How Facebook ruined comments (at least for me)

Google+ does this too, except for top-level articles. My office was using G+ to share articles and status updates, but Google seems to have gone out of their way to make that as frustrating an experience as possible. There's no chronological view anymore, and sometimes it just doesn't show articles from some people unless you go directly to their profile.

We've had the same issue on our page (VLC 93000+ likes), and we really thought it was a bug: the reply was above the question...<p>We tried to remove and redo the comments, but it always ended like that.<p>I'm glad to not be alone :)

Commenting online is an afterthought, and it is really sad to me why this is so. Disqus and Livefyre are what most people use, but they have a ton of room for improvement. Some might say that they are doing really well, which would be true; however, there is hardly any competition, so anything Disqus and Livefyre do will be perceived as well, or simply, good enough.<p>I've been working on a way to redo commenting in my spare time, and I would like for it to become a thing. My idea consists of synced comments, an RSS like feed, a one column design (no threaded comments!) with expanding and minimizing replies, and a currency connected with real money that people can use to tip one another. I know it sounds far fetched, and it is, but I truly believe that commenting should be given saliency if writing and publishing online is going to move forward.<p>The next step is making my designs and ideas into a reality, however, I don't know how to code. I'm seeking someone who does, and in the meantime, I am teaching myself how to get starting with programming. The thing is, I could spend the next 1-2 years of my life learning how to code what I want to do when there is someone out there who knows how to do it already.<p>I suppose this comment is also to raise awareness for what I want to do for the future of commenting online. Send me a DM on Twitter @raymondduke if you are interested. I do have a plan to monetize from day one. I'll gladly tell you what I want to do and if you are interested maybe we can start making this happen.

I haven't noticed this myself (and I have the replies feature) so maybe it's just one of many things they're testing with a limited number of users. I agree with the OP though, I don't see how this would be useful for anyone.

Threaded comments are a good thing. This seems like a UI problem. One suggestion:<p>1) Put the thread reply text field at the top of the comments and show new replies at the top, at least for the user who made the comment.<p>2) Replying anywhere else should require clicking on Reply under that comment.<p>This makes it intuitively clear that thread replies are not replies to a thread comment.<p>This would take users some time to adjust to, but should fix the problem.<p>I know at least one site that does this. Ahem.<p>EDIT: Looking more carefully at the second screen shot, it looks like they did this. Seems like a non-issue in that case. The first screenshot for some reason doesn't have that change. Who knows if they are A/B testing or what. Strange that the OP did not notice this difference.

How can they make a mistake like this? Unless they are aiming to change how people comment on things. That won't happen without an interface change IMO because people are used to the way it was for about 4-5 years..

Yep, this is a huge failure. I've made sure to tell all page admins I know to not enable it.

This is only an issue because the mobile app doesn't have Replies yet. once the mobile apps support it the chronological issue will go away. Relax.

I think it blends in well with the nature of Facebook comments. Most of the comments are quick observations about a post. So it's better to absorb the relevant observations first then continue reading if it sounds interesting. Plus the reply feature fixes any chronological issue.

I've noticed that when I comment on a page and come back later, my comment appears at the top. Now I realize it probably only appears that way to me. That's good, because I was wondering why FB was choosing to highlight the comments that it did.

I think it's a bit like the weather in New England, if its not to your liking you need to go inside and have a cup of coffee and then come back outside, all new weather. :-)

I turned it on for a ~75k page and regret it. Does someone know if it can be disabled? I did not find anything in the settings.

HN has the same problem (comment threads get reordered to put the "best" first, so it's very hard to tell what you have and haven't already read), but we seem to be ok with it.

I find it annoying that I still have to click 'load comments' several times in order to find my own.