Suggestion: Comment-Reply/Reply-To-Comment

To:  The Powers That Be
From:  That newbie.

Hi!  I hope you're well.  I've been here for, like, not a week, and I only have two articles up, so maybe I'm just coming at this from a position of inexperience with this site's design, but I noticed something.  See, when I get a comment on an article, I generally reply.  It's just the nice thing to do!  Plus, it builds up a conversation and helps attract readers to both that article and future ones.

But when I reply, it looks - to me, anyway! - as if I'm just adding a brand new comment.  This eliminates the sense of dialogue, and replaces it with the feel of a bunch of people shouting over one another.

My suggestion:  Take a look at how Reddit, Facebook, or another site, handles comments.  Each comment is effectively a branch of a tree, allowing others to join in or otherwise get engaged.  At the very least, we know what the initial statement was, and what came afterwards.

My warmest regards,
--Jesse Pohlman

Welcome to Wizzley

What I do is start my comment/reply with @nameofperson and that seems to work just fine. I must admit I like the way Zujava do it with the option to hit reply and then your response appears under their comment.  But each site is different.

Hope that helps.

@PKMCR,

Yeah, atting works all well and good, but it's not really formal and a discussion is still prone to getting out of hand.  For me, it's more a curiosity.  This is more a site-wide suggestion.  :)

We've had that discussion several times in the past. Our tech team wanted to keep the code as simple as possible, so our loading speed stays super-fast.

Concerning development, it's mainly a question of time. At the beginning, we didn't include sub-comments for performance reasons, but I guess it's time to take a second look at it. I'll put it on our todo list.

This is exactly what I wish for some time now. The format with @ works fine, but format with more readable replies is just more user friendly. And sometimes the debate under the article is so interesting it is really worth to make it more readable.

I strongly support the idea of having a chance to put responses under each comment as this will add the value to the site.

Just to add into the mix, it is very possible to have conversations in the comments of Wizzley articles already.   Take a look here.

It's just received its 759th comment.  Today it's me and Southeaster chatting, but go back and you'll find several Runescape players joining in.   If there's a lot of us discussing something, we tend to highlight a name. 

(Single comment)

Southeaster - Blah Blah Blah. Jagex r messing up. Blah.

Carlos - Blah Blah.  That video really demonstrates where Jagex fail. Blah

Caj - Blah Blah. Better in 2004. Blah.

Fargy - Blah Blah. I've written to my MP too about Jagex. Blah.

And so on.  (It's the place to be for whinging about Jagex, as you may have guessed.)

If the response calls for a longer comment, then we allocate one comment posting per person, with their names at the top.

Ok, the reply-to-comment would be neater, but I just wanted to show that conversations aren't out of the question with the extant format.

Edit:  For Jesse.  TPTB aren't so faceless and nameless on Wizzley.   You'll be quite taken aback!  Handy guide:

Achim (ChefKeem):   In charge of dealing with all our moaning; making cheesy comments; supporting Bayern Munich; cooking.

Anne (NightOwl):  (Currently on holiday)  In charge of making handy guides; organising us in things like the Writing About Weddings Initiative; explaining how to do stuff; making lists; web design.

Simon:  In charge of the tech stuff.  He tends to do this during the British mornings, in which case he's also in charge of momentarily breaking Wizzley, while I'm trying to write articles. But it's always back with a refresh.  You and him are going to be best buddies. 

Hans:  Also in charge of tech stuff.  Possibly a Simon's imaginary friend, as I don't think I've ever seen him in 18 months of being here.

Ron:  I think he's Achim and Anne's imaginary friend. 

The ones who aren't mythical creatures/urban legends are all very approachable.  So feel free to approach.  :)

To clear it all up ...

Ron is no unicorn, or something. He helped a lot in the beginning but had to step away from further participation due to time restraints.

Hans, however, is a munchkin, but a real nice one. He's in charge of server stuff and some coding.

I'm disappointed now.  I quite liked the idea of Wizzley being co-founded by a legendary being.

That would be me.