Comment Pages: Announcements, Discussion, And Goat-Punching

[nookiepowered]

Hi, folks. We have some breaking news for you, so hold on to your mountie hats: Livejournal has worse design, usability, and customer service than Portalocity!

It's a shock to us, too, so we'll give you a minute to get your breath back.

Right, on to the pertinent information: LJ rolled out their new sitewide comments page in the middle of the night last night. This is the page you see if you have custom comment pages turned off -- like almost every RPer on LJ -- or if you're not logged in at all.

The new version, though it has a few new useful features, also breaks the heck out of comment organization and makes RP as we do it almost impossible. (It also screws up anonmemes/kinkmemes, among other fannish pursuits.)

Problems

• The ability to add subject lines in comments is gone (on purpose)





• The ability to see already-existing subject lines is gone (on purpose). They've been included as bold text down in the body of the comment so the data isn't lost, but don't appear when comments are collapsed.





• The "Parent" link is gone.





• The "Thread" link is also gone, but at least you can still get that URL by right-clicking the "Expand" link and copying or opening it in another tab.





• The text drop-down list for choosing an icon is gone, replacing it with a forced visual browse of all your icons





• Currently that includes inactive icons (your paid account or extra icon packages lapsed), without telling you they're inactive - if you choose one, it will post with your default icon instead. (This one is probably a bug that will get fixed.)





• If you choose an icon that has more than one keyword -- like the icon I'm posting with, which is both "eating (this is...not good)" and "w/Kenzi (food)" -- the comment will post with your default icon instead. (This one is also probably a bug that will get fixed.)





• The browse box is in the order you uploaded the icons, because that's useful, and the search box for it is case-sensitive, so if you type in the name, good luck remembering whether you capitalized or not





• Various parts and functions of the page won't load or work at all for various people, in various browsers, or on phones

This comment style is currently unavoidable if you have a free account or you're not logged in.

Workarounds for Now

If you have a paid or plus account, you can go here and change the "Disable customized comment pages for your journal" setting to No, to see your own pages in whatever style you're currently using for your journal. Most of these have subject lines, parent links, and the text-drop-list for icons. E-mail notifications sent from comments that have subject lines are (now) working, and thread properly in GMail as usual.

Once you've done that, you can go to Settings and check "View all journals and communities in my own style." This will show all comment pages anywhere in your chosen style.

However, many of these styles are buggy, not well-suited for reading lots of text, and designed with fixed widths that squish long comment threads down to the

point
where
they
read like
this...

So stoppedhiding worked up a custom comments style that tries as hard as possible to mimic the old LJ style that we're used to; articletwelve added tweaks that get it even closer, here.

The drawback is that if you choose this, it'll take away your pretty custom layouts for your journal and friendslist. The benefit is that it looks a lot like the old comments page, and almost everything works. The only thing it doesn't quite fix is that screened comments aren't grayed-out (if it's your journal and you can see the screened comments). You have to look at the eye icon, and if it doesn't have the slash across it, it's screened.

We've applied this style to all of the FH communities; you can go here to see it in action. (Unless you already have "View all journals and communities in my own style" set, of course.)

To make this work:

• Again, you have to have a plus or paid account





• Go here and choose "Minimalism" on the left





• Choose the "Georgia" theme and Apply Theme





• Scroll down to "Choose a Page Setup" and choose "2 column, sidebar on left" (there is no sidebar, but you have to choose this layout to make the design work)





• Then "Customize Selected Theme"





• Choose "Custom CSS" on the left





• In the Custom Stylesheet box, paste:
  

   

  
  
  body { font-size:10px; } .sidebar { display:none; } small {font-size:11px !important;} big {font-size:110%;} .content-inner { margin-left:20px !important; overflow:visible; } .content .entry { width:80% overflow:visible; font-family:Verdana, Georgia, serif; } .username {max-width:120px;} h3 { margin-top:0px !important; } .entrymenu a {padding-top:20px !important; }





• Click "Save Changes"

It's not the prettiest layout to read your friendslist in, but the majority of where we interact is in the comments, so you take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and write Jo/Blair femslash.

There's also a layout that includes a sidebar for links/tags/etc. but is otherwise the same. If you'd rather use that, all the instructions are the same, but you paste this in the Custom Stylesheet box:

body { font-size:10px; } .sidebar, .sidebar-inner { width:275px !important; } .sidebar-tags { width:240px !important; } small {font-size:11px !important;} big {font-size:110%;} .content-inner { margin-left:290px !important; overflow:visible; } .content .entry { width:80% overflow:visible; font-family:Verdana, Georgia, serif; } .username {max-width:120px;} h3 { margin-top:0px !important; } .entrymenu a {padding-top:20px !important; }

Some additional workaround options are being collected here in advancing's journal, so check those out if you're interested, as well.

ETA: And here's a way for paid users to view your friendslist in your old style after you've switched to one of the workaround styles.



The Future

Right now, we're sitting tight. This release has been out for less than 24 hours, and the announcement post is already up to 6200 comments of mostly righteous wrath. We don't know whether LJ will roll back any of the changes, or how soon, if so.

It's probably also important to know that they've stated in the main post "We are also planning to create a new S2 commenting style which will appear & function in the same way as the old site scheme commenting page to be included in the near future." We don't know when that near future will be, how close that new S2 style will be to the old one, or whether it will let us keep our personalized journal styles while choosing the custom comment style. (Which we can't do with the workaround styles discussed above.)

We're happy to open the floor to talk about what to do if things don't improve to a useful level, or (wait, where are we again? oh, LJ, right) actually get worse.

