Separate comments feeds for different post listings views?

post by Said Achmiz (SaidAchmiz) · 2018-10-02T16:07:22.942Z · LW · GW · 3 comments

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3 comments

(Inspired by discussions like this one [LW(p) · GW(p)], but also a thing that I’ve thought for a while would be a good idea.)

Currently, there’s a single “recent comments” feed, which includes comments posted to any post—frontpage, Meta, personal blogs, Alignment Forum… even drafts! (The last of which, I assume, is merely a bug.)

It would be cool if there were multiple comments feeds, one for each view, viz.:

  1. Recent comments on all posts
  2. Recent comments on frontpage posts only
  3. Recent comments on Alignment Forum posts only
  4. Recent comments on Meta posts

It’s probably a lot of work for you guys to implement a UI for this, so I can totally understand it not being priority, but would it be possible to implement this feature in the backend and expose it in the API?

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comment by habryka (habryka4) · 2018-10-03T19:00:07.272Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Note: The comment link in the post seems broken from LW. Maybe that's a GreaterWrong specific link syntax, but LW uses hashtags with comment ids, instead of a /comments/<commentId> syntax.

Yep, API wise this should be relatively straightforward, though it will require doing some database mutations, so it might take us a bit longer than usual. In particular, we don't know from just looking at a comment whether the post it was posted to was on the frontpage, or in meta, or anywhere else, so we will have to add some additional metadata there.

Replies from: SaidAchmiz, Elo
↑ comment by Said Achmiz (SaidAchmiz) · 2018-10-03T20:20:08.893Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Note: The comment link in the post seems broken from LW. Maybe that’s a GreaterWrong specific link syntax, but LW uses hashtags with comment ids, instead of a /​comments/​<commentId> syntax.

Ah yes, sorry; /​comments/​<commentId> is the GW URL pattern for individual-comment-thread permalinks (like on old LW).

Yep, API wise this should be relatively straightforward, though it will require doing some database mutations, so it might take us a bit longer than usual. In particular, we don’t know from just looking at a comment whether the post it was posted to was on the frontpage, or in meta, or anywhere else, so we will have to add some additional metadata there.

Ah, I see, thanks. Well, whenever you are able to get to it, this would definitely be appreciated!

↑ comment by Elo · 2018-10-03T20:17:03.311Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Actually I like and use the mixed comment feed.

I'd like an, "ancient comment feed" for any posts older than a year. So that those can get some. Responsive activity.

I would not be against separate feeds as well, so long as we don't lose the mixed feed.