The slashdot.org comment system stinks

[GodlessAstronomer]

Seriously, if the "comment" section of your site's FAQ is over 7,500 words long then you dun goof'd because it's too fucking confusing to use.

 

[Born2bwire]

Hitting "Reply to this" is too fucking confusing?

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Hitting "Reply to this" is too fucking confusing?

I don't comment, I'm talking about reading the comments. If you don't know how their weird-ass system works you miss out on most of the conversation - the majority of posts will appear to be replies to things that don't show up.

 

[Colt45]

slide the bar at the top of the comments derp

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

slide the bar at the top of the comments derp

Still doesn't reveal all comments. You then have to click the link which says '344 more', but that doesn't actually reveal 344 comments, oh no! It merely reveals 50 more comments, but not the latest 50, or the oldest 50, but some seemingly random selection of 50. Which is kind of annoying if you have already read the currently available comments, because there's no way to tell without reading them over again which ones were just revealed.

Oh, you see a reply but can't seem to see what it's replying to? Just click the Parent button and its parent will load asynchronously. But if you want to see the unrevealed children of a post, don't even think about doing that asynchronously! Oh no, that's crazy talk!

My point is, I know how to use it, but its just stupidly complicated and intentionally confusing. Which I'm sure appeals to Slashdotters and their constant superiority complex, but it's a UI nightmare. I'll repeat what I said in the OP: if your comment system FAQ is over 7,500 words long, you fucked it up.

 

[bobdole369]

I agree with you GA. The change to this system - and also to an extent digg.com and others like it - are why I stopped going to slashdot. I like flat view comments. They can be nested and indented, but I don't want to have to continuously reveal more and more comments just to dig more and more.

 

[Colt45]

if you log in you can have it default to show "most" comments, which defaults to 250 i think.

and realistically you'll get bored before you read 250 comments anyway, so, seems reasonable.


there's better things to bitch about. like editors in a coma, such heavy js that when you load a bunch of comments the browser fucking grinds for a few seconds, no non-ascii chars, etc.

 

[Born2bwire]

I don't comment, I'm talking about reading the comments. If you don't know how their weird-ass system works you miss out on most of the conversation - the majority of posts will appear to be replies to things that don't show up.

Click "Parent."

Click "Re:...."

Click "Show hidden comment."

There you go. Now as for reading, left to right, top to bottom. Group words together to form sentences.

 

[DesiPower]

Seriously, if the "comment" section of your site's FAQ is over 7,500 words long then you dun goof'd because it's too fucking confusing to use.

If you are on slashdot, nothing should be "too confusing" and if it is, then you dont belong there...

 

[Riceninja]

reddit has the mass comment system done right.

 

[JTsyo]

The comments are revealed by it's rating. If you have the filter to show only 2+ rated messages, you'll miss out on the -1,0 and 1 messages. I usually run the filter at 0 so I see everything but the trolls.

 

[acheron]

Life's tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid.

 

[nerp]

The comment system is ugly, jarring, poorly executed and overly complicated for something that should be simple. It feels as if engineered by linux nerds who wish it was still 1996.

 

[ravana]

The comment system is ugly, jarring, poorly executed and overly complicated for something that should be simple. It feels as if engineered by linux nerds who wish it was still 1996.

I'm pretty sure it is.

 

[ultimatebob]

Their comment rating system sucks, too... It's too easy for someone to mod down your comment into virtual oblivion just because they disagree with you.

 

[Train]

welcome to 10 years ago. (or more like 15)

I stopped reading slashdot long ago, the editors are biased trash.

I'll take Ars-Technica any day of the week for tech news

 

[ViviTheMage]

I hate it too, it's ugly as hell to read.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

I stopped reading slashdot long ago, the editors are biased trash.


I'll take Ars-Technica any day of the week for tech news

I read both, but you're right, Ars is far better. However they're both horribly biased (very strong anti-MS, pro-Apple slant on both sites).

 

[Kadarin]

I like the Slashdot comment system because it appeals to my short attention span. Generally I read the +4 and +5 comments that are shown initially, and leave it at that. I'm usually not into the discussion enough to want to bother reading more.

 

[ShawnD1]

Slashdots comment section is a total abortion. On any forum, you just read next comments by scrolling down. Slashdot wants me to click expand for every single reply just to see wtf is going on. Slashhdot is what anandtech would look like if you added every member to your ignore list.

 

[theflyingpig]

Slashdot is pretty much the worst tech site in existence. I want to punch nearly every person who comments there in the face until they die. Everyone knows this.