7 ms·

How Facebook ruined comments (at least for me)

98 points by technologizer 13y ago

k-mcgrady 13y ago
I haven't noticed this myself (and I have the replies feature) so maybe it's just one of many things they're testing with a limited number of users. I agree with the OP though, I don't see how this would be useful for anyone.
- Flimm 13y ago
  > It turns out that the change doesn’t affect most personal Profiles. Instead, it’s only applicable to Pages — such as the one for TIME — and for individuals with more than 10,000 followers, who Facebook thinks are likely have active communities on their pages.
onlyup 13y ago
How can they make a mistake like this? Unless they are aiming to change how people comment on things. That won't happen without an interface change IMO because people are used to the way it was for about 4-5 years..
- milkshakes 13y ago
  it's not a mistake, it's business decision. in other news, coming soon: 'promoted comments'
- saurik 13y ago
  Well, they needed to do something about the comments on really large pages, because those were useless before: you'd see a disconnected selection of the 25 most recent comments and a link "2864 comments, click here to show 25 more". Those people were only sort of / sometimes responding to each other, and even when they were the comments all had tunnel-vision on the most recent 25. Even just showing "comments on this massive post made by your friends" would be an epic improvement (and something it seems they are now both able to do and are actually doing), but that already breaks chronology even without "bubbling".
codva 13y ago
I've noticed that when I comment on a page and come back later, my comment appears at the top. Now I realize it probably only appears that way to me. That's good, because I was wondering why FB was choosing to highlight the comments that it did.
rcfox 13y ago
Google+ does this too, except for top-level articles. My office was using G+ to share articles and status updates, but Google seems to have gone out of their way to make that as frustrating an experience as possible. There's no chronological view anymore, and sometimes it just doesn't show articles from some people unless you go directly to their profile.
jbk 13y ago
We've had the same issue on our page (VLC 93000+ likes), and we really thought it was a bug: the reply was above the question... We tried to remove and redo the comments, but it always ended like that. I'm glad to not be alone :)
hnha 13y ago
I turned it on for a ~75k page and regret it. Does someone know if it can be disabled? I did not find anything in the settings.
hackerboos 13y ago
I find it annoying that I still have to click 'load comments' several times in order to find my own.
0x0 13y ago
Yep, this is a huge failure. I've made sure to tell all page admins I know to not enable it.
- batiudrami 13y ago
  For pages over a critical number of likes it's still better though. Once you hit over 100 or so comments, unthreaded commenting is just too hard on Facebook (especially since you can't easily load all the comments at once and Ctrl-F for what you're looking for).
ryanmerket 13y ago
This is only an issue because the mobile app doesn't have Replies yet. once the mobile apps support it the chronological issue will go away. Relax.
waltz 13y ago
I think it blends in well with the nature of Facebook comments. Most of the comments are quick observations about a post. So it's better to absorb the relevant observations first then continue reading if it sounds interesting. Plus the reply feature fixes any chronological issue.
- omaranto 13y ago
  How does the reply feature fix the chronology problems? If you want to make a comment that refers to two previous comments, where do you put it to guarantee it stays after both of them?
  - waltz 13y ago
    That kind of reference is messy even with chronological order. It's better to directly quote a post.
aneth4 13y ago
Threaded comments are a good thing. This seems like a UI problem. One suggestion: 1) Put the thread reply text field at the top of the comments and show new replies at the top, at least for the user who made the comment. 2) Replying anywhere else should require clicking on Reply under that comment. This makes it intuitively clear that thread replies are not replies to a thread comment. This would take users some time to adjust to, but should fix the problem. I know at least one site that does this. Ahem. EDIT: Looking more carefully at the second screen shot, it looks like they did this. Seems like a non-issue in that case. The first screenshot for some reason doesn't have that change. Who knows if they are A/B testing or what. Strange that the OP did not notice this difference.
- staltz 13y ago
  Threaded comments are a bad thing. I've gone through this thoroughly in a blog post (http://blog.iroquote.com/post/45908133231/5-reasons-why-threaded-discussions-stink-and-a http://blog.iroquote.com/post/45908133231/5-reasons-why-thre...), but here is an overview of why: 1. Screen width limits the depth of threaded replies. 2. Indented replies look horrible on mobile screens, and make the depth of reason (1) even smaller. 3. We (typically) lose chronological order. 4. A complex comment tree makes it cumbersome to track who replied to what. 5. Non-techy users don't get it well, which eventually leads to a inconsistent tree. I think the search for an ideal comment system is a problem worth solving. IMO it is best solved by: 1. A single thread in chronological order. 2. Quote feature, like in forums, to allow direct replies. 3. Some summarization technique to highlight relevant comments. That's what I'm doing at my startup, and I would like to see other approaches too, because it's about time we figure out how to do an intuitive and powerful comment system.
  - deadairspace 13y ago
    I find that 4chan's comment system is surprisingly effective, especially being able to mouseover a link to a comment and have it pop up.
    - raymondduke 13y ago
ChuckMcM 13y ago
I think it's a bit like the weather in New England, if its not to your liking you need to go inside and have a cup of coffee and then come back outside, all new weather. :-)
raymondduke 13y ago
Commenting online is an afterthought, and it is really sad to me why this is so. Disqus and Livefyre are what most people use, but they have a ton of room for improvement. Some might say that they are doing really well, which would be true; however, there is hardly any competition, so anything Disqus and Livefyre do will be perceived as well, or simply, good enough. I've been working on a way to redo commenting in my spare time, and I would like for it to become a thing. My idea consists of synced comments, an RSS like feed, a one column design (no threaded comments!) with expanding and minimizing replies, and a currency connected with real money that people can use to tip one another. I know it sounds far fetched, and it is, but I truly believe that commenting should be given saliency if writing and publishing online is going to move forward. The next step is making my designs and ideas into a reality, however, I don't know how to code. I'm seeking someone who does, and in the meantime, I am teaching myself how to get starting with programming. The thing is, I could spend the next 1-2 years of my life learning how to code what I want to do when there is someone out there who knows how to do it already. I suppose this comment is also to raise awareness for what I want to do for the future of commenting online. Send me a DM on Twitter @raymondduke if you are interested. I do have a plan to monetize from day one. I'll gladly tell you what I want to do and if you are interested maybe we can start making this happen.
- richardjordan 13y ago
  Bite the bullet and learn to code. I did. It's easier if you have a project in mind. You can be competent enough to whip up an MVP in about 10-12 weeks if you work hard learning Ruby On Rails.
  - raymondduke 13y ago
    I've tried to get started a few times and I am finding it to be the most frustrating thing I've ever done in my life. I think there is something in my brain that is completely against what is involved with coding; it's like I have some cognitive-allergic reaction to it. But, I see your point. And I want to put what I want to do a reality, so I will keep trying. I think it would just be so much better if I can find someone to work with instead of try to do it all myself.
lmm 13y ago
HN has the same problem (comment threads get reordered to put the "best" first, so it's very hard to tell what you have and haven't already read), but we seem to be ok with it.

