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posted by NCommander on Monday February 27 2017, @12:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the we-knew-there-would-be-pitchforks dept.

Continuation of: Site Update 2/27

So, the recent site update got a lot of news, and comments. Predictably, there was a lot of comments split on the fence both ways. I've been out sick and haven't been actively involved in SN in a few days, but I did review the updated changes on dev before they went out. I'm still not up to responding to you guys personally, and TMB/Paul have had things covered, so I'm just going to write a blanket story. So, let's open this and say THIS ISN'T THE FINAL SET OF HOW THINGS WILL BE. I'm leaving my comments above the fold to make it clear what's going on. I'd put that in a blink tag on if that was still in the HTML standard.

The changes to commenting were primarily driven on technical grounds. To do D1.5, the site had to load a mass load of comments and do server side processing to thread them. To give you an example, on a cold page load, before we apply caching a few points in the site would take over a minute to load, render and thread. The only thing that prevented the site from becoming unusable in 503s is that the frontend has a lot of caching. Even with that, we can't cache every single bit of the site at once. In a "cold cache" scenario such as after a varnish or DB update, the site would be borderline unusable until those caches could be loaded. So let me make this clear that this change wasn't a change for changes sake. There was (and is) a need to revamp the commenting.

We noted that this change was coming in other meta stories, and even had a landing article on dev for people coming to check it out. No one did. How we use commenting on dev and how we use it on production are two different things; you can't realistically test these things in real world conditions without updating production.

As TMB stated, we couldn't get the same behavior without making the site cry in the corner, and this was fairly extensively tested on dev before it went live. For older users to the site, you may remember this is not the first time we've changed comments, and rather predictably, the roll out of Improved Commenting actually was fairly buggy. This is a more drastic update.

Right now, we're going to keep improving and changing things to address as many things as possible. To that extent, there will be a daily article for at least this week if not longer to allow for feedback as we work to make things better. If, at the end of all the tweaking, we can't satisfy the vast majority of folks, a revert remains as an available option. We've built this entire site on listening to the community, and taking their feedback into account. That isn't going to change now. I'm hoping we've earned enough trust from you guys collectively to be allowed to at least experiment for a bit.

I'm going to leave the rest of the article for the dev crew to use. Due to personal real life issues, I'm likely not going to be around much, so if you don't see me, that's why. I have full faith in the staff in helping manage and keep things going.

~ NCommander

Hi! I'm martyb (aka Bytram) your friendly neighborhood QA/test guy chiming in with my 2¢ on the upgrade/rollout.

Firstly, I apologize that you are seeing ANY issues with the site upgrade. I took this update very seriously and was, unfortunately, only able to perform about half of the testing that I wanted to see done before we went live. That said, there are some issues that were reported that I had not foreseen, so this has been a learning experience for me, too.

Secondly, I'd like to point out what you are NOT seeing -- the many MANY changes that TMB and PJ made as a result of feedback arising from testing. That said, comments are THE thing that makes this site. It's not the timeliness or fine writing of the stories — as I see it, this site is all about providing a venue for discussion.

Look past the fold for the rest of my comments.

Though there were a whole lot of tests that I was able to perform, there were many others that I had still not gotten to yet. I apologize that some of you had to scrape your knuckles on some very rough edges that made it through. In preparation for rollout I had written a series of programs to allow me to automate some aspects of submitting comments in different hierarchies which were key in identifying shortcomings in testing the correct operation of the expand/collapse and hide/show features. I was by no means able to perform an exhaustive test of all of the permutations but I was able to catch a number of issues and I'm sure TMB and PJ will attest that I beat on them pretty hard to make some changes. So far, I've seen no comments complaining about those controls functioning as they should, so YAY on that.

What has not been tested, and for which I hereby request the help of the community, are the user preferences whereby one can provide modifiers to certain aspects of comments. To access these, go to your preferences page, and then click on the "Comments" tab.

Here, you will see a set of modifiers grouped under the header: "Points Modification." The comment's actual score remains unchanged, but these modifiers allow you to provide a nudge to different categories so you could, say, favor "Funny" comments by adding +2 to the score calculation, and hiding all comments modded "Offtopic" by changing that modifier to "-6".

The "Reason Modifiers" are:
Insightful Offtopic Spam Interesting Flamebait Disagree Funny Troll Touché Informative Redundant

The "People Modifiers" are:
Friend Fan Foe Freak Friends-of-Friends fof Foes-of-Friends

And so on with modifiers for Anonymous postings, Karma Bonus, New User Modifiers, Small Comment Modifiers, and Long Comment Modifier.

I would appreciate these being explored and verified as to their correct operation. If you choose to help, please mention in the comments which control you tested, and what happened when you set it to -6, -2, +2, and +6.

These values are suggested so as to explore settings that make a given category nearly hidden (a "+5 Interesting" comment with the "Interesting" modifier set to -6 results in an effective score of -1) — set your threshold/breakthrough to 0 and those comments should not be displayed. Conversely, you can set the "Troll" modifier to +6 so even a "-1 Troll" comment would receive an effective score of +5 and should always appear in the comments you see displayed.

Lastly, but of extreme importance in my mind, is how impressed I am by the community feedback. Issues were stated, explained why it was problematic, steps required to reproduce, steps taken as an attempt at a workaround -- THIS is what keeps me going and donating my time to this site. We are working together to make this the best site we can. I'm proud to be a member of this community. Together I'm sure we can get the remaining issues worked out to people's satisfaction. And, as NCommander stated, if we are not able to do so, there is a fallback to the old approach. I must admit that some of the new features were a bit jarring to me (I started reading at the green site before it even had UIDs) so there's some long-practice reading/viewing skills that are being challenged, but overall I'm liking the changes. I hope you do, too.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Disagree) by Nerdfest on Monday February 27 2017, @12:58PM (19 children)

    by Nerdfest (80) on Monday February 27 2017, @12:58PM (#472233)

    I like it, including the "new" part (but mostly the performance increase). I'd mentioned in another comment that I thought the "*NEW*" should be right justified on the screen. Really, the dimmed or faded display is a good idea too, although perhaps a touch extreme. I'm sure someone will have a better suggestion, but I think it just needs a very minor display tweak. Functionally it seems great.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by zocalo on Monday February 27 2017, @01:15PM (6 children)

      by zocalo (302) on Monday February 27 2017, @01:15PM (#472239)
      Seconded. I think once I've played used it a little more I might have some better idea of feedback, but in addition to Nerdfest's comment I also liked the ability to expand/collapse a discussion branch. Very useful when certain posters decide to go off the rails at each other but haven't been moderated yet. :)

      Re. the faded display though, I'm actually OK with it as-is and think it's a good idea, but perhaps fading just the comment titles rather than the entire post might work better?
      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 27 2017, @03:54PM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 27 2017, @03:54PM (#472317) Homepage Journal

        I dig this idea. On the to-do list it goes.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday February 27 2017, @04:27PM (3 children)

        by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @04:27PM (#472337) Journal

        I like the fading a lot, but I think only if the comment and the comment title are faded together. That said, the fading could be just a little bit less and it would still work for me. I haven't tried it in bright sunlight though.

