Expiration warning for feed account comments sections

[azurelunatic]

Title:
Expiration warning for feed account comments sections

Area:
feeds

Summary:
Display a notice in the comments section of feed accounts about the 14 day expiration of the entry. This would serve as a reminder that all things are ephemeral, and if the user wanted their comment saved, they could go to the original (settings allowing) or manually save it somewhere.

Description:
There's been some previous discussion around comments on feed accounts. Currently, comments are enabled on feed accounts as a courtesy to Dreamwidth users who would like a forum, however ephemeral, to discuss the feed amongst themselves, particularly when the source does not allow comments (such as XKCD).

However, it's not immediately obvious to someone who is unfamiliar with feed accounts that the comments won't be sent back to the original source of the feed, and that the comments will vanish when the feed entries vanish after 14 days.

I suggest a notice, to be displayed on the entry page above the comments section (so it's visible to readers and to people using quickreply), and on the reply page. It would say something like: Only feed entries from the last 14 days are displayed on Dreamwidth. Comments left on feed entries will not be saved after the entry is gone.

(People using quickerreply from their reading pages probably wouldn't have that notice visible.)

Users would be given enough information to decide for themselves whether to try to leave their comment on the source, or whether it's more appropriate for the comments on the feed. It could feel unnecessary or annoying to users who are already aware, and would introduce another little delay for screen reader users to try to skip over.


(If implemented cleverly, this could possibly be reused to support comment policy notices for communities and personal journals.)

Poll #16990 Expiration warning for feed account comments sections

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 48

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
40 (83.3%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
3 (6.2%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
0 (0.0%)

(I have no opinion)
5 (10.4%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[marahmarie]

Is it due to lack of server space that only the last 14 days of posts are kept around?

[azurelunatic]

No.

Even gregariously inclined people who like to be widely read tend to frown on random websites outside their control making permanent publicly available copies of all their works. Some of them have lawyers.

The 14 day number aligns with the lifespan of the reading page.

[marahmarie]

Do all feeds expire in this same manner - and if so, is that for the same reason? Meaning web browser RSS feeds, websites dedicated to serving feeds, etc. I'd never thought of the copyright issue before. Except I did. I had my Wordpress blog here as a feed years ago and stopped the feed (if I recall right) because I was frustrated by the fact that no more than the most recent posts were indexed/available for that short length of time.


I'd think if a feed were explicitly marked as a feed it'd be OK to be able to browse back without anyone getting all "Oh that's my work you've got there" on anyone. The on-journal Atom and RSS feeds let you - don't they? (Now I can't recall if they're just two weeks back, too...*sigh*)

Just checked and yeah, no, those feeds just do the last however many recent posts...

[msilverstar]

I very much support warnings, I assumed that DW feed entries with comments stuck around like other entries. Please warn!

[sharpiefan]

Wouldn't it be possible to have a warning show up in the drop-down reply box when replying to a feed entry directly from your reading page?

I don't reply to feed entries per se myself, preferring to go to the original off-site entry to reply, but I can see that other people might, and I think in those cases such a warning would be useful.

[kaberett]

Oooh, I like that -- like the "Notice: This account is set to log the IP addresses of everyone who comments" warning that shows up in comments to this community, in fact.

[sharpiefan]

Exactly like that, in fact - I'm so used to the IP address being logged warning I didn't even think to use it as an example.

[jazzyjj]

That's what I was thinking too. I have on occasion replied to feeds directly from my Reading page, and I think a notice like that would be very useful. I've noticed that another user frequently replies too, to the NotAlwaysRight entries and those replies make it on here. To be honest I wasn't really expecting to see this suggestion for some reason, don't know why. But I got up early anyway to empty my bladder and check on a possible issue in my bathroom, and then I came online.

[montanaharper]

^ This.