Updates to Comments in the R11b Patch

Hi folks -- since we're not going to get the R11b patch fixes installed until after the Memorial Day holiday weekend installation moratorium, the team is using the extra time to include a few tweaks to the way comments are displayed. (Even though they can't install stuff to production, the team can still work on the product in the development and QA environments, so it'll be ready to install when the moratorium is lifted).

There will be two adjustments to commenting, made in response to user feedback:

1. Comment Enumeration: That's just a fancy term for numbering the comments:

Screenshot for a comment numbering test on one of the development testing Journals.

Numbering individual comments is a fairly common practice in blogs. Since most blog commenting systems are still "flat" (with no threads or topics -- everything just posts in chronological order, unlike many message boards), it lets commenters in heavily-commented blogs say, "In response to commenter #33: You're a big dummyhead."

Right now, the numbers will just be labels, not clickable links that you can jump straight to -- that's a little more complex (since you have to take into account deleted comments, etc) and will have to wait for a future release, but as Sr. Software Engineer Miodrag says, "...It is definitely doable and will be done."

2. Increasing the Number of Displayed Comments: Unless you get lots and lots of comments (or read Journals that do), you won't be affected by this, but we'll be increasing the number of displayed comments on each blog entry page from 20 to 50.

Previously, we used to display all comments on one big page; for blogs with lots of comments, this increased page loading times and also was a lot harder on the database (it even contributed to a few traffic-related outages).

So we started breaking up comments into smaller chunks. With the patch, we're making those chunks a little bigger.

These are just some minor tweaks, but it should improve the commenting experience.

Oh, and once the team makes these changes and tests them in the live environment (next week), I will remind them to please post their test comments to private blogs whenever possible, so they don't show up in the Most Commented Blogs section on the Journals main page.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: rllb, aol journals status, commenting, comment pagination, comment enumeration