Recently active topics in Get Satisfaction tagged with comments

Howdy, folks!

I thought I'd share the cognitive dissonance I find I'm experiencing pretty consistently when it comes to replying...

* 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.

* 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.

* Because the "Add a comment" link appears above the comment-thread, I keep having to look for it when reading a string of comments and not finding it at the bottom.

* The overall ordering and indentation really chops up the conversation such that I have to do a lot more mental assemblage to discern who is replying to or commenting on whose reply or comment.

* 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??).

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).

* 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.

* 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 appreciate all you're making available to us — and am more than thrilled that I don't have to build it myself in addition to my products — but I think before much more is added, there needs to be some taking away. (And of course I'm not talking about a redesign effort: some subtle folding and merging would do the trick.)

Thanks again for always listening to and accommodating the sheer volume of us you do.

—Rael

We've changed our topic page to add new features. One new feature: comments. These are different from replies, and we envision them as shout-outs, short asides, etc. We love the idea of having people add this kind of detail to the conversation. It's fun, and we think it will be helpful. But, we need to make sure we are differentiating the comments feature from the reply feature.

We'd love your feedback about our new comments. Do they work? Do they need to be constrained? Do they add value? This may end up being a conversation for those who are intimate with the details of user interface design, but it's not intended to be. Let us know what you think.

And, if you're feeling especially creative: use the reply and comments features to to demonstrate your ideas.