ADMIN ANNOUNCEMENT: New Commenting Layout Begins Now
I hate springing surprises on people, but in our never ending quest to deal with traffic and crushing server performance issues, we have been forced to abandon our current commenting system layout for a simplier, more performance friendly one. We had to do this ASAP, at request of our Hosting Provider.
The old layout was known as a “Tree” layout. You could reply to other people’s comments, and your reply would display slightly staggered after that comment. This layout is very cumbersome to a database, and it really got confusing during long discussions. Comments were staggered all over the place, and it was often hard to tell what comment was in reply to what (unless quoted or specified).
The worst part though there was no paging support, so all comments for the entire article would load at once. If you recall, scrolling through threads with 500 comments got to be a real pain. If it was a pain to you, it just about killed our server!
The new layout is a “Flat” structure. All comments will list chronologically, and will be numbered. Only 20 comments will display at a time. At the top and the bottom of the comments are page numbers, so you can page through the comments while reading them. The comments are now numbered, displaying from oldest to newest. When you open the article, the system will automatically go to the last page and the most recent comment.
Honestly, it really does go much faster this way. Most sites and forums use this approach, and now I see why! This is going to take some adjusting though. When replying to a comment upthread, you can use the quoting function, mention who you’re replying to, or even put in at top of the comment “In reply to comment #xx.” Whatever makes you comfortable.
Please let me know if you have any questions. I’m sure this will be confusing at first, but after a while it’ll seem easier. Thanks for your patience.
Seems good to me Alice! Question though, will nesting quotes cause the same problems as the tree structure or can we go ahead and do that? (Since we already started … :-* )
I like the new layout of the comments. Makes it easier to read everything, and seems to respond quicker as well.
FYI that I’m still sorta new around here, but have to say it’s a beautiful website. You guys do a great job on it.
Eilf, nesting quotes is actually highly encouraged now. It won’t cause problems.
Hlnkid, glad you like it!
[quote]Eilf, nesting quotes is actually highly encouraged now. It won’t cause problems.
Hlnkid, glad you like it![/quote]
Great thanks! I am enjoying using it 😀
Alice, you rock!
Thanks for all your hard work!
Hey Alice
Hope comic con was a blast. Thanks for the Dean myth arc Q… well I think it was you anyway.
I am having the devils own problem with this site recently. Battling with logging in and staying logged in. Also certain times of the day the webpage says system error, or takes about 10 minutes to load and then not everything is displayed. Just wanted you to know
kaz1 – This was a great Comic Con this year. I had a great time, thanks for asking.
Yes, that was me asking that question! I got in a good one for Robert Singer too about how they deal with continuity, especially when they have a fan base that is constantly paying attention (or something to that effect). I at least got in a couple of great questions this time!
There have been issues this week. The reason you can’t stay logged in is because our session table keeps getting corrupted all the time. That crashes site and database goes down. We have to clear out that session table a lot now, which means logins are cleared out. It’s a pain for me too! There are a few ways to fix it, but it was aggravated by the big spike in traffic we got with Comic Con. This is actually one of our busiest times of the year. So hopefully we’ll have it fixed soon, but it’s nothing I can’t put in until things settle down a big.
Thanks for letting me know though. I definitely need to know when there are problems.