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Why are comments hidden by default?
Why are comments deprecated to the point that none are visible without having to move away from the page?
With page loads and mouse clicks, less is MORE.
It's "status by design". I made the very same remarks when this feature was released, here: https://meta.codidact.com/po …
2y ago
I believe that comments encourage users to think of this site like a forum or Reddit or some other form of social media. …
2y ago
I agree that it should be easier to see comments than it is, but one difference here from Elsewhere is that we are tryin …
2y ago
3 answers
I believe that comments encourage users to think of this site like a forum or Reddit or some other form of social media. But posts that would be appropriate in those places aren't appropriate here. I assert that de-emphasizing comments helps focus users on the idea that we should all be here to do work, the work of building a knowledge repository in whatever domain, and not to ‘get help’ or socialize. (One very good reason to do the work is that we learn and grow by asking and answering, but every bad user interaction I've had here or Elsewhere has involved the other user, in my subjective judgment, not having the mindset that they're here to do work.)
IMO, comments would be even better if they were as hidden as Talk pages are on Wikipedia. I don't particularly care if they're deleted or preserved, but I do think that, like Wikipedia, we should be drawing a bright line between the project and any necessary communication that happens around the project. I acknowledge that I am a hypocrite who often gets baited into comment conversations, even though I don't really think that's what comments as they're currently presented should be for—the problem is that we don't have any better tool for coaching users into being better community members, like a private message or chat or talk page system.
Edit: OP raised the use of comments as ‘footnotes’, containing content that should be visible. I disagree with this use; footnotes, like this one, should be made part of the answer, like I am doing now. They should be refined from whatever conversation inspired them and not left tangled up in dialogue for future readers to piece together like historians going over primary sources. This improves the answer, which is what we should be trying to do with all posts.
1 comment thread
It's "status by design". I made the very same remarks when this feature was released, here: https://meta.codidact.com/posts/282342/282346#answer-282346.
Responses from the dev team were:
ArtOfCode wrote 11 months ago:
Part of the intent of this change is to create slightly more friction to commenting. We've seen both here and on SE that comments being easy to leave makes people less likely to think about what they're writing. Opening a new page for a full comment thread is just that little bit of friction that might change that; we'll see how it goes. (There are a few technical challenges to inlining full threads, too, but it can be done if we try this and it really doesn't work out.)
Monica Cellio wrote 11 months ago:
Going to a new page does remove ready access to context (like if you need to consult the post the thread is attached to). It's a link away, but I think that's one issue behind the requests for inlining the thread. Maybe the answer is inlining or maybe the answer is some other change to the thread page.
My feedback was overall positively received (+8 score), yet the feature has remained as it is.
We've been using it for almost a year now and my opinion still stands: loading a new page is cumbersome, unintuitive and confusing. Worst of all, you sometimes (upon following a comment notification) have to view the post and its related comments in separate windows, switching back and forth between two separate tabs - which is plain bad UI. I find no evidence that it makes people think more carefully before posting a comment.
2 comment threads
I agree that it should be easier to see comments than it is, but one difference here from Elsewhere is that we are trying to de-emphasize comments. As Elsewhere has abundantly demonstrated, if you don't reign in comments, they get used as answers, chit chat, and to circumvent closing of questions.
Comments here are strictly for working with the post author to clarify the post or make it better. That also means they should be removed after suggested changes have been made to the post, or the author decides not to make any changes.
1 comment thread