allow to track only comments made by specific users in a thread

[ratcreature]

Title:
allow to track only comments made by specific users in a thread

Area:
comment tracking

Summary:
Currently when you track a comment thread you get notified about all new comments made below the one you tracked. In addition to that general tracking I would love an option to be only notified about further comments from specific users who had commented in said thread before.

Description:
Sometimes I'm only interested in comments by certain people in a thread rather than in all comments. A typical example would be comment fic posted as a WIP in many installments, mixed in with feedback comments from other people.

Currently in order to get updates when a new part of such a story is posted in the comment thread, I also get notifications about all feedback. If there was an option to add a username to the comment tracking, that would allow me to get only the author's comments, reducing the notifications I'm not interested in.

For the feature I imagine something like an extra ticky box on the "Manage Message Settings" page you get when you click the tracking symbol. Under the general option "Someone comments under the thread by User X in entry Y" that tracks all comments there would be the option to subscribe to "User X comments under the thread by User X in entry Y" so that you could subscribe only to further comments by that commenter.

Besides for stories posted in comments that option would also be useful for discussions where you sometimes find contributions by certain people more interesting (or controversial) than other comments and want to track you their comments.

A problem or drawback might be that this option allows to keep closer track of specific people in their comments rather than just through their entry updates, so that might cause trouble if users are harrassed or trolled. However I think because this would be tracking only inside a specific entry or comment thread, it isn't really more invasive than the current tracking options.

Poll #855

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
21 (77.8%)

Should be implemented with changes.
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
6 (22.2%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[blnchflr]

My first thought is definitely "stalker tool" :o)

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I realize that it makes following particular people easier, but I don't hink it makes much difference to stalkers. I mean if I wanted to get that behavior now I just subscribe to all comments and set up an email filter. That is just something of a hassle because I have take an extra step, but if I was stalking just one person and subscribed to many threads where they might comment that would be little effort.

But you wouldn't be able to find comments by someone in entries where you don't already know they comment, or be able to follow all their comments across the site.

[blnchflr]

Yeah, I am not saying the cost would necessarily be greater than the benefit :o)

[7rin]

Thinking about this way, I don't see why not.

[cleverthylacine]

Stalker tool and server-intensive too I suspect. No thanks.

[elizabeth_rice]

Do you mean: if I commented to this entry, then tomorrow I come back and make a second comment (but not as a reply to my first comment) and you would track replies to my first and second comments, in other words both threads that I started?

[ratcreature]

I hadn't thought of that. I had only thought within the framework of threads as it is now, only that you can narrow it down further. So what I had in mind wouldn't notify of a new thread you made.

[ciaan]

You can track comments on an entry as well as a thread, though, right? So you'd get the notice if you were tracking the whole entry.

I agree that this doesn't seem to actually give people new stalking tools, only allows them to cut down on receiving boring and superfluous notifications.

[elizabeth_rice]

only allows them to cut down on receiving boring and superfluous notifications.
Exactly! But, LJ already allows paid users to track individual threads.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I'd just like to narrow it down further. Recently I've been following a couple of WIPs in a story meme over on LJ (the ST:XI kink meme), one story was posted in thirty comments or so, those were all in one thread, so I subscribed to that specific thread. But every story comment got five to ten fb comments as well, and then author replied to those too. So I got over several hundred notifications for thirty updates I wanted to see. If I could just get the author comments by getting notified for just one person's comments in a thread (which admittedly would still be story and fb replies) that would have cut it down in half.

[elizabeth_rice]

I realised later that that's what you had meant. :)

[elizabeth_rice]

Oh, I see.

[azurelunatic]

Despite the potential for "stalker tool", since you can already track all comments on a particular post, and you can do some clever filtering on the receiving email end of things to make it less firehose, I'm in favor.