New comments at the Top or Bottom?
Hey guys! I just did away with paged comments since I have a fast server now.
I was going to put the new comments at the bottom as well… .. but do me a favor and think this through before answering the poll below. Does it make more sense to have the new comments at the top (where they are now) or new comments at the bottom?
Which would you prefer?
[polldaddy poll=1981440]
Byte
Bottom, better. Maybe tiresome for some; however, on the long run
it will be better as people will have a better look at your content as well as the publicity. Good for you my dear teacher as your site will
become a better link to other worthy content on the web,
truly Azaretsky. Harosch noch!
New comments at the top, please;
otherwise we all keep reading the same stuff over and over and have to scroll way down to get to the new, which is a hassle if one visits regularly at all.
And if we want to read it ‘from the beginning’ we can power scroll down to the bottom and start from there up.
Alex Jones uses the ‘new at the bottom’ approach, and it’s not as good, cause so many bozos just want to be ‘first’ and on top, and that detracts from the discussion, tho he sure has a lot of posters not worth reading on his site, but some good ones too.
Yahoo Finance uses a different system, check out how they do it sometime, for example:
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_N/messagesview?bn=12434
And likewise, there’s lot of garbage there too, but the posters worth reading are worth the search ! and when you know who you like, it gets easier.
Yahoo’s ‘thread’ concept is quite unique, and like how you do it here, by moving to the right. (and you have multiple choices of how to display your webpage as per the view of postings, and threads)
BTW, how about making it totally wider !
I use a 22″ wide monitor and there’s a ton of empty space on either side of your page column that scrolls. It could easily go one or two or three inches wider on both sides, even for a 19″ monitor.
I mean how many NetBook’s are in use to your site ?
Could you do a poll to see what size screens everyone is using?
Then you’d now how wide a screenshot would be appropriate for the audience. If everyone has a couple inches on both sides blank, it would be easy to widen it and give more width to the responders on a ‘thread’ and not crowd them into being so ‘verticle’.
One of the first H4W’s I watched was about antidisestablishmentterrynism (hope I spelled it right , teacher ! ) that was a good one !!!
[ps, don't let the 'Beverly Hills mindset' twist your good core values, your honesty and innocence are actually more attractive than your blonde hair, blue eyes and breasts !]
Best, Lars
Hello lars2,
Yes, the majority has voted for having the comments at the top as you explained it nicely.
You mentioned that the Yahoo’s ‘thread’ concept is quite unique. That type of threaded comments has been around for a very long time. Maybe as early as 1998 or earlier and can be seen in many of the online computer and electronic journals. The benefit is that it is compact, but for the reader like me it is very distracting and there are too many clicks.
This commenting system that Marina has here is absolutely the best anywhere. As you mentioned, I can scroll in one second from top to bottom and I can also do a CTRL-F page find on any word or user and get there immediately.
Definitely do NOT go wider. Wide screens were made for movies, not reading. The monitor width does not matter. What matters to me is the text that is in front of me. I want to be able to gobble up one line of text with one stare of the eyeballs. If I have to move my eyes too much left or right, that becomes very tiring, and in fact in 1995, I damaged my eyes by speed reading wide columns of text. I damaged my eye muscles and it took more than six months to heal.
Marina won’t not need to do a poll on the monitor sizes as that information is already captured in the server logs.
Lars, I don’t know if you are familiar with Marina’s second YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/hot4words
that would be shortened to H4W
The main channel http://www.youtube.com/hotforwords
would be shortened to HFW
You can find the spelling of Antidisestablishmentarianism
at the top by clicking the navigation link “All Words”
So great to see your website progressing and evolving, Marina. I’m glad to see you have ‘done away’ with pages, as I like to see all the comments listed on one page.
And, please, have new comments show up at the top of the page. That seems to be what the rest of the student body is voting for too. To me, it is just more orderly that way.
Peace, Errin : )
Nic pic of you and Gorby
@HotForWords “Hello guys, a question for you: what is your Favorite Uninvented Gadget?”
Wonka’s everlasting gobstopper
A rattle with a muzzle. [munificent]…..
…in-and-out-vents…
Marina, we all covered this question a long time ago. It was voted for the top. You think we had changed out mind since then?
Also said you got rid of paged comments. I just was on some other post and I had to click to see the second page of comments.
LOL! silly girl.
Top.