        --
        Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday February 27 2017, @04:32PM (2 children)

          by TheRaven (270) on Monday February 27 2017, @04:32PM (#472339) Journal
          I wouldn't mind just the title fading, but the faded comments seem to only vaguely line up with ones I've read (had on my screen is not the same as read) and the text is a lot harder to read. It's been enough for me to give up and close the tab a couple of times (which, of course, makes even more comments faded the next time I visit the page).
          --
          sudo mod me up
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @08:24PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @08:24PM (#472506)

            I actually like the current fading. If anything, I liked it better before people complained and it was toned down :)

            So I dug into my Stylish user style for SN and lowered the opacity :)

            That's why I'd like to ask that, even if this gets changed so that only titles are faded, some hook is left in so styles can still be applied to entire comment. What I mean is, if 'class="dimmed"' is moved from entire comment to just the title, please, pretty please, I'd be very thankful if something like 'class="old-comment"' that still applies to the entire comment is added. It's my favorite feature in this update!

            Here's the (somewhat simplified version of) my user style for SN if someone's interested. It's supposed to be used with the "Night Mode" theme. There are a few color changes: links are green, post title and score are different color for easier parsing, those blindingly bright slashboxes have darker background. I also hid chevrons since I don't use them (I always read at -1). (I still have to hunt down how to move title text back to the left, simply setting chevron width&padding to 0px doesn't work.) Finally, I reduced opacity for old comments to 0.55, which is probably waaaaay to low for most people. Tweak as needed.

            @namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

            @-moz-document domain("soylentnews.org"){
               /* change light-gray backgrounds to dark-gray */
                 #article .briefarticle
               , #links div.content
               , #navigation-content ul ul
               , #slashboxes div.content
               , .commentwrap
               {
                  background: #1E1C1C !important;
               }

               /* story & comment titles: green-on-red */
                 .generaltitle h3
               , .title h4
               {
                  background: #470000 !important;
                  color: #81AC82 !important;
               }

               /* score in comment title: white */
                 .score
               {
                  color: #BDD3D3 !important;
               }

               /* links: green */
                 a
               {
                  color: #81AC82 !important;
               }

               /* hide chevrons for hiding comments */
                 .commentHider
               , .commentTreeHider
               {
                  display: none !important;
               }

               /* opacity for old comments */
                 .dimmed
               {
                  opacity: 0.55 !important;
               }
            }

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @08:40PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @08:40PM (#472511)

              I also hid chevrons since I don't use them (I always read at -1). (I still have to hunt down how to move title text back to the left, simply setting chevron width&padding to 0px doesn't work.)

              Ha! Found it. Left padding for comment title was set to 55px. So:

                   .title h4
                 {
                    padding-left: 0.6em !important;
                 }

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday February 27 2017, @07:14PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Monday February 27 2017, @07:14PM (#472454)

        Seconding all this: fading only the title, throwing the NEW to the right, lowercase, small, no asterisk.
        I'm on the black theme, rather than red, and the current fading looks very washed out.

        Those page loads are too damn fast! Blink and you miss them. I need more wasted bandwidth and CPU, spinning hourglass and progress bar, so can feel it's accomplishing something important!

    • (Score: 2) by Popeidol on Monday February 27 2017, @02:29PM

      by Popeidol (35) on Monday February 27 2017, @02:29PM (#472274) Journal

      I agree with this. There's definitely going to be a few tweaks, but the changes are by and large a solid base to work from. There's a lot of good ideas and the only thing that annoyed me was seeing usernames inline with the comment title - and that seems to have already changed.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday February 27 2017, @04:17PM (9 children)

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday February 27 2017, @04:17PM (#472328) Journal

      Adding repetitive, *SHOUTING* verbiage is terrible UI design. Any reason you can't use colors? Make unread comments have brighter, redder title bars, maybe even ... pink? Or, read comments can be darker or grayer. Or, could fiddle with the background color of the comments, have some pastel background color for the unread.

      I also do not like that the expand and collapse buttons are bright white. How about make them beige or tan, or a dark brown with white arrows?

      • (Score: 2) by martyb on Monday February 27 2017, @05:07PM (6 children)

        by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @05:07PM (#472367) Journal

        Adding repetitive, *SHOUTING* verbiage is terrible UI design. Any reason you can't use colors? Make unread comments have brighter, redder title bars, maybe even ... pink? Or, read comments can be darker or grayer. Or, could fiddle with the background color of the comments, have some pastel background color for the unread.

        I also do not like that the expand and collapse buttons are bright white. How about make them beige or tan, or a dark brown with white arrows?

        Point well taken about the SHOUTING.

        Please do be aware that colors are not a "sure thing' -- we DO have people in our community who have various degrees of color blindness [wikipedia.org]. Indeed, part of the changes that were rolled out in this site upgrade were specifically to address these issues.

        Also, logged-in users have access to a number of different color schemes, aka "Themes", on the "Homepage" tab of their Preferences [soylentnews.org] page. It is a non-trivial task to find a color-based mechanism to uniformly identify new comments that works for all themes. Say, we choose the semantic that the title bar is "darker". This does not work at all with the "Black Icicle" theme. Well, let's make it lighter! That could be problematic with the "Grayscale" and "Black IcIcle" themes.

        So, on first glance, color may seem desirable, but the devil is in the details and I am failing to find a universal construct that we can apply across all our themes to perform this function. If there is one that works, please let us know and we'll most definitely consider it!

