Allow comment emails to truncate the body and show the message for long posts

[florahart]

Title:
Allow comment emails to truncate the body and show the message for long posts

Area:
notifications

Summary:
DW allows a much longer post than other similar sites. Gmail (and maybe other services) thinks comments to such posts makes messages that are too long, so it decides what to truncate. I want to be who decides that.

Description:
When a post is longer than some limit, emailed comments fail to work tidily. In Gmail specifically--and maybe in other services--the comment and the links to the entry get cut off in favor of showing the first X amount of the body of the entry to which the comment is made, and instead there's a link to see the full message text. I have to then open that link in order to A. see the comment, and B. see the other links that come with notifications, such as view all comments to this, answer this, view this thread. So basically the notification doesn't tell me anything except there IS a comment, and then if I want to see what that comment IS, I have to open the message, click a link, wait for a separate tab to load, and THEN if I want to go to the entry to reply, click ANOTHER link and wait for a tab to load, which is just annoying.

This doesn't come up enormously often for me, but it does irritate me about to death when it does. I want to be able to control this behavior myself, and I don't think I can do it from the Gmail end (and also, I don't want to change my Gmail settings for all other messages anyway).

I'm envisioning something in the notifications tab that is an enable/disable ticky, maybe? Where the behavior I can enable is something like, if the total post-plus-comment length of an email notification is greater than X*, truncate the body of the post in the notification in order to ensure the comment appears in the email.

*X being maybe something like the max size of an LJ post, although as long as we are truncating content, it could possibly be quite a bit less than that. I imagine in most cases the first thousand words would be totally sufficient for me to understand what was being commented at. Where Gmail cuts off is maybe somewhere around half again the LJ-post max--I get back about 14,000 words before it cuts off.

So what I'm envisioning is, the notification would be an email that instead of going

20,000 words of body
link to entire body plus comment and other links

would go

The first X words of the post content
a note that says the body text has been truncated
the comment and links

Poll #3463 Allow comment emails to truncate the body and show the message for long posts

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 51

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
30 (58.8%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
4 (7.8%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
3 (5.9%)

(I have no opinion)
11 (21.6%)

(Other: please comment)
3 (5.9%)

Comments

[cesy]

Only if this is an option and we can choose to keep the old behaviour.

Last time a similar issue with Gmail truncation was discussed, lightgetsin pointed out that you can't expand a truncated version in Gmail basic view, which is an accessibility problem with Gmail.

Various people suggested having comments before the entry rather than after the entry as an option, but I think it was rejected on grounds of option bloat, as a lot of people also like the current behaviour.

[florahart]

Sure, hence the suggestion that it be a ticky to enable.

Also, I think that if you can't expand something in basic view, that argues FOR this, since as it stands you HAVE to more or less expand something to see the comment. Also, just for fun I just went and changed my gmail to basic view and with that I cannot even *open* the message I got this morning on such an entry. Crashes Firefox to try. Bah.

[ratcreature]

+1
I'm not militantly anti-option, so I wouldn't mind that additional option. Especially as this keeps coming up. But I am very attached to getting the full entry (even if it is novella length) in my email, as that is central to how I use that function, and I'd loathe to loose that.

[florahart]

I like getting the full entry. But, I mean, if I'm not going to get the full entry anyway, I'd rather control which part I get, like, you know, the part I don't already have. Heh.

[ratcreature]

That's a gmail problem though. The mail is still complete. And you can even read it in gmail if you view the source, iirc.

[matgb]

But if you're on a phone browser...

Yes, it's essentially a Gmail issue, but it's also a bandwidth issue for anyone on measured bandwidth (I am when out of the house).

An option to not have the part you've already sent would be good, especially if it's only an option.

[telophase]

Agree, especially for phone browsers. Trying to read comments on emails that contain many lines of quoted text results in RSI as I try to scroll, scroll, scroll. (and avoiding accidentally clicking on any links in the post? Oy.)

Perhaps an option to not send the post text, or to place the post text below the comment and links (which doesn't solve the measured-bandwidth problem, but solves *my* particular phone problem)?

[eruthros]

+1

I like getting the whole entry with a comment; I don't mind the option/other behavior, but I don't want to lose that.

[turlough]

+1

I definitely would only want this implemented as an option. It isn't DW's problem really, it's Gmail that's fucked up so ideally it should be they who had to do something about it.

[kyrielle]

+1, but I'd add this new option should be opt-in so behavior is not changed for anyone unexpectedly.

[starwatcher]

.
I didn't know this could be a problem, but the suggestion sounds reasonable... especially since posts that are >10K will probably be my fic, or a really intense feminist post. I don't need to scroll through either multiple times to reach the new comment.

I like the ticky-box idea, to be used only when the user thinks it necessary.
.

with changes

[noracharles]

As previously suggested, ticky box to reverse order of comment and quote of entry being commented to. It would be nice to have a reverse comment/entry order ticky box on each individual entry, or in the "comments" drop down menu.

[briarwood]

Variations on this have been suggested before and they are always rejected. As much as I love that the DW admins listen to their users, on this they aren't listening.

To me it's a no-brainer: the point of a comment notification is to see the damn comment. Yes, it's lovely to get a copy of the post, but that isn't the purpose of the notification. So if something's going to get cut, it should be the post.

This isn't just a Gmail issue - have you ever tried scrolling through a 50k email just to see the comment someone's posted on your fic, using a mobile phone? If the phone's capable of downloading the entire mail, scrolling down and down and down takes so long it's not worth it.

So for what it's worth, I vote yes. Again. Please do something so that comment notification emails do what they're supposed to do. This will work just as well as the earlier suggested solutions.

[damned_colonial]

+1

[torachan]

I recently had this happen to me and it was so frustrating. I just ended up deleting comments unread whenever I saw they were coming from that entry, and just going to read the comments on the site.

Frankly, it's a pain even with long entries that aren't truncated. I want the comments, not the entry. I would prefer it, actually, if I could just get like the first paragraph or so, so I can see what entry they're replying to. That way I don't have to page down a bunch of times to see the comment.