98 points by technologizer 13y ago

I haven't noticed this myself (and I have the replies feature) so maybe it's just one of many things they're testing with a limited number of users. I agree with the OP though, I don't see how this would be useful for anyone.

Flimm 13y ago
> It turns out that the change doesn’t affect most personal Profiles. Instead, it’s only applicable to Pages — such as the one for TIME — and for individuals with more than 10,000 followers, who Facebook thinks are likely have active communities on their pages.

onlyup 13y ago

How can they make a mistake like this? Unless they are aiming to change how people comment on things. That won't happen without an interface change IMO because people are used to the way it was for about 4-5 years..

milkshakes 13y ago
it's not a mistake, it's business decision. in other news, coming soon: 'promoted comments'
saurik 13y ago
Well, they needed to do something about the comments on really large pages, because those were useless before: you'd see a disconnected selection of the 25 most recent comments and a link "2864 comments, click here to show 25 more". Those people were only sort of / sometimes responding to each other, and even when they were the comments all had tunnel-vision on the most recent 25. Even just showing "comments on this massive post made by your friends" would be an epic improvement (and something it seems they are now both able to do and are actually doing), but that already breaks chronology even without "bubbling".

codva 13y ago

I've noticed that when I comment on a page and come back later, my comment appears at the top. Now I realize it probably only appears that way to me. That's good, because I was wondering why FB was choosing to highlight the comments that it did.

rcfox 13y ago

Google+ does this too, except for top-level articles. My office was using G+ to share articles and status updates, but Google seems to have gone out of their way to make that as frustrating an experience as possible. There's no chronological view anymore, and sometimes it just doesn't show articles from some people unless you go directly to their profile.

jbk 13y ago

We've had the same issue on our page (VLC 93000+ likes), and we really thought it was a bug: the reply was above the question... We tried to remove and redo the comments, but it always ended like that. I'm glad to not be alone :)

hnha 13y ago

I turned it on for a ~75k page and regret it. Does someone know if it can be disabled? I did not find anything in the settings.

hackerboos 13y ago

I find it annoying that I still have to click 'load comments' several times in order to find my own.