        As for a text-based indicator of new comments there is the advantage that it permits a search for a string to quickly identify new comments to a story. I used this to good effect when the original story announcing the upgrade posted. it also works with a strictly text-based browser such as Lynx.

        The question then becomes how to provide a textual sentinel value that is, on the one hand, meaningful, and on the other, not prone to false positives. I mean, we could add the text "xyzzy" which IS rather unusual (so mostly safe from false positives), but is not terribly meaningful (unless you are exploring Colossal Cave.)

        I suppose that we could use a lowercase-only version: "*new*", but I suspect that is more prone to false positives. That said, I will run it past the developers and get their take on it.

        If anyone else has ideas/thoughts on this, please feel free to chime in with your suggestions. We are trying, as best we are able, to find what works for the most people, so please let us know what does [not] work for you.

        --
        Wit is intellect, dancing.
        • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday February 27 2017, @05:17PM (1 child)

          by Nerdfest (80) on Monday February 27 2017, @05:17PM (#472376)

          How about just an asterisk at the beginning of the new comments, perhaps in addition to colour fade, etc?

          • (Score: 1) by redneckmother on Monday February 27 2017, @05:26PM

            by redneckmother (3597) on Monday February 27 2017, @05:26PM (#472386)

            Respectfully, I disagree with the single asterisk. I find the "*NEW*" string helpful when using a "find in page" function in the browser.

            All in all, I'm happy with the changes.

            --
            Mas cerveza por favor.
        • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday February 27 2017, @05:57PM (3 children)

          by Gaaark (41) on Monday February 27 2017, @05:57PM (#472407) Journal

          How about new comments are soylent red, old ones soylent green, lol.

          [washes hands, smells the soap, steals a bottle of booze].

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday February 28 2017, @12:27AM (1 child)

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 28 2017, @12:27AM (#472593) Journal

        Any reason you can't use colors? Make unread comments have brighter, redder title bars, maybe even ... pink?

        Just want to point out that not everyone's personal theming [ddns.net] results in red title bars.

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday February 28 2017, @07:21AM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday February 28 2017, @07:21AM (#472691) Journal

          Wouldn't it make sense to make the marking style theme specific?

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Monday February 27 2017, @05:28PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @05:28PM (#472389) Journal
      I had to fiddle with some parameters to get back my old "nested" view. But it works and it didn't take me long once I got over the dire angst of having my world changed.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Monday February 27 2017, @01:14PM

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @01:14PM (#472238) Journal

    I like the *new* labels and what seems to be greatly decreased load times. I also very much that the new layout works without javascript. It's clear that a lot of good work went on both visible on top and underneath out of sight. What I do miss is the functional equivalent of the old Nested Mode.

    --
    Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday February 27 2017, @01:31PM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday February 27 2017, @01:31PM (#472246) Journal

    What has not been tested, and for which I hereby request the help of the community, are the user preferences whereby one can provide modifiers to certain aspects of comments.

    Haven't these settings existed for a long time? I even use them to give +1 to Fans, Friends, and the latest 1% of new users (although I'm not sure I have noticed the effect of the last one).

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Monday February 27 2017, @01:49PM

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @01:49PM (#472256) Journal

      What has not been tested, and for which I hereby request the help of the community, are the user preferences whereby one can provide modifiers to certain aspects of comments.

      Haven't these settings existed for a long time? I even use them to give +1 to Fans, Friends, and the latest 1% of new users (although I'm not sure I have noticed the effect of the last one).

      Yes, they have existed for a long time, but it's one thing to assume that they still work, and another to verify that they still work.

      I ordinarily view the site with my settings with NO modifiers, and browse at "-1" with "Threaded-TNG" and Oldest First" (used to be -1 with Threaded, Oldest first). I do this so that I can most readily see any moderation abuse. Part of my testing plans was to try all of the modifiers and verify that they still worked as intended. I expect that they will, but would like to know for sure.

      If you have anything to report, please state what browser and version you are using, the OS, which user (either your nick or AC), your modifier settings, and what you are seeing — worked as expected, or what seems to be wrong. Many thanks in advance!

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @01:50PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @01:50PM (#472257)

    We noted that this change was coming in other meta stories, and even had a landing article on dev for people coming to check it out. No one did.

    Well, I for one missed that. Now, in the course of the writing I notice that there's a link "Dev Server" on the left side that links to exactly that page; however reading "Dev Server" I think "for developers only", and therefore don't feel inclined to try it out. If you named that link "Dev Preview" or similar, it would have been clearer.

    Maybe even some clearly visible extra text "changes upcoming, please check if you like them" would have been a good idea; maybe just an extra line where the "send in your scoop" line appears, as there's some space between the icons and that line. Note that a story is easy to miss if you happen not to visit the site on the day it is posted (even more so if you don't visit the next day either), and even if you see the story, you might forget about it after it leaves the front page. A little reminder put permanently on the front page (in a clearly visible, but not obnoxious way) would probably have helped (at least I believe I would have checked it out).

    Anyway, the way it is now works great for me; I particularly appreciate the non-JavaScript comment collapsing.

    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Monday February 27 2017, @02:04PM (3 children)

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @02:04PM (#472263) Journal

      Excellent feedback - thank you!

      At the moment, the site has no means by which we can "pin" a story to the top of the story list on the main page; I like your suggestion about adding a line to note a new release is coming and to check it out on dev. Will definitely keep it in mind for future upgrades.

      Background: PJ and TMG had a rare weekend when both were available to push out the upgrade and also hang around to put out any issues that were raised. They made an executive decision based on that to "Go Live" when they did. The benefit of going live on the weekend is that it is typically when the system load is at its lightest, and the fewest people would be inconvenienced as the inevitable issues were raised and addressed. (Were it up to me, it would probably still be at least another month or two away before I would have been able to do all the testing I had envisioned... I tend to be a worry wart about such things, so I think they made a reasonable decision based on the evidence they had at the time.)

      I appreciate the suggestion and will pursue adding a top-of-the-main-page area where a short, "pinned" notice can be inserted.

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday February 27 2017, @06:03PM (2 children)

        by Gaaark (41) on Monday February 27 2017, @06:03PM (#472413) Journal

        Yes, i went to one link and did some commenting and went to another and did some modding, but must have missed that one link.

        I LIKE THE CHANGES... I REALLY, REALLY LIKE THEM! ;)

        really. i do.

