment threads is...that they're long. Depending on the type of comments ("This is awesome!"), consider only showing the most recent, i.e. the last 5-10-etc., with a link to the full list.
Put a "comments" or "discussion" tab (similar to MediaWiki) at the top of your content page.
The user review module is another comment-like thing....except they're actually nodes, so theoretically you could even turn comments on for THEM :P
Just a few thoughts to get people thinking outside the Drupal box...
Good point
But even if the comments are on a separate page, or a pop-up like Haloscan, how are a few dozen comments presented? There's also the mojo method, where the most highly rated comments float to the top. My feeling is that losing time context is confusing, especially for long threads that may develop over several days or even weeks. In some ways, flat chronological indeed might be the easiest, even if the threading is lost.
I love the user review module! We are using it in a site we're about to take live. But the question remains: How do you choose how to present multiple responses?
The select display option is intriguing, but then again we're left with the same question: Which selection gets displayed. In my experience, most of the sharpest comments on a post happen in the early going. Later comments tend to be more banal, perhaps because people find that others have said it all already. So do you really want to feature the most banal comments on the main page? Does that help to build community?
Just wondering.
Laura
pingVision, LLC
PINGV | Strategy • Design • Drupal Development
Topics, Comments, Threaded, Flat, etc.
Both Laura & Boris make very good points.
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Summary:
My preference?
- Topics in reverse-chronological order (newer at top, older at bottom)
- Comments that are threaded, expanded and in chronological order (oldest at top, newer at bottom)
- Subthreads in same manner as comments
Details:
Personally, I find the easiest method to present topics is that of showing the newest topics at the top, with older topics at the bottom and to have the oldest topics "fall off" the bottom of the page as newer topics are added. That way, visitors are exposed to the newest topics. I believe, to keep the site looking somewhat clean and unless it's a site with very few comments, that comments should not be listed on the same page as that where all the topics are listed. In other words, save the comments for another page where that specific topic is listed as in the manner that drupal.org and g.d.o. employ. Then, on that specific page for that specific topic, use the "threaded, expanded", AND chronological (oldest at top, newest at bottom) method.
As for me, I initially found the manner in which groups.drupal.org (g.d.o.) presents comments to a specific topic to be confusing, but I've learned to accept it and have adjusted. Try following this topic with its associated comments - it's difficult for me to know who said when without jumping back and forth, i.e., scrolling, since the dates aren't presented in a chronological and easy to follow method.
It just wasn't real intuitive, and still isn't entirely, following the way comments to a specific topic are presented here on g.d.o. and I had also grown accustomed to the way comments are presented on drupal.org, i.e., threaded oldest comments and replies to a specific topic at top, newest comments and replies at bottom, with subthreads, if any, presented in the same easy to follow chronological order. At first I thought, hey, something's wrong with the comment threads here on g.d.o! But then, I figured out it's the way the site maintainers preferred it. I still find it confusing...sometimes.
I don't really care for the "most highly rated comments float to the top" as it loses, for me, the date/time which I like to see. Then again, perhaps that's just me as I like to see things presented in an easy to follow fashion in terms of a specific conversation. Basically, I like to see what the subject is and what the original poster had to say. Then, I like to be able to follow the thought pattern. If someone has a side comment, then associated side replies live next to it in a chron manner vs. finding the associated side replies all over the page(s) regardless of whether it was posted 1 minute after the original side comment or 1 year after. As long as the person making the side reply responds to the applicable side comment, the side reply will always appear near it. I don't like having to scroll back and forth to put the pieces to the puzzle together as to who said what in response to who. I like to follow it like a conversation would happen in real time. If there's a side conversation, I like to follow the side conversation until it's finished vs. finding mention of it 5 pages later. :( Often, comments are not real clear as to who they're responding to and so they don't make much sense if they're not threaded in a choronological order, IMO.
As to "How much do/should user expectations and existing conventions influence the formatting and layout architecture of a community site?", my suggestion is to choose what's best at the time and try to stick with it. Users, IMO, get used to doing things a certain way and, unless it's a new way to make the Earth spin, web site owners should try and stick to maintaining things that work well and not try to confuse their users just for change's sake or just to introduce something new.
Walt Esquivel, MBA; MA; President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
$50 Hosting Discount Helps Projects Needing Financing
Walt Esquivel, MBA; MA; President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
$50 Hosting Discount Helps Projects Needing Financing
Digg style comments
How about the digg way of comments. the users digg the comments as Yay or Nay. that way only the imp comments are displaced rest are buried down.
Another vote for g.d.o comments being a bit awkward
And my personal preference is the same as Walts which is as far as I can tell just like the settings on drupal.org
As an aside, I can't stand flat style forums - they just seem to be a stream of context-less random chatter. I have to admit having to bite my tongue and not appearing like an old codger at the lengths some people go to to mangle their Drupal site to look like phpBB (kids these days eh?). Threaded comments and Taxonomy were the two main features that brought me to Drupal a couple of years back, and threaded forums seem to be getting rarer and rarer these days (sadly).
But I can see how a flat view would be handy temporarily for finding new comments in a very long thread before switching back to the nested view.
I think the best overall solution is for the end user to be able to choose their own view (eg like Slashdot, Kuro5hin etc) but I can see how the extra screen widgets make the page more cluttered and 'geeky' looking. Maybe if the webmaster chose a sensible default, and individual users got to set their preferences via their account settings. Or even a discreet Javascript button to make viewing options spring forth.
Trying to bridge this gap Slashdot is trialling a AJAXy thread expansion system on their site now, but I ended up going back to the plain old version.
Note: I'm not really a grumpy old man :)
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Cheers
Anton
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Cheers
Anton
All talk, no instructions.
it does? where?
LOL!
This is a 1.5 year old discussion page, not a handbook page. Why are you complaining there's no instructions?
Anyway, it depends what version you're using. In 5.x it's admin comment settings and in 6.x it's on each node type.
Michelle
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region