Single comment freezing

[azurelunatic]

Title:
Single comment freezing

Area:
entries: comments: freezing, community administration, moderator powers

Summary:
Optionally disable replies to a single comment without affecting the comments below it.

[Edit: afuna suggested that this could maybe be done by freezing a comment at the "problem" point, then unfreezing threads below it. I tested that and it works. Now the problem is UI and/or documentation. ]

Description:
Occasionally an intense comment thread breaks out, intense enough to make you decide that a certain comment needs no more replies. Sometimes the whole thread is going nowhere fast, and the current ability to freeze the whole thread from that comment on down is just the thing.

Sometimes the comment thread has recovered its civility and is being productive further on down, but the comment or small handful of comments that started the problem are still posing a problem.

It would be nice to also be able to disable replies to (freeze) a single comment without affecting its child comments, though it would also be a good idea to then be able to later change your mind and freeze the whole thread if you overestimated everyone else's ability to behave themselves.

The social impact of this would appear to be little to no harm, and possible considerable benefit.

Technically, I have no idea how freezing is carried out, and it might be non-trivial to implement.

Poll #2107 Single comment freezing

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
19 (63.3%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
5 (16.7%)

(I have no opinion)
4 (13.3%)

(Other: please comment)
2 (6.7%)

Comments

[ratcreature]

I think this would be complicated to click and choose. As it is I have trouble to remember all the fiddly buttons (that of course look different here than on LJ). There is delete, freeze, screen, track, that selection ticky box that is there for something I have never used (and I'm actually not even sure what this does, is there some mass editing button somewhere I'm not seeing?). I don't want the standard freeze behavior to change, so there would need to be another button for this single freeze, with yet another symbol I would need to remember.

[afuna]

Can you freeze a comment thread, and then unfreeze a specific comment thread below it?

[azurelunatic]

The ticky is for the mass-action dropdown at the bottom of the page, which is sometimes useful for a bajillion spam comments or unscreenables/screenables when the ajax stuff is being slooow.

[azurelunatic]

Let's just test that.

[azurelunatic]

I guess you can!

[triadruid]

"Other" because with afuna's idea, it becomes just a documentation issue.