        We are now man and wife. I may kiss the monitor.

        There's a lotta things about me you don't know anything about, Dottie. Things you wouldn't understand. Things you couldn't understand. Things you shouldn't understand.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKLizztikRk [youtube.com]

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:27PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:27PM (#472464)

          It is really distracting that the spoiler tag causes the entire page to move.

          Skip the fancy animation and doodadery — just make the spoiler stag cause the text to be black-on-black so that when you select it with the mouse it becomes white-on-black. Super easy to do, even works for people without mice, they can just do a keyboard select and the screen won't jump around either.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @02:17AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @02:17AM (#472620)

            I guess CSS hover can also be used, so moving the mouse to the black block will change the text color (no anims, thank you). Probably good to keep the SPOILER header visible, as hint that the black block is something and not just a random color rectangle.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @01:58PM (12 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @01:58PM (#472260)

    The old interface and display of comments was SO MUCH BETTER in every way.

    It's more difficult to navigate comments now, and the thread of discussion seems to be increasingly hidden. It's starting to feel as stupid as Slashdot.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:20PM (9 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:20PM (#472270)

      Part of why changes are being tested:

      The changes to commenting were primarily driven on technical grounds. [...] the site would be borderline unusable until those caches could be loaded. So let me make this clear that this change wasn't a change for changes sake. There was (and is) a need to revamp the commenting.

      It will be helpful if you give specific examples of which aspects of the interface are worse and how you'd prefer them to be.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:50PM (8 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:50PM (#472283)

        Look, I get it. No one really knows an effective, standardized, sustainable way to avoid spam and promote high quality comments; thus, many comments are collapsed by default, both for the sake of compactness, and because it's not algorithmically clear that those comments are useful.

        However, it was so useful to be able to recursively expand a thread of discussion as I saw fit. Furthermore, I liked being able to see every comment's subject line, even if that comment was collapsed by default, because an author's judicious use of that subject line made it possible to quickly scan the collapsed thread for meaning; as I recall, the new system might not even show these subject lines unless the parent comment is itself sufficiently "worthy" of display. It makes contributing to the comments pointless; I'm not going to contribute to a website that doesn't even show even a hint of my contribution.

        In my opinion, the subject line should be treated as a kind of "twitter", whereby users are encouraged to distill their full comments down into short abstracts that could stand well on their own. Certainly, the display of comments should go back to what it was: A compact display of the subject lines.

        If you want an improvement to make, it's this: The ability to edit a comment. That is what yields high quality comments, because it is only after submitting that a person sees a typo or conjures an excellent rebuttal.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Monday February 27 2017, @03:35PM

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @03:35PM (#472309) Journal

          However, it was so useful to be able to recursively expand a thread of discussion as I saw fit. Furthermore, I liked being able to see every comment's subject line, even if that comment was collapsed by default, because an author's judicious use of that subject line made it possible to quickly scan the collapsed thread for meaning; as I recall, the new system might not even show these subject lines unless the parent comment is itself sufficiently "worthy" of display

          Barring information to the contrary in your comment, I'm going to assume you are reading as an Anonymous Coward (AC). I loaded this story in another browser (IE 11) and not logged in. At the time of writing this, the defaults for an AC load this story with:

             Threshold: 0:25 comments / Breakthrough: 2:15 comments / Mode: Threaded-TOS / Sort: Oldest First

          Notice the "Threaded-TOS"? IIRC, that mode was intended to imitate the prior Improved Threaded model. There is a NEW alternative mode that I think might be closer to what you are asking for. Click on the drop down list box and change the mode from "Threaded-TOS" to "Threaded-TNG". Then click on the "Change" button.

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @05:59PM (6 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @05:59PM (#472408)

          The ability to edit a comment.

          This would be great, but the implimentation doesn't seem easy and it's unclear if/how the original posts should be kept or how to deal with trolls who abuse the edit function.

          only after submitting that a person sees a typo or conjures an excellent rebuttal.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'esprit_de_l'escalier [wikipedia.org]

          • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday February 27 2017, @06:07PM (1 child)

            by Gaaark (41) on Monday February 27 2017, @06:07PM (#472418) Journal

            If you can edit a comment, it's far too likely you'll end up with 'fake news' comments.

            A) Make a comment
            B) Someone says "Hey i like that!"
            A) Change comment to say "I have a biggus dickus!"

            Fake 'news' comment.
            Orange is the new Barack.

            --
            --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
            • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday February 28 2017, @07:29AM

              by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday February 28 2017, @07:29AM (#472692) Journal

              An easy solution for this (well, possibly not easy to implement) would be that if you edit a post after it was replied to, the following happens:

              • The previous version of the comment is preserved in the system.
              • The answer gets an automatic warning "This post has been edited after being answered; see the version of $DATE [here](link to previous version).

              More problematic is the question of moderation. On one hand, you don't want to get highly moderated trolls achieved by writing something good, having it moderated up, and then having the text replaced by a troll text. On the other hand, you also don't want to simply remove all old moderation, as that would allow trolls to remove their troll moderation by doing trivial edits (or even adding more troll stuff).

              --
              The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
          • (Score: 2) by Celestial on Monday February 27 2017, @06:11PM (3 children)

            by Celestial (4891) on Monday February 27 2017, @06:11PM (#472422) Journal

            An edit comment function would be great, and the best way to deal with trolls would be to limit the ability to edit a comment to something like 20 minutes. Of course, I have no idea how easy or difficult that would be.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:29PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:29PM (#472467)

              Or simpler - let logged in users chose the option that they can't post without previewing first, just like us ACs.
              Gives you a chance to look it over before committing and requires practically no code changes.

            • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday February 27 2017, @07:59PM

              by bob_super (1357) on Monday February 27 2017, @07:59PM (#472493)

              5 minutes tops, or until replied to.
              Still leave the door open to editing while someone types a reply... Cancelling an edit made less than 2 minutes before a reply might be tough.

            • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday February 28 2017, @04:08PM

              by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 28 2017, @04:08PM (#472826)

              I think facebook is a 2 minute edit limit, seems to work quite well for correcting typos, less well for sorting out the accidently posted when half-written issue, for that though there is delete-and-redo (copying the content first).

