Feed Ghost Comments

[jjhunter]

Title:
Feed Ghost Comments

Area:
Feeds

Summary:
Ability to read grayed out/'ghosted' comments from original post via corresponding DW feed post.

Description:
One drawback to using feeds on DW to track posters on other sites is the additional energy barrier to reading the whole conversation, i.e. the comments. If 'ghosts' of public comments on the original post could be imported to the corresponding DW feed, one would be much more likely to participate in the conversation, i.e. go post a comment at the original.

By comment 'ghosts,' I mean comments visually/audibly presented as non-interactive and non-native to DW. Visually, this could be indicated by faded, greyscale reproductions of the original comments, moving icons/in-text graphics 'frozen,' etc.

Possible complications: Ethics/privacy issues would probably require permission from original poster. Perhaps link an automatic permission request to creation of DW feed?

Tools in the same family: comment importing (e.g. when importing journals), accepting x-posts from other sites

A parallel possibility: set up a comment counter for each feed post that counts the comments on the original post. This at least raises awareness about conversations one might be missing.

Poll #2558 Feed Ghost Comments

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
2 (5.7%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
2 (5.7%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
24 (68.6%)

(I have no opinion)
6 (17.1%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (2.9%)

Comments

[charmian]

I think that this has a lot of potential to cause drama and bad feelings, because at least according to LJ policy, comments are the property of the commenter and not of the journal owner. (DW's policy is that since all imported comments are openID comments, the original commenter is empowered to delete them) Also, I'm not sure how this would be technically implemented, as LJ doesn't give out RSS feeds of comments to individual entries.

It would perhaps be much easier to do this in Wordpress or MT style blogs, though, because IIRC there the comments have RSS feeds.

[jjhunter]

Thank you for your feedback. I do find the parallels between importing journals with comments and potentially importing comments to corresponding feed posts interesting--the difference seems to center on who the owner of the blog is, how ethically similar an owner's copy of his or her original blog is to a feed given his or her blessing, how active the conversation is on the post in question, whether commenter(s) are aware of the duplication and their right to delete, whether they are given a choice to dual comment initially, etc.

But yes, potentially quite drama-inducing. And it would create extra work for commenters at the other sites who don't want their comments exported, which would then create bad feelings towards DW. Both would definitely be of the bad; I very much appreciate your insights on that front.

Do you think a comment counter at the bottom of each feed post that counts the comments on the original post would be a useful/desirable feature? How difficult would that be to implement?

[denise]

There's already a bug to add comment count in outgoing RSS feeds (ie, add them to the feeds DW is offering). Comment count on incoming RSS feeds is insanely difficult due to that information not being standard in the RSS spec.

[jjhunter]

Would it be possible to link the post RSS to the comment RSS on the DW feeds for blogs that offer both?

[charmian]

As I recall, what DW did in that department was also controversial in certain quarters. However, if there is no way for commenters to delete these 'ghost comments' then it is definitely inconsistent with the rules DW has set for itself. (I'm also not sure how DW WOULD cause these comments to appear, because they aren't part of an RSS feed)

It would be, but as I understand things, it would need to be implemented by the originator of the feed; i.e., Livejournal itself. In other words, LJ would need to start including information about comment counts in its RSS/ATOM feeds. [I'm not a coder and my technical knowledge is not that high, but AFAIK, that's the way it works] Now, I know some other softwares (like Wordpress) DO include comment counts in their feeds, so maybe DW would be able to show that info.

[sashajwolf]

I didn't have much sympathy with the people who were upset by comment-importing, but it caused sufficient drama that I think it would be better not to add fuel to the fire.

[jjhunter]

Thank you for your feedback.

[ratcreature]

The counter would be useful. Maybe the comment link of the feed could get you to the original site? I've always found it puzzling that feeds had comments enabled here, where the original poster won't see them.

[jjhunter]

Thanks for your feedback--having the comment link take one to the original post's comment form (where one can see the other comments and reply directly to the original posts) is a much, much better idea than my original.

[kyrielle]

I think this would be the way to go if it's done. Some sites don't have, or don't indicate, the actual comment page, but in that case the link of the item itself could be used. Or just remove the Comment link itself and put only the link to the original source at the bottom and let them sort out the resultant UI on the target site.

[yvi]

One drawback to using feeds on DW to track posters on other sites is the additional energy barrier to reading the whole conversation, i.e. the comments.

I don't really see the difference in energy between clicking on Dreamwidth's comment link and the link on top of a syndicated post that takes you to its source.

[jjhunter]

'Perceived' energy barrier, I should say. Peoples' brains work in funny ways. I don't think of myself as lazy per se, but I have noticed that I'm much more likely to comment on a 'native' DW post than I am on a post that requires going through a feed.

Fundamentally, it isn't a matter of effort--just a question of whether there's an extended conversation going on that would draw me (and, I presume, others) into commenting. denise says that it would be "insanely difficult" to implement a comment counter on an incoming RSS due to the usual type of RSS spec, so importing comments in real time may only be an academic question.

ratcreature suggested upthread a comment link on the DW that would take one directly to the comment form for the original post--thus showing both the original comment context and circumventing that irrational hesitation mentioned above.