How do you follow threaded comments?

May 20, 2014 4:50 PM

On sites like Captain Awkward or The Toast, I would really like to be able to follow the comments. But I can never tell which ones are new since I last read them. What tricks do people have? Livejournal at least marks comments as new.
posted by jeather to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

On sites with comment permalinks (it appears the Toast is one) I just click the permalink of the last comment I read, and leave the tab open. I use Chrome, so the next day when I open the browser, it opens on that comment and I can just read down. (Bookmarks would do the same thing.)
posted by restless_nomad at 4:56 PM on May 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: But what about earlier comments that get replies which show up above that comment I have permalinked? Your solution works fine for flat comment threads, but I don't see how I can use it to easily see all and only new comments since the last time I read if the comments are threaded.
posted by jeather at 5:01 PM on May 20, 2014

There are drawbacks to threaded comments! I've never seen a discussion system that offers a "show comments posted after my last cookie," which would be wonderful.

Dreamwidth is an Open Source fork of LJ's code, and it offers an "expand all threads" command. By clicking or by default, one gets one HTML page containing all the comments, up to the limit set by the author for comment batching. LJ has reincorporated lots of DW changes, so that might be possible on LJ today' combine that with "show new" and you're getting closer.
posted by Jesse the K at 9:23 AM on May 21, 2014