              You would really have to limit replies and moderation in that period though, and if you're going to do that why not just hide the post from everyone else for 2 mins, and if you're doing that why not just have a mandatory preview with a countdown timer to posting. I don't think there is any best answer, it would be interesting to find out how many comments are replied-to/moderated within (say) 2mins - if it's a small percentage then maybe it's not a big issue to allow edit/delete within that period.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 27 2017, @05:37PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @05:37PM (#472394) Journal
      Also, check your "breakthrough" level. Setting that equal to "threshold" level (or just using the "Threaded-TNG" option which does that by default) worked for me in restoring my view to near the old "nested" view that I had used in the past.
    • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday February 28 2017, @06:37AM

      by coolgopher (1157) on Tuesday February 28 2017, @06:37AM (#472685)

      I do miss the old expand-this-entire-subtree-of-comments feature. I used that a lot. I haven't come up with a suitable workaround just yet. Maybe points-modding everything up by 5 would do something useful, but I haven't had the time to tinker yet.

  • (Score: 2, Troll) by VLM on Monday February 27 2017, @02:01PM (1 child)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @02:01PM (#472261)

    Here's a thought experiment. Note that "some people here" have a lot of trouble understanding the concept of a thought experiment. In this example I have no interest in participating, because I am not bothered by the new system... none the less here is an experiment to think about:

    If the old UI was extremely CPU hungry, and this being the cloud era, the thought experiment is to allow people with the yellow stars (not Jews, subscribers, duh) optional access to a very CPU and memory fat frontend instance. I donno as simple as URL like old.sn.org only permits yellow stars to log in. Sure its CPU hungry but we live in 2017 and people with money can buy lots of scalable CPU and memory and this would be forcing the people who "require" more CPU and memory to be the ones who pay for it...

    To restate one more time, I'm not bothered by the new system so I don't want to play this thought experiment. But in the spirit of a really bad sci fi plot, if this were implemented, other than burning a lot of admin time to set it up, the result would be ... what? My personal guess is subscriber numbers would not increase much...

    I suppose one way to get "real" numbers would be a SN poll. I think it unlikely, but in theory it could be financially profitable to the site...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:12PM (#472267)

      > Here's a thought experiment. Note that "some people here" have a lot of trouble understanding the concept of a thought experiment.

      That's a very important note! Thanks for pointing that out!!!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:10PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:10PM (#472266)

    I very much like the idea client-side layout processing.

    But there is one simple UI issue that affects usability: Collapsing an entire tree of comments causes the button for the individual comment to disappear. Its user-unfriendly to add and delete user-interface elements depending on context because it interferes with our ability to visually keep track of what is on the screen. It would be better to leave both buttons in place even on a collapsed tree.

    • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Monday February 27 2017, @05:56PM (2 children)

      by paulej72 (58) on Monday February 27 2017, @05:56PM (#472406) Journal

      The collapse comment button is hidden because unlike JS based code, the CSS based code can't undo the change that hid the comment with it's tree. It's an unfortunate side effect.

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:32PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:32PM (#472470)

        There has got to be a way to fake it.
        Like an alternate collapse button that only gets shown under those conditions but looks the same to the user.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @12:41AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @12:41AM (#472597)

          Well, it shouldn't look the same, because then users will click it and be frustrated when it won't do anything. However, perhaps we could have a grayed-out version...

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:12PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:12PM (#472268)

    In preferences > comments > "Display Link Domains?"

    Third option, "Show link domains in comments and stories", is bugged. It shows link domains only in stories, not in comments.

    The fourth option, "Link domains for comments only", works as expected.

    I don't know if that bug is new or old. I guess I set it to comments only when I created my account, and haven't touched it until just now.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Monday February 27 2017, @02:21PM (2 children)

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @02:21PM (#472272) Journal

      In preferences > comments > "Display Link Domains?"

      Third option, "Show link domains in comments and stories", is bugged. It shows link domains only in stories, not in comments.

      The fourth option, "Link domains for comments only", works as expected.

      I don't know if that bug is new or old. I guess I set it to comments only when I created my account, and haven't touched it until just now.

      Really? Let's check it out! I'll just grab a few links from the front page:

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Monday February 27 2017, @04:06PM (1 child)

        by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @04:06PM (#472322) Journal

        My personal selection for this option is also "Show link domains in comments and stories" and, as I write this, I am NOT seeing any domain names called out in the parent comment. Looks like you found a bug. I'll pass it on to the developers.

        Please note: the devs are pretty wiped out from the upgrade bug smashing effort since roll-out — these are voluteers and put in on the order of a dozen hours straight finding and fixing bugs. That is not sustainable, so do not be alarmed if an immediate fix is not forthcoming. But do rest assured it will be addressed!

        --
        Wit is intellect, dancing.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:41PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:41PM (#472479)

          First of all, I'd like to thank the devs and testers tester you for all your hard work! I know we're not the easiest bunch to deal with, so thanks for sticking with us :D

          Please note: the devs are pretty wiped out from the upgrade bug smashing effort since roll-out — these are voluteers and put in on the order of a dozen hours straight finding and fixing bugs. That is not sustainable, so do not be alarmed if an immediate fix is not forthcoming. But do rest assured it will be addressed!

          The devs can take as long as they need, no pressure! It's just a minor bug I noticed when fiddling with preferences after update. Probably I'd forget to even mention if you didn't specifically ask for us to check the behavior of comment preferences :)

          ... wait.
          Uh, I just noticed that the domains are not displayed anymore even with the last option selected, heh. Except in signatures, for some reason. I guess something got borked in the preferences when I changed the option?

          Still not a critical error, it can wait for a while. Hovering over links still works :)

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:52PM (#472285)

      I too just noticed and selected the "comments and stories" option while fiddling with my preferences yesterday, after having it set to "comments only" since day 1.

      It's actually kinda weird...

      1. On the front page, it seems to work right.
      2. When I click on a article (article.pl), links above the fold ("Site Update 2/27" and "No one did" on this article) have domains shown, but no domains are shown below the fold ("preferences" on this article).
      3. On comments pages (comments.pl), whether posting a reply or just clicking a comment, none of the links in the article have domains.
      4. On both article.pl or comments.pl, links in comment bodies all lack domains. However, signatures (at least takyon's) do have domains...
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:38PM (#472277)

    The best thing about *NEW* is that you can search for it.

