Reformat email comment notifications to show comments on large entries

[lightgetsin]

Title:
Reformat email comment notifications to show comments on large entries

Area:
notifications

Summary:
When a post is very large and there is an email notification of a comment to it, Gmail will truncate the message after X characters. Probably other webmails do the same. This means that when you open the notification, you can't see the comment, or have access to the links to interact with it, like reply.

Description:
There are a few potential ways to fix this. If a post is larger than a set character count, the notification email could be reformatted so the comment is at the top, followed by the post, which will get truncated. Alternatively, the notification could truncate the entry already so that the comment still follows it like usual, but is sure to show up.

Poll #2057 Reformat email comment notifications to show comments on large entries

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 42

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
15 (35.7%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
8 (19.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
12 (28.6%)

(I have no opinion)
5 (11.9%)

(Other: please comment)
2 (4.8%)

Comments

[azurelunatic]

The as-is that I'm in favor of is top-posting the comment; this is a reasonably frequent suggestion on LJ as well, where there isn't the truncation problem.

[pauamma]

I'd rather keep the entry (or parent comment) first, truncated before emailing if needed/desired. That way, it's easier to figure out what they're replying to than trying to piece it out from a comment that may be rambling, long, disjointed, or utterly unrelated. Also, depending on the limit the webmail service enforces, a long comment could cause the rest of the notification email to disappear.

[archane]

+1

[msilverstar]

Top-posting seems like the only technically-feasible solution.

[foxfirefey]

What if the comment is top posted if the context is over a certain length? I think that would probably be the compromise that satisfies the greatest number of people. (I know that on long posts, it is pain to get down to the bottom to actually see the next comment.)

[azurelunatic]

I'm generally against conditionally swapping the format around because that's then inconsistent.

But I could live with it.

[mskala]

Strongly against the barbarous practice of top-posting.

[triadruid]

Agreed.

[inarticulate]

I'm fine with either one.

[cheyinka]

I'd be good with the entry being truncated so that the comment and the comment interaction links are still visible. It might also be useful to send as plain text in that case, both to save a handful (probably a small handful) of characters and to make it more immediately obvious that something had been changed. (Also, I suppose plain text mail might be treated differently, too?)

I wouldn't want to see top-posting.

[kyrielle]

So far, I get all my messages regardless of entry length, untruncated. (Maybe I haven't dealt with comments to the right entry - I use Gmail - but if they did this to me I would switch which email I used for contact at Dreamwidth!) I don't really want to lose part of the post I was responding to - I sometimes reply to posts in order to make sure I have a copy to enjoy later, for example. And the solution of truncating the entry would break behavior for people whose email providers are NOT clueless idiots.

The official gmail message limit is something like 10 GB - I doubt a DW post exceeds it - so why are they truncating the message? This seems like a flaw in the email provider.

And while I'd be willing to entertain either approach as an option, and would favor the top-posting of the comment since some people want it all the time (not just for long messages), we've recently seen Denise's post about that....

...and without an option I just really don't want to see my experience messed with for the sake of an outside email provider's choices.

[yvi]

Maybe I haven't dealt with comments to the right entry - I use Gmail - but if they did this to me I would switch which email I used for contact at Dreamwidth! I don't really want to lose part of the post I was responding to

GMail doesn't delete part of the message - it only doesn't display it in full in the default, but gives you the option to click on a link ("[Message clipped] View entire message") which opens a new window in a 'lighter' style where you can view the full message. I suppose this is done for performance reasons.

[mskala]

In that case, changing the format of the email messages - for EVERYBODY - seems like a rather excessive action to increase convenience just for the subset of Gmail users who object to making one more click.

[ratcreature]

Exactly. I don't mind the extra click when using gmail, but I'd hate not getting the post I replied to mailed as a copy.

[turlough]

What I was thinking too.

[kyrielle]

Ah, thank you. I avoid that since I use gmail but not their web interface to read my comments, I guess. It doesn't sound like that big a barrier, if you just have to expand it. And this makes me VERY VERY OPPOSED to the idea of truncating the post I was replying to, since gmail users can get to everything with one more click, whereas I'd lose data and context if the truncation was done.

(That doesn't apply to top-posting, but again, some people hate it - I kinda like it, in this context, so I'm not opposed - but I think if it wasn't an option it would drive some people bat-crazy. And it just seems wrong to do that, but with the opposition to options, I don't see that this can be worked out nicely. And if Gmail has all the functionality with just one extra click if the post was long...I'm not seeing the reason to upend the boat.)

[cheyinka]

Changed my vote to "Shouldn't" since it's not a matter of webmail services losing part of a message, but of messages being inconveniently displayed.

[jaaaarne]

It's not only a matter of messages displayed inconveniently. I personally have been dreaming of having an option to not receive the copy of my entry each time somebody comments almost since the moment I first joined LJ.

