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Comments improvements to indicate assent or dissent with previously posted comments
Often I'm looking over a post and feel that I have what to add as a comment. But as soon as I look at the comments, I find that someone's already written exactly what I would have said. At that point, it would just be adding noise to write my own comment saying essentially the same thing, as it would be to write my own comment saying that "I agree with @NumericallyUnchallenged." Somewhere Else I might have upvoted the comment, but that's not an option here.
For contrast to the proposals below, here's an example of a user saying a comment (actual comment of mine), with two (fictitious) users responding — one in agreement, one in dissent:[1]
Proposal One: "Me Too!"
In lieu of having someone post a new comment just to say "me too," let's give them a button to click. In this example, SomeRandomUser no longer has to agree with me; he can instead click "me too!":
And if multiple people all give their agreement, let the system show simply "X other users," and clicking on that will expand out the user list:[2]
Proposal Two: Vote on Comments
We could always implement Somewhere Else's system of upvoting comments, but it's only right that if you can upvote a comment to indicate assent, you should be able to downvote to indicate displeasure. Sample mockup:
Notice that these options are not mutually exclusive. We can always implement the upvote/downvote system and add "me too!" votes; we can always add the proposed reactions feature to comments as well.
I believe comments need some sort of mechanism to allow 'good' comments to rise to the top. Some posts attract a lot …
4y ago
I like the idea of adding a way to "co-sign" a comment -- the "me too" part of this proposal. I don't think we should …
1y ago
Different comment categories I propose (arbitrarily) to define different categories of comments (but it is just a fir …
1y ago
I support the me-too feature, as it saves people from repeating existing comments (and others from reading them). I d …
4y ago
4 answers
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I like the idea of adding a way to "co-sign" a comment -- the "me too" part of this proposal.
I don't think we should also add "disagree" using that mechanism, though. Disagreement should be explained, so instead of just clicking "I disagree", add a comment saying you disagree and explaining what the problem is. People who agree with you can then "me too" that comment.
This allows you to see, at a glance, which comments have support and which do not. It also reduces the confusion of "double voting"; if people could disagree with a comment and then agree with a contrary comment, that would look like more activity than it really is.
I believe comments need some sort of mechanism to allow 'good' comments to rise to the top.
Some posts attract a lot of comments. Sometimes they're a bit of back-and-forth clarification between asker and respondents, sometimes they're humorous, and sometimes they're mini answers in themselves. Naturally some comments (eg the mini answers or the clarification comment with a lot of detail) are far more important and relevant than others (eg the first two back-and-forth clarification comments). However the not-so-important comments aren't necessarily so bad that they should be deleted; they still have some relevance.
After five comments, further comments are hidden away under a 'Show x more comments' link. However the order of comments always remains the same. If someone comments a particularly useful bit of information as the sixth comment, it will always be initially hidden while less important comments are initially visible. It goes without saying that this isn't very helpful for future readers.
The comment system needs some mechanism to allow especially useful comments to be shown in those first five comments. An upvote system may be misused for funny comments, but if we look at the example of the SE sites, the system generally worked pretty well. Relabeling upvotes on comments to 'Me too' or 'Helpful' votes may further improve this.
Different comment categories
I propose (arbitrarily) to define different categories of comments (but it is just a first draft proposal which must be discussed ;), the categories written in parentheses may particulary be useless but I put them as a line of thought.:
- Relevant/useful comments (e.g. like-answer comments, adding useful info).
- Question comments (e.g. new questions regarding the post).
- Meta/technical comments (e.g. "the link is broken").
- Irrelevant/useless comments (e.g. "Thanks" comments, not constructive comments).
- Inappropriate comments (e.g. abusive comments).
- (Humoristic comments).
- (Off-topic) (could be included in Irrelevant comments).
- (Opinion Based) (could be included in Irrelevant comments).
Main goal
If we consider that there is several types of comment (the list above is not mandatory but at least 3 for e.g. Relevant, Irrelevant and Abusive comments), the question is: How to highlight some and on the contrary make others less visible?.
Starting from this postulate (which can obviously be discussed), here-after are some potential solutions that could be implemented.
Possibles Solutions
Solutions list
- Up and down-vote on comments (with optionally the total count appearing as for Q&A).
- Flag on comments (already available)
-
"react" functionality (same idea of what is already available in Q&A).
- This react button could permit to choose any of the comment categories (for e.g. the 6 first categories presented above).
Solution comparison
| # | Solution | Pro | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Up/down-vote | Irrelevant and Inappropriate comments will be detected efficiently | Humoristic comments can get high vote count (as mentioned here) |
| Vote Arrow + count take some place (for display) | |||
| 2 | Flag | Easy detection and distinction between all comment types | Maybe to restrict only for Inappropriate comments detection for moderator intervention (as currently done) |
| 3 | react button | Once the comment is "categorized", different actions can easily be implemented depending on the comment type. | More complicated for users (maybe only relevant for some communities), staff and mod |
Actions after categorization
Once the comment is categorized by several users or moderator intervention (whatever the solution used), different actions can be taken depending on the category selected. This topic is a bit far from the current question, but just some ideas here (in order to show the potentialities related to comments categorization):
- Different thread could be automatically created, one for each comment categories (for e.g. one thread for Question comments, one for Meta comments) (but it is a bit difficult to implement with the current feature because it is the user who write the thread title currently... but the user could manually select to post his comment in some predefine thread categories, e.g. 3 predefine: General, Question, Meta)
- Relevant comments could be highlighted in the thread (by a different font or color or background color or outline, etc.) or directly displayed without unroll the thread (for e.g. the 2 or 3 most useful comments could be displayed without unroll the comment thread, or just an insight if the comment is too long).
- Meta/technical comments could be highlighted until the link is fixed or removed.
- Irrelevant/useless comments could be shallowed completely of partially (transparency, gray color, etc.).
- Humoristic comments could be treated in a different way compare to Irrelevant comments because even if it seems important to focus on the essential in comments, a little bit of humor (which is appreciated by the majority), it doesn't hurt IMO!
I support the me-too feature, as it saves people from repeating existing comments (and others from reading them).
I don't think we should have up- and downvotes on comments, as they don't necessarily indicate assent and dissent (respectively): they may, for example, indicate that someone thinks the comment was funny. Thus, they serve no practical purpose. (I'm basing this on SE, where comments got votes up for many reasons besides assent. Having downvotes will perhaps temper that, but probably not entirely.) I would even propose no votes on posts, except that we need them for readers' sake; but comments barely serve that purpose. (This all depends, of course, on what comments are for, so should be taken with a grain of salt. Cf. https://meta.codidact.com/q/277872#comment-3871.)
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