    Chevron images should probably be changed into something else (no idea here). + and - were obvious, ^ and v are kinda painful to process mentally in this context.

    I'd suggest removing border-radius from various .title's and #section_banner as well, personally, but I'm not sure how others feel about it.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 27 2017, @02:39PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @02:39PM (#472278) Journal

    For me - the site works fine. I gave a thought to making some stupid, lame-ass complaints in the other thread, just to be a smartass. Decided no one needs that, and just kept on reading and commenting. The site works a little differently, from my perspective. I think I've seen almost everything that affects me directly. The site works fine. It ain't /. - but then, that's why we all came here, right?

    I'm happy.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:43PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:43PM (#472280)

    On the front page each story says something like:

    " (Read More...) | 1276 words in story | 14 comments | Meta "

    where the "1276 words in story" and "14" are both links to the same place.
    It would be nice if the "14" linked directly to the comments with the #acomments tag.

    For example on this particular story: https://soylentnews.org/meta/article.pl?sid=17/02/27/0245222#acomments [soylentnews.org]

    If you click that link you'll see the page jumps directly to the comments which is very handy when the story is very long.

    ———————————————————

    A second positioning issue :

    When you try to post and the server gives you an error, the different kinds of error messages are in different places.
    If you hit the "Lameness filter" (i.e. you left the subject blank) the error message is right there at the top of the "Edit Comment" box.

    But if you make two posts too quickly, the "slow down cowboy" message is at the very top of the page. That is a problem when the comment you are responding to is very long because the error message is scrolled off the top of the screen. So you can't actually see why the submission was not accepted.

    When you post twice too quickly the server gives you an error, the message is at the very top of the page, but the page itself loads with the submit box so you can't always the error message way at the top. The message should be incorporated into the page

    #post_comment

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday February 27 2017, @02:52PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday February 27 2017, @02:52PM (#472284) Journal

      I've noticed the words/comments same link thing and I like your suggested change.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by paulej72 on Monday February 27 2017, @06:00PM

      by paulej72 (58) on Monday February 27 2017, @06:00PM (#472410) Journal

      Yes will make that change. And along those lines the pagination links will open up to the comments as well. We have some other link related bugs that are probably a regression of the code, as I was sure I had pagination working properly with the redirects when you post and moderate.

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Monday February 27 2017, @02:49PM (2 children)

    by jdavidb (5690) on Monday February 27 2017, @02:49PM (#472281) Homepage Journal

    I'm hoping we've earned enough trust from you guys collectively to be allowed to at least experiment for a bit.

    Yes, you have. I do miss nested comment mode, but I am hopeful that I will figure it out on my end and/or you guys will on yours. I don't want the site to scream and cry in the corner. Maybe that explains why Slashdot worked so hard to try to drive me off nested mode several years ago.

    Due to personal real life issues, I'm likely not going to be around much, so if you don't see me, that's why

    Best wishes as you take care of the real life issues, NCommander.

    --
    ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 27 2017, @05:15PM (1 child)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday February 27 2017, @05:15PM (#472375) Journal

      Yes, you have. I do miss nested comment mode, but I am hopeful that I will figure it out on my end and/or you guys will on yours.

      I'm trying....

      I really don't like clicking 100 times just to see all the comments, so far.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:53PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @02:53PM (#472287)

    I would like to see some kind of indicator of the number of hidden comments inside a collapsed tree
    I think a second, indented line under the "parent" that says something like "XX hidden comments"

    • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Monday February 27 2017, @06:03PM

      by paulej72 (58) on Monday February 27 2017, @06:03PM (#472414) Journal

      Nice idea. I think for new articles that is even possible as we keep a running total of children. Need to ask TMB about that as he coded that part.

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by inertnet on Monday February 27 2017, @02:54PM (1 child)

    by inertnet (4071) on Monday February 27 2017, @02:54PM (#472288) Journal

    I'm missing the "expand all comments in this tree option" that we had before.

    • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Monday February 27 2017, @06:06PM

      by paulej72 (58) on Monday February 27 2017, @06:06PM (#472417) Journal

      Yes we are working on something. It may be CSS or it may be a small bit of JS, but we will get something. We really want to go JS free if possible, but a CSS Expand All button would cause break buttons in its children.

      One solution we have is when a parent expand all button is clicked, we would hide all children buttons that would be disabled due to the parent's state.

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Monday February 27 2017, @02:54PM (3 children)

    by physicsmajor (1471) on Monday February 27 2017, @02:54PM (#472289)

    That's what I liked most about the old interface. Even when intermediate posts were trollish or lower voted, you could immediately - but at will - see the thread of discussion. Furthermore, it let me find many a post deserving of upvotes. It was also infinitely easier (despite the tiny button) to do this on mobile, rather than clicking on every post.

    With the new interface, unless I've missed it, there is no way to do this. Every post you want to see, which isn't already displayed, you must click on. That's immensely more effort. I'm already feeling the difference and am not reading as many comments below threshold.

    I'm completely cool with this otherwise, but sincerely hope we can bring the "expand next 3-ish levels" button back.

    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Monday February 27 2017, @04:00PM (2 children)

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @04:00PM (#472319) Journal

      That's what I liked most about the old interface. Even when intermediate posts were trollish or lower voted, you could immediately - but at will - see the thread of discussion. Furthermore, it let me find many a post deserving of upvotes. It was also infinitely easier (despite the tiny button) to do this on mobile, rather than clicking on every post.

      With the new interface, unless I've missed it, there is no way to do this. Every post you want to see, which isn't already displayed, you must click on. That's immensely more effort. I'm already feeling the difference and am not reading as many comments below threshold.

      I'm completely cool with this otherwise, but sincerely hope we can bring the "expand next 3-ish levels" button back.

      Last things, first. I'm not sure I fully understand your last sentence, but I hope this answer addresses that, at least somewhat.

      Background: With the site upgrade, these are the currently-available comment modes:

      • Flat
      • No Comments
      • Threaded-TNG
      • Threaded-TOS

      Because of performance issues, the only mode that carried forward from the old selections was "Flat" — if you had selected that before, then you still have it slected. Otherwise, the default was to convert to "Thrreaded-TOS". ("Threaded-TOS" was intended to, as much as possible and without using any Javascript, emulate the previously available: "Improved Threaded" choice.)