I have comments box claustrophobia. Years ago, I was being interviewed by the FBI for a low level secret clearance. They wanted to know what illegal drugs I took. There was a problem because they asked me about my marijuana history. How many times had I taken the drug? I estimated over a 21 year span, I’d smoked approximately 17,000 joints. The problem was that the answer alloted room for only 3 numbers (3 little boxes with room for only 1 number in each box). So, I asked the lady administering the test what I should do,
and she said, put 170, it didn’t matter. So, I did. The next day, my interviewer asked my why I lied on my test. I told her what happened, but I don’t think she
believed me. And it’s a problem on forms, in general,
that the space alotted for my address is a stress because i have a long address, and I have to print really small. At the same time, with all this crampness in forms, there could have been more space allotted, but for some arbitrary reason, or perhaps some sinister plot, the boxes are kept really small. Is it possible
to widen the comments 3 or 4 centimeters?
The above comment was concerning the comments box provided for us to type up the comments in at the bottom of the page.
Right on…i’m painting with old paint and found out aqua-marine is green…little boxes…WEEDS
Thanks for saring my lunch break
The problem with widening it is that when a person is a few level deep replying to someone, the larger box pushes into the sidebar and disappears. I’ll see what I can do about it.
OK.. I widened it substantially. Does this work for you?
I think it is much better!
It’s nice. Thanks, Marina.
Did you get the job with the FBI?
It wasn’t for a job with the FBI, but I really should work for them because I have a way with crowds. I was working for Lockheed, and they needed people to work in a secret building. I didn’t get the clearance, and luckily, it didn’t affect my employment. My FBI interviewer was a straight young woman who was aghast at my drug history. Amazingly, all the other applicants never took drugs…is the FBI that gullible? She had me recount each and every trip I took on psychedelics. She assured me that she knew what it was like to trip because she took a college course in it. After 2 sessions of interviews, she told me that the FBI couldn’t give me a clearance. I asked why. She told me that they thought that I was fodder for blackmail. I explained to her that I wasn’t, because my family knew I got loaded, and so did my boss. Her reaction to this answer was, and I can quote. “Oh, so you’re proud of you took drugs?” “No.”, I shrugged. “Then you’re ashamed that you took drugs.” I explained to her it was just a risk I took, and had an interesting time, and glad I didn’t lose my mind. I don’t think she liked that answer. Let me conclude that if any young people are thinking about taking drugs, don’t do it. It’s more fulfilling learning how to do something in life, and life is short.
Lady, what do you mean
Lucas Phillies Blunt
17,000 Hashish Bowlevard
Sensimilla Bong Pipe, Lumber Road RANGOOD
isn’t a real address?
The present organization is an improvement over the previous format, because the ordering of the responses is instantly clear. But it discourages lengthy conversations because each successive comment gets narrowed margins. And the narrowing of comments adds to their vertical dimension, adding in turn to more scrolling. But, are long conversations desirable? (Maybe they should get a motel room.) On the plus side, the present format has a texture to it that can be recognized as the surfer scrolls at speed and the comments blur as they whiz by, up or down . I vote for newer posts to be at the top. [I still think strings should be hidden, accessible as in files and folders, but that would require an available program which may not exist]
The top please =)
Make up your mind once and for all, ‘women’ JK
New comments at the top, please.
I would rather have the new comments at the top. \O/
I like the new comments at the top. I don’t like change since it’s been this way ever since I have been on here. I don’t like the way YT does their comments at the bottom of the page. You have to scroll down through all of the old comments just to make a new one.
You are referring to comment box being at the top. How about the overall order of the comments — chronological or reverse chronological (threads are always chronological)? What’s with the vote stealing by being two people?
I have more than two, but that is all I am going to use. I looked at the votes and it doesn’t add up. Most people on here want new posts at the top and maybe one or two want new posts at the bottom so how is the votes even close? If the new posts start at the top then the chronological order should be the same as the posts starting at the top.
Remark on “vote stealing” was just a joke.
I know it was, no problems there. Peace bro.
This reply was under Hs4Mm’s comment about half way up. But that’s ok, it will all work out in the end.
http://www.hotforwords.com/2009/09/11/comments-at-the-top-or-bottom/comment-page-1/#comment-151395
*************************************************
The die was cast on April 17, 2008 at 7:26 pm
where Marina confidently made the following comments:
*************************************************
From that day forward, Apr 2008 until now, Sept 2009, the newest comment at the top has worked extremely well. Most people do not converse in threads, and the threads here are short except for some occasional longer threads and as Marina said, the threads do follow in a logical top to bottom chronological form.
In the Forum, the chronological order is OK, as there are no threads, the pages are relatively short and the Index page has page numbers which allows one to jump right to the last page.
There you go Marina, another mystery solved
by your prior comments which have proven to be correct.
Indeed, Intelligence is Sexy and so
is adding new comments at the top.
you do realize that this phrase is something like “there’s weather in europe”, don’t you?
those who do not converse in threads don’t converse at all, but … let’s assume they do.
if they do, then this:
doesn’t make any sense.
(1) most people don’t converse in threads.