0x0 13y ago

Yep, this is a huge failure. I've made sure to tell all page admins I know to not enable it.

batiudrami 13y ago
For pages over a critical number of likes it's still better though. Once you hit over 100 or so comments, unthreaded commenting is just too hard on Facebook (especially since you can't easily load all the comments at once and Ctrl-F for what you're looking for).

ryanmerket 13y ago

This is only an issue because the mobile app doesn't have Replies yet. once the mobile apps support it the chronological issue will go away. Relax.

waltz 13y ago

I think it blends in well with the nature of Facebook comments. Most of the comments are quick observations about a post. So it's better to absorb the relevant observations first then continue reading if it sounds interesting. Plus the reply feature fixes any chronological issue.

omaranto 13y ago
How does the reply feature fix the chronology problems? If you want to make a comment that refers to two previous comments, where do you put it to guarantee it stays after both of them?
- waltz 13y ago
  That kind of reference is messy even with chronological order. It's better to directly quote a post.

aneth4 13y ago

Threaded comments are a good thing. This seems like a UI problem. One suggestion: 1) Put the thread reply text field at the top of the comments and show new replies at the top, at least for the user who made the comment. 2) Replying anywhere else should require clicking on Reply under that comment. This makes it intuitively clear that thread replies are not replies to a thread comment. This would take users some time to adjust to, but should fix the problem. I know at least one site that does this. Ahem. EDIT: Looking more carefully at the second screen shot, it looks like they did this. Seems like a non-issue in that case. The first screenshot for some reason doesn't have that change. Who knows if they are A/B testing or what. Strange that the OP did not notice this difference.

staltz 13y ago
Threaded comments are a bad thing. I've gone through this thoroughly in a blog post (http://blog.iroquote.com/post/45908133231/5-reasons-why-threaded-discussions-stink-and-a http://blog.iroquote.com/post/45908133231/5-reasons-why-thre...), but here is an overview of why: 1. Screen width limits the depth of threaded replies. 2. Indented replies look horrible on mobile screens, and make the depth of reason (1) even smaller. 3. We (typically) lose chronological order. 4. A complex comment tree makes it cumbersome to track who replied to what. 5. Non-techy users don't get it well, which eventually leads to a inconsistent tree. I think the search for an ideal comment system is a problem worth solving. IMO it is best solved by: 1. A single thread in chronological order. 2. Quote feature, like in forums, to allow direct replies. 3. Some summarization technique to highlight relevant comments. That's what I'm doing at my startup, and I would like to see other approaches too, because it's about time we figure out how to do an intuitive and powerful comment system.
- deadairspace 13y ago
  I find that 4chan's comment system is surprisingly effective, especially being able to mouseover a link to a comment and have it pop up.
  - raymondduke 13y ago

ChuckMcM 13y ago

I think it's a bit like the weather in New England, if its not to your liking you need to go inside and have a cup of coffee and then come back outside, all new weather. :-)

raymondduke 13y ago

Commenting online is an afterthought, and it is really sad to me why this is so. Disqus and Livefyre are what most people use, but they have a ton of room for improvement. Some might say that they are doing really well, which would be true; however, there is hardly any competition, so anything Disqus and Livefyre do will be perceived as well, or simply, good enough. I've been working on a way to redo commenting in my spare time, and I would like for it to become a thing. My idea consists of synced comments, an RSS like feed, a one column design (no threaded comments!) with expanding and minimizing replies, and a currency connected with real money that people can use to tip one another. I know it sounds far fetched, and it is, but I truly believe that commenting should be given saliency if writing and publishing online is going to move forward. The next step is making my designs and ideas into a reality, however, I don't know how to code. I'm seeking someone who does, and in the meantime, I am teaching myself how to get starting with programming. The thing is, I could spend the next 1-2 years of my life learning how to code what I want to do when there is someone out there who knows how to do it already. I suppose this comment is also to raise awareness for what I want to do for the future of commenting online. Send me a DM on Twitter @raymondduke if you are interested. I do have a plan to monetize from day one. I'll gladly tell you what I want to do and if you are interested maybe we can start making this happen.

richardjordan 13y ago
Bite the bullet and learn to code. I did. It's easier if you have a project in mind. You can be competent enough to whip up an MVP in about 10-12 weeks if you work hard learning Ruby On Rails.
- raymondduke 13y ago
  I've tried to get started a few times and I am finding it to be the most frustrating thing I've ever done in my life. I think there is something in my brain that is completely against what is involved with coding; it's like I have some cognitive-allergic reaction to it. But, I see your point. And I want to put what I want to do a reality, so I will keep trying. I think it would just be so much better if I can find someone to work with instead of try to do it all myself.

lmm 13y ago

HN has the same problem (comment threads get reordered to put the "best" first, so it's very hard to tell what you have and haven't already read), but we seem to be ok with it.