      At the top of each story's comments are selections to adjust viewing *this* story's parameters. Click on "Threaded-TOS" change it to "Threaded-TNG", then click on the "[Change]" button. I suspect that should address your first concerns... Please let me/us know!

      BTW, if you like Threaded-TNG you can change it permanently on the "Comments" tab of your Preferences [soylentnews.org] page. =)

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Monday February 27 2017, @09:07PM (1 child)

        by physicsmajor (1471) on Monday February 27 2017, @09:07PM (#472526)

        It's not the threading - I'm fine with how comments are threaded on page load.

        Previously, in the upper left of each comment there were tiny buttons. One, I believe it had a "++", when pressed on a parent comment would expand the next 3 levels of child comments regardless of their actual scores. This was hugely helpful to view evolving discussion on provocative or controversial topics. That's what I would very much like to have back.

        Now, instead of the ability to expand the next few levels of discourse, that second button will close up the thread. It essentially does the opposite of what it did before. To view the lower comments, one has to directly click on each, and that's going to result in fewer comments read below threshold. Not an improvement.

        That single feature was one of the greatest things about soylentnews, IMHO.

        • (Score: 2) by martyb on Monday February 27 2017, @11:59PM

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @11:59PM (#472583) Journal

          I appreciate your taking the time to explain -- thank you! Now I get it. Mostly. That is because under the old system, I found it most efficient for *me* to ask for the entire comment tree be sent and I would scroll through it all with no further clicking of controls required. Yes, it means I get to read some less-than-entirely-eloquent comments, but I get a very good feel for what is going on here at a very visceral level, too.

          Thanks to your explanation, I much better understand the issue and can pass it along to the devs to see what they can do.

          Be aware that this is all a work in progress as we try and iron out the kinks as they become clear. Keep you eyes peeled for what will likely be a daily story for a while as to our progress / changes / etc.

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @03:23PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @03:23PM (#472302)

    That's all I've been getting at the main (https://soylentnews.org/) page for the last 3 days, but my bookmark to submissions (https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=list) and all the links on the left side (except the main page) work fine. Already tried clearing the cache, that's not it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @03:31PM (14 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @03:31PM (#472307)

      BTW, I'm using Googles DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) if that makes any difference.

      • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Monday February 27 2017, @04:21PM

        by inertnet (4071) on Monday February 27 2017, @04:21PM (#472331) Journal

        I'm using Googles DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4)

        Off topic, friendly warning: By using their DNS servers you're giving them even more insight in most of your internet endeavors.

      • (Score: 2) by martyb on Monday February 27 2017, @04:25PM (12 children)

        by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @04:25PM (#472333) Journal

        Except during the period when the site was actually undergoing the upgrade, I am unaware of any lingering issues with 503s on the site. Except, we had some reports that SN was being blocked in (I don't recall for certain... Turkey?).

        I had to re-read your (GP) comment, and I find it a bit befuddling. It's the first report I am aware of. I've passed it along to the devs (who are recuperating from the weekend bug-smashing binge). In the interests of best helping them identify the problem, could you please answer a few questions?

        What OS and Browser are you using, and from what country / area are you trying to access the site?

        Are you logged in as a user? Or are you accessing the site as an AC?

        And how were you able to workaround getting a 503 on the main page and yet be able to post a comment to this story?

        For all other readers, have you had any issues with 503s (Service Unavailable) on SN? (Yes, I am aware that if they cannot get to this site, they may find it difficult to report that here; I'm hoping they may be able to get to the site using some means other than their normal one -- someone's mobile phone... at a library, etc.)

        --
        Wit is intellect, dancing.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @05:07PM (11 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @05:07PM (#472368)

          Ubuntu 16.04, Chrome 56.0.2924.87 (64-bit), CA USA, logged in, the only way into the website is by using my bookmark pointing to submissions (https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=list) then clicking any link on the left side (meta for example). My bookmark to the main page as well as clicking on the main page link at the top keeps getting a 503, it's been that way for 3 days. I just tried changing the DNS server to opendns (208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220), it's the same result and I don't have soylent blocked in opendns settings.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @05:19PM (9 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @05:19PM (#472380)

            If I log out it loads the website just fine, I log back in and it's a 503 again. Tried it on Chrome, Chromium, and Firefox.

            • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Monday February 27 2017, @05:51PM (1 child)

              by paulej72 (58) on Monday February 27 2017, @05:51PM (#472404) Journal

              Post here or send an email to dev@soylentnews.org with your username. Hard to track down those kinds of issues without that info.

              --
              Team Leader for SN Development
              • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @10:38PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @10:38PM (#472562)

                Sleipnir
                Android
                JavaScript is broken

                perhaps i should just submit a bug

            • (Score: 2) by martyb on Monday February 27 2017, @06:26PM (6 children)

              by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @06:26PM (#472433) Journal

              Curiouser and curiouser!

              Please read through this entire comment before proceeding. Feel free to email me (at my nickname @ soylentnews.org with your nickname and a brief note)

              The fact that you are able to load at least some parts of the home page while logged in suggests to me that this is not a DNS issue.

              When you login, are you able to access your Preferences [soylentnews.org] page? If so, click on the "Homepage" tab, and check your settings. I'm wondering if you might have some combination of settings that is causing issues?

              Now, it may be something else entirely, so I'm being cautious here.

              I'd ask you to go through your homepage preferences and for your own peace of mind, print out that page or otherwise record your current setting before making any changes. Then, one by one, toggle off / reset a preference and try to load the homepage anew. If you find a change that DOES work, that would be very helpful for our fixing any underlying issue.

              Alternatively, just hit the big "Restore Defaults" button at the bottom of the Homepage settings tab and see if that helps.

              --
              Wit is intellect, dancing.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:29PM (5 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:29PM (#472465)

                Now it's working (for now) but I didn't change anything.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:31PM (4 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:31PM (#472468)

                  And now it's not...
                  Error 503 Service Unavailable

                  Service Unavailable

                  Guru Meditation:

                  XID: 1401760752

                  Varnish cache server

                  • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Monday February 27 2017, @07:41PM (3 children)

                    by paulej72 (58) on Monday February 27 2017, @07:41PM (#472480) Journal

                    I tried tweaking varnish, please let me know if you still have issues.

                    --
                    Team Leader for SN Development
                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @08:34PM (2 children)

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @08:34PM (#472508)

                      So far it's working. What the heck is Varnish cache server?

