LemmyNet
Should we fetch and combine comments from cross-posts on the post screen?
Requirements
- [x] This is a feature request and not a bug report. Otherwise, please create a new bug report instead.
- [x] Please check to see if this request (or a similar one) already exists.
- [x] It's a single feature. Please don't request multiple features in one issue.
Describe the feature you'd like
I'd like to get feedback from the other lemmy/lemmy-ui devs, and the lemmy community on whether we should fetch comments from cross-posts, and display them after the current comments on the post screen, like piefed does.
This is a feature a lot of users seem to like, and it wouldn't be too difficult to add. Some thoughts:
Pros
- Shows what other communities are talking about, without having to navigate elsewhere.
Cons
- Could potentially encourage centralizing comments on larger, more active communities, rather than the current one.
- Loss of context: things like community sidebar with rules, and the post body.
We also recently merged a better cross-posts display, which shows the comment counts, so this might not be necessary.
cc @Nutomic @SleeplessOne1917 @matc-pub @dullbananas @mv-gh
My thoughts:
- Display is probably fine in most cases.
- Rivaling sports teams are likely not interested in even seeing each others opinions about some article.
- I can also see issues with people looking at a meme/joke and commenting in a news community.
- Users won't know the rules of the community they're interacting with.
- Moderators likely want control over where and from where comments show up.
I expect that communities need "cross post comment"-reports, an allow/blocklist for communities that show up, and an allow/blocklist for communities where to show up.
This could be enabled only for communities which are specified as related: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/5871
Another possibility is to add a simple boolean local_user setting: show_crosspost_comments that UIs can use to decide this. Then it'd be up to users and not communities being required to link each other.
Users won't know the rules of the community they're interacting with.
This is a good point... at least in lemmy-ui we can show the sidebar for the current community right there.
Some discussion here: https://lemmy.ml/post/36058152
In my opinion, it's a great idea but the devil is always in the details!
I think most of the concerns above, and from that thread could be alleviated by making sure:
- The cross posts are in clearly marked, distinct sections. IE not just a horizontal line, but a clear community header.
- Make sure the different post bod(ies) are shown.
- Make sure the sidebar / rules for the community are visible / expandable.
- Make sure there's a user setting so people can turn this off if they don't want to see it.
Yet another possibility: Show an Expand button on the crosspost view. When clicked it opens the crosspost in a popup window, including post body, comment listing and everything. This way its clear what belongs together, and it doesnt require any new settings. There could also be a button for Expand all that would display merged comments similar to Piefed.
As default behavior, I say no. You mentioned a user-level option, which is fine, but it should default off.
I've long debated adding this as an optional feature to Tesseract, and have decided against it every time. I've renewed the debate since PieFed has this behavior and the world hasn't ended, but have yet to make a decision myself.
The closest acceptable solution I've come up with, which is what I am recommending in this response, is to not ever combine them by default but have a button to "Load related comments from other posts". Then you can apply the rest of your separation / indicators for the crossposted comments. Even then, I still find the idea of merging the comments from different communities a bad idea.
Currently, what I do, is just make it easy to switch between all of the crossposts for that URL.
The problem is desired community separation (even if they're related communities).
Example:
The same article about "Check out this monstrously-sized new truck" gets posted to both c/Cars and c/FuckCars. Both communities are about "cars", but the views on them are going to be very, very different. Combining those by default is just going to cause unwanted drama in both communities.
Example 2: People often prefer one or another current events community due to the moderation policies and/or demographics. If they're related by the topic of "news" and get combined, I may (and don't) want to see comments from certain current events communities due to their moderation policies/demographics. One could block those communities, but that may be too blunt an instrument.
Example 3: It sows user confusion when issuing reports. Each community may have different rules, so it makes reporting content much more confusing for users and moderators may get reports for things that don't violate rules in that community.
As a default behaviour, could this be restricted to communities the user has subscribed to? At the very least, it cuts down the problems massively; your first two examples would presumably not happen in that case. The remaining issue is that a user has subscribed to communities like, say, c/LinuxNews and c/LinuxMemes and the same article gets published to both - the appropriate comments could be quite different in each community. How often this comes up I wouldn't care to guess.
Based on the above feedback (and the fact that we reworked how crossposts are displayed at the top), I'm going to hold off on this for now.
Showing comments from potentially diametrically opposed communities, just because the link is the same, seems like a mistake unless the context you're viewing it from is very clear. Having different contexts on a single page, doesn't seem wanted, or that it might be confusing.
Showing comments from potentially diametrically opposed communities, just because the link is the same, seems like a mistake unless the context you're viewing it from is very clear. Having different contexts on a single page, doesn't seem wanted, or that it might be confusing.
These concerns are much less relevant when showing crosspost comments only from communities which are explicitly marked as related by moderators (https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/5871). Or only for communities which are all followed by the current user.
Based on the examples @asimons04 provided, I'm inclined to close this, as they seem very good reasons to not implement this, and keep cross-post links at the top of the page, but not expand comments. I'd like to hear what others think though.