Thing is, when the entry is pretty big (think fanfiction posts, analytic posts or fan meta posts, to name a few) and the number of top-level comments is pretty big, too, you get the copy of your own entry each friggin' time somebody replies to it. And having to scroll multiple screens is annoying, to say you the truth.

Besides, there are people who read notifications from their mobile devices which is a real pain in all the wrong places when you have to scroll, and scroll, and scroll...

There should be some way to fix it. There should be some checkbox or something that will let people truncate the quoted entry in comment notifications in case they want to.

[cesy]

IAWTC.

[ex_pseudonym472]

I see that this is an issue, but it's a Gmail issue, not a DW one.

But, if there is a work-around to be implemented via DW, I would prefer it be something that just changes the links that come at the bottom of the email to be at the top. This way if it gets cut off you've got a link directly to the comment, so you can read it there.

This doesn't solve the problem of losing the content of the comment in the event that someone deletes it before you read it. But the way it stands now, you already lose that.

[ratcreature]

I use Gmail, and I never had a problem with this. It does truncate the display, but you can still click and see the whole message.

[jaaaarne]

I haven't had my emails truncated by email provider [yet], but I'm all for the second suggestion (truncate the entry) on all entries. It's quite uncomfortable when the entry is long and you have to scroll to get to the comment itself. And when there are lots of top-level comments on a entry you get loads of copies of your entry.

If there is a possibility, you could make it a setting that lets users choose whether they want things like they are now or want have shorter notifications.

[nacbrie]

I agree with this. If somebody has commented on even a moderately long entry (even a few thousand words), scrolling down just to see "WORD!" is pretty annoying. Ideally, I would like a few lines/maybe one paragraph of my entry so as I can get the context, and then the comment.

[triadruid]

Right. I'd rather get a truncated entry and the (start of the) comment within about a screen-length than get the whole entry every time. Very annoying when you do a long post and everyone replies at the top.

[afuna]

I'd like it if we could have the comment at the very top for another reason: when I'm trying to read email from my mobile phone, it's really a pain to scroll past the entire entry. It would be much more convenient if I could see the comment, and then scroll past it to the beginning of the entry below for context, if I need to refresh my memory.

*If* we could have an option, I could even see it explained that way:

[ comment notification at bottom, context above ]
[ comment notification above, context below. Suitable for mobile devices ] or something.

WRT Gmail, I don't know if they've made it accessible to you, but below the cut off text should be a

[message clipped] link to full message.

It works for me in standard/JS view, but throws me errors when I try it from basic HTML view. (That may be a temporary thing though? I haven't tried it before, so I don't know if it always does that).

ETA: My "yes" vote is for the first option, top-posting (whether it's always on, or is clever and only does it when there's at least x characters)

[lightgetsin]

Yes, the gmail link is broken in basic html mode, which is the only mode I can operate in. And really, you don't want to click through to get to the comment content anyway.

Good point re phones, I hadn't thought of that.

[kyrielle]

Have you reported that link being broken to gmail? Sounds like they have a pretty major bug....

[lightgetsin]

Oh, they know. It's been that way for nearly a year, along with half a dozen other major bugs. They really, really do not care about basic html users, trufax.

[elf]

+1.

I have dialup. I use the old version of gmail, which gets me most features, but when things are loading slow it switches to basic HTML, which is almost entirely worthless. I can mainly use it to see if there are emails I need to check later when I've got more bandwidth.

[kyrielle]

I would vastly rather, if we have top posting, have it always. If it's clever, I have to be clever to know which part I want to read first. If it's consistent, I know whether to read the first outtake and glance at the second for context, or glance at the first and read the second.

[ratcreature]

I want a full copy of the entry in my inbox, not some truncated thing. I use this to have a backup for discussions that I can search in my inbox, a copy of a story I feedbacked on (one easy step to save favorites and make the author happy, a win-win for both). Aside from icons that is one of the main perks why I pay, i.e. to get my own comments mailed, and can have easy copies of entries. If I had to I could live with the comment on top, even though I find that not very intuitive. I was never bothered that I had to do an extra click to see the full message in gmail.

[azurelunatic]

I'm also against truncation on Dreamwidth's end.

[elf]

I would prefer top-posting comments, followed by the nav links, followed by the original post/comment, which I don't need to see over and over. If the comment is complex or refers back to the original enough to need full context, I'll jump to the actual post to read it.

I'd prefer not truncating; I like having the full record in email.

[sofiaviolet]

No truncation. I want the whole post.

For something like comment notifications, I think I'd prefer top-posting, although I don't like it in regular emails. The comment and interaction links are the stuff I really need to see.

Perhaps top-posting of top-level comments (like this one), and the current format for replies to comments?

[lapillus]

I would like to see this as a part of a set of options including truncating at X words and/or truncating at the cut.