Reply to this reply vs. Add to this topic vs. Comment on this comment

First, I'm never sure whether I should be replying to a topic, replying to a reply, commenting on a reply, commenting on a comment. I find the bifurcation truly mind-boggling, I'm afraid.

I run into this sometimes too. Usually I start writing a comment and upgrade it to a reply but very rarely do I go the other direction. Interesting note... I've *never* clicked on the "Reply to this topic" button; My standard operating procedure is to read an entire topic before commenting on it.

Because of the outdentation (it's a word — it is now, at least ;-) of the "Add a comment", I'm never sure (when I finally do decide on whether to reply or comment), what I'm commenting on: the reply or another comment.

More agreement from me :) If I recall correctly, and hopefully another Satisfactioneer will come in and correct me if I'm wrong, the original motivation for the comments system was to only be "comment on the reply". The intent was less about spawning side conversations and more about one-off feedback to a replier. It's going to be complimented with the "Start a side conversation" feature that will fork a new full-fledged topic off of a reply, but obviously that isn't yet complete.

I think there is a lot of evidence throughout the topics in the system that the intent does not sync perfectly with how people are using the system. Some of the controversy topics in twitter have strings of gigantic paragraph coonversations.

* I often start with a comment and realize I am going to need a little more room (and that this really should be a reply — perhaps??) and then have to copy and paste my comment thus far into a reply textarea and go from there. When the opposite occurs and I end up just saying "Cool!", I never bother downgrading this reply to comment status (even though I should??).

Didn't I just type this above :)

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I can't help but feeling that this would best be cleared up by:

* Threading the topic (bonus points for show/hide thread/responses link).

I always have trouble with fully threaded discussions. I also remember distinctly when we were doing our initial ideation for GSFN, I was very firm about my opinion that we should avoid threading, so I'm to blame for originally setting us on the course to where we are today.

Purely as a user of GSFN, I would really be sad if we went to a fully threaded model. Like I mention above, I read a thread completely before posting and that is hard enough to do with the shallow threading we have currently. I've never been able to do it successfully on a fully threaded forum.

I think digg did a good job with their new commenting system and their community benefits from the fully threaded topics, but, assuming I had the desire I would never be able to be a serious member of the digg discussions. Having to click and expand subthreads as I go along makes me want cry.

* Adding a "Reply [to this reply]" ([] bits optional) directly (not in- or out-dented) under each reply.

* Adding an "Add to this topic" for those times when you have something to add that's not a reply to any one reply in particular.

I don't fully get what you mean here. Do mean that rather than having the already open reply box at the bottom, wrap it up into the "Add to this topic" button that would reveal the form that you should fill out to make a reply to the topic?

* Doing away with comments altogether. If there's a need for responding directly to a reply, you should be able to reply to it in a threaded manner. If the aim is to allow for quick responses to posts, rather than split things based on length of response (and size of textarea), why not icons like: thumbs up/down, smiley/frowney, star, etc...?

I tend to be of the opinion that comments should go away. It's a tough one because my team members put in a lot of effort to differentiate what is now "Comments" from what used to be "Sub-replies" in the previous version of the topic page. I feel like having that opinion is belittling their work, but it doesn't change the fact that I feel that way more and more.

I'm a little jaded because I've been a member of the ars technica fora for getting close to 8 years now and really feel at home with how their topics are structured. When you reply to a reply, you get a quote in your text box that you can edit to give context to your new reply that simply appears at the end of the flat discussion. This format is optimal for reading a discussion as if it was an article and it suits my preferred style perfectly.

Irregardless of changes/reductions made to the ways you can textually contribute to a topic, I really want to the idea of sticking stickers to a reply like you mentioned above to happen. I can see the process of giving kudos or whatever the reverse of kudos is (demerits? diss? granola?) as a supplemental action while I am initially reading a topic.

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Thanks so much for the feedback. I don't want to comment whether or not we will come up with a set of changes we want to make. I'm just starting on a pretty involved project that will keep me busy for the next 5 weeks and I think it would really be up to Amy, Lane, and Thor to decide priorities for the limited developer bandwidth we have at the moment. If I had 48 hours in a day, I would *totally* jump on this right away :)