Comment titles shouldn't stick when switching which comment you respond to

[steorra]

Title:
Comment titles shouldn't stick when switching which comment you respond to

Area:
Commenting

Summary:
When I change which comment on an entry I'm replying to, it shouldn't keep "Re:[original.comment.title]" as its title.

Description:
There is an entry. There are comments on the entry. Comment A has no title. Comment B is titled "XYZ".

I click 'reply' to Comment B. My reply automatically gets the title "Re: XYZ". This is expected and appropriate behaviour.

I end up not submitting the reply to Comment B, and decide that instead I will respond instead to Comment A. I click 'reply' to Comment A. My reply, now under Comment A, keeps the title "Re: XYZ", even though the comment it's responding to has no title. This is unexpected and I think non-ideal behaviour.

When I initially submitted this as a bug report, foxfirefey pointed out that a fix should "carefully note to ONLY replace the title if it was the same as the automatic one, so as to not wipe out a user entered title."

(I am not completely sure if this is true; if the user-entered comment text "sticks" when you switch to commenting on a new entry, a user-entered title probably should too; but if switching which comment you reply to clears the text field, the title should probably be cleared too. I don't remember how this works.)

Poll #5603 Comment titles shouldn't stick when switching which comment you respond to

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 52

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
34 (65.4%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
2 (3.8%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
2 (3.8%)

(I have no opinion)
14 (26.9%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

carefully note to ONLY replace the title if it was the same as the automatic one, so as to not wipe out a user entered title."

I vote yes only if it does this. I don't want to have to rewrite my subject when I realize I'm replying to the wrong comment.

if switching which comment you reply to clears the text field, the title should probably be cleared too. I don't remember how this works.

If you're on the same page, switching comments doesn't clear the text field.

[arethinn]

Personally I hate comment subjects because they populate the subject of notification emails, rather than saying "Reply to your comment" or "Reply to a comment" - that is, I can't tell just by looking at the subject line whether it's a direct reply to me or to someone else. But I agree that if you switch target reply-to comment without submitting, the subject chould be changed to the subject of the comment you've changed to, whether that's blank/default or some other user-entered text.

[sophie]

I agree with your first sentence. In fact, I bet enough people agree that this would be worth making it a separate suggestion to allow the subject to say that sort of thing.

(In fact, I don't think personally that comment subjects are even really that useful - most uses I've seen of it haven't been for subjects at all, but for additional commentary. I wouldn't be at all heartbroken if the comment subject was just scrapped, myself, but I understand that might not be the case for everybody.)

[matgb]

See, my take is close to the opposite. I've seen comment subjects used well more than once, have tried to use them well myself on posts I know to be busier (news posts, for example), and would actually like some way of encouraging their proper use, although my mind is blank as to what.

If used correctly, they can be a massive help, especially on busy posts.