ratcreature | another random pet peeve post...

When people link to their journal posts containing stories or art, some link not the "plain" entry, but to the "reply mode" version, i.e. you get an URL with "?mode=reply" at the end, a comment form below, and don't see any previous comments. Also, and that is the main reason why I hate the practice, the title of the browser window will be "Post Comment" rather than the subject line of the entry, which commonly is the LJ name plus the title of the work. I get the idea behind linking to the reply form-- people think it encourages comments to have the comment field right there, but the downside is, one, that if you open links in tabs (like when you click several potentially interesting links on your f-list while scrolling down) you can't see in your tab what you have open to easily click the tab to pick it to read, and two, even more annoying for me, if you bookmark the page you won't get the subject line as link text but will have to edit that link text line manually, and edit the URL manually to get the plain one, though that is quicker as you just have to delete a bit.

I bookmark almost every story I finish reading and tag them. Normally I can highlight the summary, click the bookmark button and get the right link text (provided the author didn't put "yay! fic" or something random in their fanfic subject line, which is another annoyance) plus the highlighted summary as description, and just add the tags, whereas with the reply mode link, I highlight the summary, click the bookmark button, then get the wrong link text, have to edit the URL to get a plain bookmark, click back to the window itself to copy the subject line, click back to the tagging dialog, delete the "Post Comment" link text and paste in the right subject. So it is two clicks, two deletions and one c&p action more effort, which, unless the story or art was very nice, puts me in a frame of mind to skip the commenting this was meant to encourage.

Is anyone else annoyed every time they land on a reply page when clicking a link rather than the journal entry proper?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It irritates the hell out of me. For all the practical reasons that you stated--though for me the main is not being able to see all the comments, since I don't bookmark as much as you do. I love reading the comments of a story I liked. It's sort of a nice come down from the story high. On the less pragmatic side, it just strikes me as rude (I cannot tell the difference between this and "plz read and review!" which is generally considered tacky). Unless I am a complete newbie to lj, I am aware of the comment feature and that feedback is a good thing. The ?mode=reply page has a brilliant reverse psychology effect on me. I don't I've ever ended up commented on a story that gave me a link directly to the post comment page.

Yeah, it has that reverse psychology effect on me as well. I will still comment if I really like something, but it's a mark against it in the complex set of factors that make me comment or not (like my actual reaction, time, mood, whether I know them, whether it's a first time poster I want to encourage, how long ago it was posted, and so on).

I suspect some posters really don't realize that this kind of linking is not helpful on LJ, that it is not like with some archives that have the comment form right below the text.

(I cannot tell the difference between this and "plz read and review!" which is generally considered tacky).

I don't know if there's any way to get past a really irritating pet peeve by thinking about it logically, but just so you know, there's plenty of reasons to link to the page where the comments don't show *besides* wanting more comments. Personally, I hate reading a story, watching the scrollbar move down the screen, thinking I've got plenty of "story" left to go, and then WHAM hitting the end, because the last 1/3 of the page is filled with comments. And for people with slower internet connections, I'm sure it's irritating to wait for a whole comment page full of icons to load.

Personally, I *prefer* reading the story and only the story, most of the time. I don't want to read other people's comments before I leave mine. And I understand that some people do like reading the comments, but... it's not like the author has screened them so you can never ever read them. All you have to do is click "read comments." Is that really so irritating?

Sorry if this comes off as lecturing, but this is a conversation and an attitude that I've seen before, and everyone always gets so judgemental about Those People who are Obviously Demanding Comments and how they're so tacky and grasping and all, and then I'm self-conscious for weeks about linking things-- like, I even link to *other people's stories* with the mode-reply on, because I feel like I'm not linking people to the *comments*, I'm linking them to the *story*, you know? There are reasons people use mode-reply besides "gimme gimme gimme" and it always bugs me when people make an *assumption* about my motives that is not, honestly not the case.

*nods* I actually meant to end my comment by saying, "This is a big pet peeve, and I know it's a pet peeve. And that there's probably more pragmatic reasons involved in doing it than highlighting the comment feature in a way that feels tacky to me. I don't actually click a story and say, 'Wow, I'm not going to comment because this is one of Those Irritating People.' I had intended to say that while this irritates me--and it really does--it's a pet peeve. I don't feel any urge to make statements like, 'And that's why No One Should Do This. Here is the Proper Way.' It's just--it does annoy me. I don't want you to feel any pressure to do it some other if you have good reasons to do it your way. And thanks for pointing those reasons, while I did think there had to be better reasons to do it--because it's not like people new to lj are the only ones who do it--but I hadn't worked out the specific reasoning.

Of course, I didn't say any of that. I couldn't figure out how to say it concisely or clearly, and well, my comment did reflect how I felt about it, so I just left it. Which I think made me sound a lot more up in arms about it.

I have no problem with people wanting comments, and try to do a formatting and presentation that encourages people leaving them. I want comments too, after all. And while I read comments I wouldn't care whether I see what others said first or later, and I don't mind authors linking to offsite copies if they rather have a plainer presentation, but the mode-reply is just so inconvenient for bookmarking.

I have no problem with people wanting comments, and try to do a formatting and presentation that encourages people leaving them. I want comments too, after all.

But... the whole point of my comment was that people *don't just do this to get more comments*. They do it because they like the formatting, or because it's more convenient to load the page, or *download* the page. Maybe *some* people do it for more comments, but like I said above, if there was a way to post a story and have comments-not-showing AND no blatant Gimme Comments Comment Box, I bet people *would use that*. Because it's... not always about the comments. And I get that it's a pain for bookmarking, which is actually something I hadn't thought about before and is actually a good reason to not do that, unlike "People will assume you are tacky" which just makes me want to do it more. ;)

No, that's very true, and I have that same frustration of thinking I have "story left" and then realizing it's just tons of comments... [Oddly as I've been reading some stories lately that are both older and not in my fandom, I feel it more so...probably because I don't think of myself as part of a conversation and really don't care what others thought and how others reacted...]

I also will change to reply when saving a story at times, so I don't waste space with comments I'll never look at...

Also, I apologize if that comment sounded mega-snippy, I don't mean it to be. Sorry. ^_^

another random pet peeve post...

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