19
votes
Could we have a different color for exemplary new comments?
Currently exemplary comments are highlighted with a blue outline, and new comments are highlighted with an orange outline. Is it possible to use a different color, or to interweave the colors when a comment is both new and exemplary?
The reason for this is that it's impossible to check back into a thread that has a dozen new comments and know if the exemplary ones have already been read or not, or it's impossible to see that a new comment is exemplary (not sure which color takes priority).
I think we might want to move beyond colors? As you say, they don’t stack, and I also have trouble remembering what the different colors mean. Tagging exemplary comments in a different way than new comments would make these annotations easier to combine.
(It would also be nice to have a “best of Tildes” page for exemplary comments.)
I really like the idea of a "best of Tildes", to be honest! To heck with my tildes suggestion, this is the real move right here.
I think that's a good idea for two reasons: First is accessibility for the colorblind. Second is the philosophy behind using text instead of icons on Tildes: Icons can be confusing if you don't what they mean, but text is clear. The same thing applies to using colors to mark comments. Colors give even less information than icons to those who don't already know what they mean.
Blue/orange is colorblind friendly, but perhaps we shouldn't share the same space for both new and exemplary flagging as we end up with the problem OP listed. They are two vastly different categories for a comment, so I feel like a division in design makes sense here. Exemplary coloring on the title, header, another border, or some other flagging would be ideal.
Well, my argument isn't that one approach is always better than another, but that if you use orthogonal approaches then they are more easily combined and less easily confused. So, using color for one thing, and maybe an icon for one other thing, and Tildes already uses a lot of text.
But it all depends on what looks good in the design.
I disagree entirely. Discussion here is and should remain generally high quality purely on the basis of keeping the site at a high level. Unless someone specifically goes looking for a reason behind the colors and memorizes them (orange is obvious the first time anyone enters a thread they were in prior) they mostly go unnoticed. The statements given when exemplary is labeled should be the extent of the recognition a commentor receives and I am of the opinion that vote counts shouldn't be displayed either. A vote count or any other award/point/recognition system is inherently flawed and leads to little more than pandering to an audience to fit in (comparison is the thief of joy) for that minute dopamine rush when someone "likes" your response. These things are what has made reddit little more than an echo chamber with comment sections filled with jokes. Even here I've witnessed dissenting opinions be labeled as noise because people just can't give up on having a downvote button for anything they disagree with or doesn't match the status quo.
I think it would be worth having a page with the highlights so that newcomers to Tildes get a better idea of what makes Tildes worthwhile. Maybe manual curation might be better, though?
As far as incentives go, it’s a balance. You do want some incentives for writing things other people are interested in, but not too much.
Thing is, most Exemplary comments are, as a matter of fact, exemplary. (The rest should tell their exemplifiers to learn some discipline. Exemplary label is not for anonymous replies.) Someone could benefit from reading them, whether it's for solid insight into a common technical issue or a greater understanding of their own personal problem.
I'm okay with Tildes building a guide to high-quality insight on the periphery of its main function. There has to be at least a way to catalogue it without filling your bookmarks to the brim. Your own browser – sure, but I think we collectively have said enough mindful things that it's worth publicizing.
Funny thing: unless it's @Deimos, comments with high votes usually relay insight.
The difference between how you get recognition is in the place itself. Reddit is a cesspit when it comes to pandering, but it also allows great young artists to see their work displayed. Tildes is small and geared towards insight, if not conversation and discussion, with a moderator whose duty apparently only stops when he sleeps.
Might be worth to applying the same measurements to two different boxes.
Beyond color is not strictly necessary. I think you might want to make labels more apparent.
How about this?
I've done this now: the "Exemplary" badge will show up on all comments again (but it will still only show the actual number of Exemplary labels to the author), and reversed the "priority" so that if a comment is both new and exemplary, it will use the new color for the stripe. I'm trying out a couple of other things so I might change this more, but I think it's a good and easy approach for now.
Overall, I think the colored stripe is a good way to help subtly indicate comments that are special in relatively minor ways, so they're easier to notice while skimming through a thread: new comments, your own comments, and comments by the OP. I think Exemplary comments are probably more significant than that though, so indicating them with only the stripe wasn't great.
Maybe just a star or check mark would be enough? The box seems a bit distracting.
I kind of like the idea of having a medal emoji (🎖️) positioned right on top of the left border so that it looks like it's pinned on but still stays out of the way. It's also a lot clearer that the comment is valued than a blue bar.
Pretty sure I'm the reason they no longer do, so yeah: I 'member. ;)
From the Inspect Element browser function, the border is applied to
.comment-itself, which is a<div>.Since that
<div>is composed of three parts (.comment-header,.comment-text,.btn-post), I would suggest the following for new AND Exemplary comments: the “new” colour is applied to the header only, and the “Exemplary” colour is applied to the rest.A similar possibility is striping the two colors down the whole border: https://i.imgur.com/iS6mVzd.png
It's pretty ugly/weird, but a New+Exemplary comment is also quite uncommon, so maybe it's not so bad for the rare cases that happens.
I think that might look better if the stripes were longer. Or perhaps, if they were side-by-side. You wouldn't be able to use a simple border property anymore though.
Prioritizing the new stripe as you've done above is probably best. The exemplary label will show on the next refresh anyway.
You can actually still do stripes with
borderby using a repeating gradient-that-isn't-really-a-gradient-at-all, that's how I made that screenshot:That does horizontal stripes, but to get vertical ones you could do it like this, effectively looking like you're "stacking" the two borders:
That comes out looking something like this: https://i.imgur.com/I1bQwt0.png
Good show. I've never unlocked the magic of gradients.
That does look better, if going for a twin-stripe approach. Maybe with 1px padding in the center to help break it up. I'm happy to try the current changes out instead though, and I think that'll be less confusing.
Like that?
My idea was that the comment header (username, timestamp, technical links) would have a “new”-coloured border on the left and the rest (the comment body and the Vote-Label-… pane) would have an “Exemplary”-coloured one, also on the left.
See for yourself. I would advise against it 'cause the colors just clash together noninformatively.
I'd vote against it. One, it causes UI jumps, something you really don't want to have. Two, you now have interactive functionality that's either programmatic (JS, something Tildes seeks to avoid entirely in the future) or styled (CSS, with hidden toggles), for something that has no need to be programmatic. Three, why hide the date at all? It's not as though the newness of the comment takes priority over its date somehow. We're not in an environment where freshness matters except to show what hasn't been read yet.
If I were the God Designer of this place, I'd embrace the fact that things flow downwards, including gaze, and make 'em horizontal labels. I don't think it's the best solution, but it would look cool. Functionally, there are certainly better decisions to take in this regard.
Alternatively, an interactive data-relaying sidebar for every comment, just like there is one for Tildes itself. Streamlines the interfaces, enhances all functions of the sidebar.
Like on forums?
Sure, but include all the buttons there, too.
I don't think there should be any sort of way to tell that a comment has been marked exemplary except by the person who made the comment. I've seen it used in a couple places I think as a super-vote which isn't what it should be for. It feels similar to me to comments getting gilded on Reddit.
What do you think it should be for?
Is there anything wrong with having a super vote?
I think it should be for showing a comment appreciation without needing to make a public comment if you don't want to.
Couldn't you use the messaging feature? That's typically how I would go about appreciating comments on reddit.
You can do that too. So my idea is a bit redundant and I'm not really opposed to getting rid of exemplaries entirely.