Write On! :: Comments :: mmm, new monitor

I like the addition of the story link in the "Recent comments" box -- since the comment titles themselves aren't always that descriptive (especially out of context) it helps me figure out if it's something I'd be interested in reading before I click. Also I like to load the story instead of the comment view, if only because it will help me unflag the comment as "new" (and it reminds me of what the comment is replying to), so this makes that easier.

While I like the idea of highlighting stories with recent discussion, I also like the "Featured article" link, because that is likely to draw attention to an article that has been around for a while and hasn't had comments in a while -- possibly prompting new discussion!

I do like the stats page, as I've mentioned before -- maybe just re-naming it "Recent Activity" instead of "Stats" (though that's not all it is, that's mostly what it is) will make more people check out that link, and you won't have to mess with the front page too much.

--ich sage nicht, was ich will, sondern was die Sprache will--

Yeah, I was starting to get tired of clicking on all the new comments only to find out three of them were in the same thread :-)

The most recent evolution of my idea for bumping stories with new discussion up is something along the lines of having the current article-post-time-based ordering for the most recent 2 articles, so the newest ones have their time "in the spotlight", then below them a divider of some sort and then have say 5-8 articles ordered by their most recent comment activity, all displayed with the same sort of formatting (story header/intro) instead of just as a list of titles.

That way I can maintain the "Featured article" in the sidebar, although I might want to have that display its introtext too. Haven't decided on that yet. The featured article is actually a random article (sssh! don't tell!) weighted by how many registered members have read it as a rough popularity index, so it would be more likely to show articles that stay on the front page over time. If I get the listing by comment activity thing going, I may rewrite how featured articles are chosen so they weight more toward older articles that don't hang around the front page a lot.

Of course, doing all that on the front page while making sure not to mess up the section, diary, and "past" front page views (which I would want to keep in straight story-post-time reverse chronological order as they are now) could be a bit more of a challenge.
--
Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]

Make a new account