(2) people do converse in the forum.
(3) there are no threads in the forum.
(4) the chronological order is ok in the forum.
–> (C) the chronological order would be ok here as well.
if you accept (1), (2), (3) and (4) — which you clearly do as you stated them — , there is no way you can get to the conclusion that chronological order here is less ok than it is in the forum.
that’s what i said, too. (i’m assuming you mean “postings within a thread”, not “threads” which do not follow chronological order.)
Yes, correct äläx,
Most comments are just isolated comments and have not connection to each other. Most people make word requests, or make statements about the video, or the weather or make other random comments.
A thread is started with a Reply to a Comment and those collective groups of comments and replies (threads) are posted in chronological order.
Since one cannot reply to a post in the Forum, each posting is a standalone comment and using the @user method of alerting someone that a post is intended as a reply to a previous post has worked OK for now.
Marina, you are sobeautiful, tome you are so beautiful to me, can’t you see, you’re everything i hope for you’re every thing i need, you are so beautiful to me !
I like new comments on top.
this is neither practical nor efficient. all this scrolling … this sucks.
why is it that nobody complaines about the chronological order of the postings in the forum? duh! because it’s easier to follow a conversation. i don’t want to first scroll down to know how a conversation started. this is just weird. it’s not practical and not efficient.
within a thread on the lessons, the order is chronological. so … we got a chronological order within a thread and a reversed order on the page? and this is supposed to be practical?
“It’s like vegetables when you were a kid.. you hated them but they were good for you!”.:P
you probably still hate them ( the veggies) & they are STILL
good for you
that was just a quote.;P
I see them more as books in a(n) (student) area
I too prefer that the comments be chronological (not just in threads but overall too). The following remark form HotForWords’ has a context that is not widely applicable:
I find myself coming back here more to look at the comments because I don’t have to scroll all the way to the bottom to see the latest comments. I think it works well.
The context is that Marina watches the pages regularly and frequently … so when she visits a post, she already has the context of the entire set of comments in her mind. However, for most visitors to this site, by the time they see a post for the first time, there already is a bunch of comments they have never seen and would like to browse. This would also be the case when newcomers start looking at older posts. So for most of the visitors, it would be best to have the entire set of comments presented chronologically.
Regrading where the comment box should appear, it should appear at both the top and the bottom.
we got a chronological order within a thread and a reversed order on the page? and this is supposed to be practical?
* DISCLAIMER : MAY NOT INCLUDE ALX. … . . . Oh, wait a minute!
i really have no say in the matter
you can say ” yes thank you Ma’am ” nothing more
B.B. 
Marina I love you any way you ” do it ” 
That towel is gone make making words difficult
“mwrrum arrmunrgh umrrr..”
i can’t make out what you’re saying
Ha ha ha, that’s funny
Will the non-paging slow down the receipt at our end?
It’s better on top, wouldn’t you agree?
Oh, you meant the most recent comment? I see. Well, uh, that too. Yeah. I think Karl already put this issue into perspective in terms of practicality and efficiency, so I’ll go with his assessment as well.
Whatever happened to TA Jay…the-7-million-dollar-guy?
Hows the pen-?
Hi Marina,
Top works best for me.
Just being a pain.
Any way to make it switchable/chooseable at our end?
New comments on top, Hot! And please add me on Facebook & Twitter!
http://www.facebook.com/HillJack
http://www.twitter.com/HillJackRussell
Thanks!
Cool appearance on Attack of the Show the other day too.
Hope your weekend is set to rock!
BAMM!!
Added
that seemed easy
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity – an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Sir Winston Churchill 1874-1965
I like the new comments on top.I think that works best!Thank you for your time,and have a good day!
Thank you
Newest comments at the top.
I don’ want to scroll down to
the bottom all day long when
the default page landing is at
the top. Also. having the latest
happenings near the video which
happens to be at the top as well
as all the menus, it is more practical
to have new comments at the top.
Comment box at both top and bottom — with chronological listing. Entry box at both top and bottom. (I actually have a short “essay”, written a few years ago, touching on why every voting scheme should have a “none of the above” option.)
Don’T you Know?
New comments on top seems to be the most efficient to me. That’s how most forum systems are set up, but some people seem to prefer old comments on top. I would have to assume it is so they can comment first, and always have theirs viewed first upon visiting the page. A bit greedy if you ask me.
If new comments ended up on the bottom, I would have to scroll down and go through pages in order to see the latest comments, what good is that?
Newest comment on top is easier for me.
How do you see the comments?
Is it a book (newest comment at the bottom, or
an area where students meet and talk about the latest thing? (newest comment at the top)
I think like a letter-Head…head-letter character, I think………….
hows!Holland?
funny LH / HL
Holland, nothing new