                      • (Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Monday February 27 2017, @11:37PM (1 child)

                        by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Monday February 27 2017, @11:37PM (#472577) Homepage Journal

                        It's a front end proxy that does caching of a render of the site. Basically it's what's been preventing the site from melting for the last year.

                        --
                        Still always moving
                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @03:08PM

                          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @03:08PM (#472797)

                          It's been working fine since the change yesterday, so problem solved.

          • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday February 27 2017, @08:35PM

            by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Monday February 27 2017, @08:35PM (#472509)

            OpenDNS may have been under a DDOS the last few days. But then, you would expect every site to break.

  • (Score: 2) by Celestial on Monday February 27 2017, @03:36PM

    by Celestial (4891) on Monday February 27 2017, @03:36PM (#472310) Journal

    The only two issues I've had thus far have been covered already. Namely, that "Show link domains in comments and stories" is broken, and that replacing the chevron images with "+" and "-" images would both look better and make more sense IMO. Those are both fairly minor in the grand scheme of things, so keep up the great work.

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 27 2017, @04:42PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @04:42PM (#472348) Journal

    The NEW indicator is good. Fading the comments to the point of being difficult to read is analogous to forcing readers to listen to Justin Bieber while reading. (Please, PLEASE do not take that as a feature suggestion!)

    Just because a comment has been on my screen before doesn't mean I have read it yet. There can be multiple reasons for this:
    1. I can only spend so much time here at one go, and so I may return to an interesting discussion later to read the 2nd half. Which is now difficult to read.
    2. I may be reading and setting mods on some comments. At some point I may decide to apply those moderations and continue reading -- which is now greatly hindered by the faded comments.
    3. I may add my own comment or reply in the discussion. Refreshing the entire page now means all of the remaining comments I was looking forward to reading are now quite difficult to read.

    If the indicator is the word "NEW" please consider not using all caps.

    It is unfortunate that there is no way to actually know if a comment has been actually read, or merely previously delivered to the reader's web browser.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @04:46PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @04:46PM (#472352)

      > Fading the comments to the point of being difficult to read

      Better to just have two simple color schemes. New comments can have the regular black on grey text, and the old comments can have black text on a slightly grey.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Monday February 27 2017, @04:47PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @04:47PM (#472353) Journal

      I have just discovered the glorious preferences in comments:

      [x] Highlight new comments

      [_] Dim read comments

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by vux984 on Monday February 27 2017, @05:09PM

    by vux984 (5045) on Monday February 27 2017, @05:09PM (#472372)

    If I hit one of the little down arrow things, I want to see the comment. Sometimes it shows me a comment, sometimes it expands to display a tree of comments but not a single comment itself actually expanded. Then i have to expand something else to actually read a comment.

    At the very least, whatever comment i expand, should actually be displayed.

  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 27 2017, @05:10PM (3 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday February 27 2017, @05:10PM (#472373) Journal

    This poll [soylentnews.org] has Nested as the 2nd most popular view-mode.

    Maybe don't kill it?

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Monday February 27 2017, @05:39PM (1 child)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 27 2017, @05:39PM (#472396) Journal
      My current view is very close to the old nested view. I set "Breakthrough" level low and that did the trick.
      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 27 2017, @05:46PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday February 27 2017, @05:46PM (#472399) Journal

        Ok, good tip. Used the Save option to make that my default and everything looks good.

    • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Monday February 27 2017, @06:15PM

      by paulej72 (58) on Monday February 27 2017, @06:15PM (#472425) Journal

      See my comment below. I think us devs did not realize what nested did and did not do. Once we figure it all out, we can easily create a replacement.

      Again, we are sorry and did not expect this kind of breakage for each of you.

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by drussell on Monday February 27 2017, @05:37PM (3 children)

    by drussell (2678) on Monday February 27 2017, @05:37PM (#472395) Journal

    I realize you can emulate the nested view (my browsing method!) using certain settings on threaded, so why on EARTH didn't you keep the "Nested" option and just have it do that?!!

    :facepalm:

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by paulej72 on Monday February 27 2017, @06:13PM (2 children)

      by paulej72 (58) on Monday February 27 2017, @06:13PM (#472424) Journal

      Mainly because we could not figure out what was different between Threaded and Nested other than Nested had pagination.

      I guess we need to go back and look at that code and see what it was doing. My gut is it always displayed everything or something close, but none of us devs realized it.

      We probably did this as we normally view the site with our Thresholds and Breakthroughs set low so we would not have seen the difference easily.

      If this is the case we apologize to all those that had nested set as we did not think that this change would be a big of a deal to you as it was.

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:38PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:38PM (#472477)

        Don't forget about the AC experience.
        The previous defaults for users not logged in were excellent.
        The new ones, not so much.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Monday February 27 2017, @11:28PM

          by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Monday February 27 2017, @11:28PM (#472572) Homepage Journal

          Once we get most of the kinks out, we'll likely change the AC defaults. No point changing them again until we've got a solid frame of reference, then I'll post asking for feedback of what the "default" should be.

          --
          Still always moving
  • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday February 27 2017, @07:02PM

    by shortscreen (2252) on Monday February 27 2017, @07:02PM (#472448) Journal

    Before, the collapsed comments displayed as links. Now there is no link, instead there is a button to expand the comment. It works if I click on it, but it's impossible to select with the keyboard. Also, if images don't load (I leave them off by default when I'm on 3G) then there is no button, it's invisible.

    Yesterday I saw some comments where the text overflowed outside the comment box and overlapped susequent comments, but none today (fixed already?)

  • (Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Monday February 27 2017, @07:38PM

    by iWantToKeepAnon (686) on Monday February 27 2017, @07:38PM (#472476) Homepage Journal
    Keep up the great work and thanks for all you've done already. There's probably more people that either like it or are ambivalent to it than hate it. But complainers sometime pipe up more than the rest. Don't loose heart! :)
    --
    "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @10:34PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @10:34PM (#472560)

    Also, the new icons are broken on android. Javascript issue?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @11:04PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @11:04PM (#472566)

      Javascript issue?

      If you're talking about the "show/hide comment" icons, they're implemented in HTML/CSS only, there is no JS involved anymore. With NoScript on, for me they work as they should.

      What kind of "broken" are they? Don't work at all, do something weird?

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