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votes
The vote count for comments has been moved to the Vote button
Moving the vote count to the bottom of comments has been suggested a number of times, and since the comment tags are disabled for now anyway, this seems like a good time to try it out since we won't have those being shown at the top right now either.
I'm definitely not certain I'll keep it this way, but at least for now, a comment's vote count is now shown on the Vote button itself at the bottom of the comment (unless it's your own comment, in which case it's still shown at the top).
Let me know how it feels to you, I figured it would be an interesting thing to try out at least.
I like it so far, however, it is hard to see compared to the previous method. I also like that the vote button is after the comment, rather than above, so people have to actually read the comment fully rather than only reading the first sentence and upvoting (similar with the comment box being at the bottom of the page, promoting discussion, rather than all parent-level comments).
I like it because it's harder to see compared to the previous method, honestly. I am finding myself reading the comments first, then noticing the votes after, if at all. I think that's great.
That is such a good point, I didn't consider it that way. You're totally right.
On a similar note, I really love the de-emphasis on "karma". There is no karma count on a user page, which I think is great, it promotes discussion, rather than low effort posts.
I see it the same way, it removes the game/competitive element that has a hand in the watering down of the site quality in the long run.
I might be open to the idea of some sort of reputation system though.
Open to the idea of a reputation system, you say? Well have I got news for you! ;)
Fascinating stuff. I'm not sure I've ever seen a system like that in practice, more the reddit moderation style or similar, where the people who created a community choose the moderators.
I'm already finding myself less inclined to look at vote counts first and to actually read the comments rather than skimming. Definitely an improvement that better aligns the UX with the site's goals.
I feel it's more peaceful, less distracting and more pleasant when the vote count is by the vote button. I'm all for this layout.
Edit: Also it makes me read the comments without reading the vote count making me read the comment as it is without being influenced by its vote count.
I really like this. Minor suggestion though: Maybe color the vote button since it's at the bottom anyway to make it slightly more visible, or color the [Voted (number)] part as well? Just the box outline being colored looks a little awkward to me.
Yeah, the outline on "Voted" is awful and something that I need to replace soon. I'm not sure what I'd like to do instead though, I don't want it to make the comments stand out too much (if anything, comments you've already voted on should stand out less).
Edit: trying now with purple and underline, but I think that might still be too much. Maybe it should just be purple.
Don't worry, Deimos - I got this.
Daily Tildes discussion - our second ban
What about a
•/•/•to the left of theVoted (1)text, in the same color as the current outline?I think the whole point of tildes is to minimize the power of the vote. I rather enjoy the minimalistic vote as it stands now. I'm not saying your idea isn't a good one, only sharing my view.
I think that moving the vote to the bottom accomplishes a decent amount of that and I'm fine if it stays how it is. I just wanted to suggest it in case someone else agreed with me; my eyesight is not the greatest and a small thing like making the vote button a slightly less muted color like an off purple that the vote box currently has (I use solarized dark because it helps with my visibility the best) would be nice.
I wasn't really convinced if the request was worth it but to be honest, as seen here, I like it.
At least for me, I wasn't going to give much attention to the votes anyway unless I was going to vote just to see if my vote was being registered :P
It seems kinda unnatural to me for it to be part of the button rather than an unclickable thing next to the button. No problem with it being on the bottom, but when it's part of the button it doesn't really communicate what it is to me. I was actually going to ask someone why I could double vote or something before I noticed this thread.
Clearly I'm in the minority, though.
I was initially confused as well. The current position seems to imply there's an added weight to voting on certain comments.
I like it more and I agree with @Emerald_Knight, it seems more inline with the ethos.
I'm gonna be nitpicky though and say that the padding of the text now feels off to me. I think changing the padding of
.comment-textfrom0.2remto0.5remwould make it feel less squished.Looks pretty natural to me!
Hmm, I think I disagree, since those buttons are for actions. You can't vote on your own comment, so putting it in with the actions doesn't make much sense.
I also like having it at the top for when I'm viewing my own comments on my user page - I don't want to have to scroll to the bottom of each comment to see the score. The current location/style isn't necessarily the right place either, but I think the bottom would make less sense.
In my opinion, it feels appropriate that a person's own comments are more visible to them. Other people's comment scores are so unobtrusive that the difference doesn't feel distracting.
What about moving all votes, regardless of context, to the far right of the header? They're out of the way enough (as apparent by the fact that people had a hard time finding the permalink # when it was over there) and it's consistent, and would be a nice reflection of where vote count is located in topic lists.
https://i.imgur.com/YN8NUGs.png
Hmm yeah, that's not bad either. It loses the aspect of putting the score at the bottom so that you're not having it bias your opinion of the comment though.
I'm also a little concerned that the header is going to start getting way too much stuff inside it (especially on mobile where it's not nearly so wide). I'm sure at some point we'll have some kind of user tag/flair sort of thing that will need to be beside the username as well, so there's going to be a lot in there.
Those are both good points.
Okay, what about right-aligned but at the bottom inline with
.post-buttons? I know you mentioned before wanting to keep actions separate, but right-aligning the vote count might create enough visual difference that it'll feel okay.https://i.imgur.com/bnQEyry.png
EDIT: I just realized while on my phone that this isn't the greatest solution for mobile... having the action buttons evenly spaced like that is nice for making easy touch targets.
Actually, I think the header is already too crowded on mobile. As soon as the edit timestamp appears, things start dividing in two lines within three comment levels.
A quick "fix" I could suggest is getting rid of the word "ago" (it's not really essential, I think) and getting rid of the edit time. Instead of the edit time you could add an asterisk by the posting time and show edit time only when tapping on posting time, for example.
As soon as flairs are added its going to be very messy anyway, and maybe Link and Parent should be abbreviated somehow (although that'll hurt discoverability again...).
Maybe a middle ground would be to show the own-comment votes like Votes (5). Then the formatting would be consistent, at least.
I think this works very well. The context of the vote is next to the vote number, just like for links. It's unobtrusive, but if you want to know what the score is it is not difficult to find out.
It's certainly a lot cleaner looking on mobile