We haven't ruled out moving the game to another journaling platform, and we've snapped up the corresponding Dreamwidth names for the FH communities, but if that were to happen, it would be a huge change, one that would need lots of discussion, thought, and time.

One of the biggest issues with such a move would be that while Dreamwidth will import individual journals (though all the linkdrops will link back to LJ), it won't -- yet -- import community entries; we might have to leave all of the existing fandomhigh/dorms/townies/radio/etc. content on LJ. Dreamwidth staffers have reported that they're looking into getting that functional ASAP. (Thanks, apocalipped!)


In conclusion...

We hate this too. We're as frustrated with the update as you are, and we'll keep doing the best we can to make things work. We welcome your thoughts, questions, and suggestions!

[And now the floor, she is open!]

Comments

Questions

[nookiepowered]

QUESTIONS

We shall try to answer them!

Re: Questions

[glacial_queen]

Would it be okay if I linked to this page in public forums so that other, non-FH people can use it to make their journals less horrifyingly offensive? There's a lot of code and links, otherwise I would just c/p.

Alternately, could you send me the code that I can put into my own RL LJ so I can just pass the information out from there?

Re: Questions

[angelo_wings]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for getting the comment pages back to some semblance of sanity.

I hate to mention this, but the only issue (not really issue. comment, maybe?) I have is that doing so means we lose all the other functionality of those journal pages -- like the tags lists, for one. There's really no way to bring any of that back without borking the comment pages, as far as I know, which are way more important, so this is mostly a "dammit, LJ."

Re: Questions

[glacial_queen]

With this new layout, has anyone else lost the ability to link to specific comments in a thread? I'm hovering it over the bar and can track, edit, and delete comments, but I cannot link.

EDIT: NEVER MIND. YOU CLICK ON THE DATE/TIME STAMP. CARRY ON.

Suggestions/Discussion

[nookiepowered]

SUGGESTIONS/DISCUSSION

For the admins, or each other!

Re: Suggestions/Discussion

[wasthecuteone]

Dreamwidth is working on making importing communities possible, possibly even as soon as today.

Just putting that there.

Re: Suggestions/Discussion

[furnaceface]

FWIW, Dreamwidth is saying on their official Twitter feed that they're hoping to get community importing up and functional as soon as today.

(Insert overexcited puppy ass-waggle here. So sorry for jumping the gun on your OCD, that was completely my bad.)

Re: Suggestions/Discussion

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

Thanks for changing the layout temporarily and I completely agree that sitting tight is a good idea until we see how LJ reacts to our rage.

Re: Suggestions/Discussion

[bitten_notshy]

I think we should put off any decision for a week or so to give LJ a chance to try to get its act together.

But if we're going to move, I'd rather we move just before the welcome picnic than possibly have to try to do a major shift mid-semester. (LJ has other changes in the works, and some of them are even less RP-friendly. To some extent, if they don't fix this but we stay, we'll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop.)

A new semester and a new year is a starting over point anyhow, and we tend to have a few slack weeks around the holidays. I think we should make that work for us.

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

Let me just say first off that under almost any other circumstances I wouldn't want to move. I still don't. If everyone wants to and it's deemed less stress and hassle for the game at large, then I won't object; I'm super uncomfortable with the crap going down at LJ right now anyway.

That said, as I've just discovered, DW is blocked on my work servers (why it is and LJ isn't, I have no idea, but these filters make no sense). It'd impact my access personally, which would make me sad personally, but eh. I can deal if a move ultimately turns out to be better for the game.

Either way, I'm completely on board with at least backing everything up at DW, especially if we can get comms imported sometime.

Re: Suggestions/Discussion

[brat_inslayage]

I should note that if, like me, you've been using LJaddons to force all pages to display in light ("Lynx") style, that will now force comments to display in the blechy new style, which is why my comments here have been missing the subject line. Ironically the light style, which I was using to cut down on loading time and bandwidth, now takes longer to load. Figures.

Sooooooo you might want to disable that if you're using it.

ETA: That is to say, if you're appending "?format=light" to the end of URLs.

Goat-Punching

[nookiepowered]

GOAT-PUNCHING

For all your venty, steamy wrath.

I, for instance, know a gnome with a very pointy hat...

Re: Goat-Punching

[furnaceface]

Re: Goat-Punching

[wasthecuteone]

I opened a support ticket for my inability to use the userpics thing about five minutes before I discovered I couldn't even comment and opened a ticket for that, too.

About an hour ago, markf replied to the first ticket with a kindergarten-level explanation of how clicking on the button that did nothing should bring up the userpics menu, and how if it didn't, well, gosh, they've been hearing a lot of reports of that problem but they haven't been able to replicate it! Oh, so I guess if you can't replicate it it doesn't exist? Haaaaaaaaaaate.

Re: Goat-Punching

[selfhelphero]

COMAS FOR EVERYONE. GRRRRRRRRRR.

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

RAGEFACE ICON CONGA LINE.

Re: Goat-Punching

[need-no-moon.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I'm slow. I only now realised you can't link inside a thread anymore. It links to the top comment and collapses the previous comments. That's just awesome. Imagine a thread of 100+ comments and trying to reply.

GRRRRRRRRR!!!!

Pie/Cake/Nanaimo Bars

[nookiepowered]

PIE/CAKE/NANAIMO BARS

For all your less wrathful off-topic needs.

Re: Pie/Cake/Nanaimo Bars

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

*gives you lots of dessert*

You poor guys must have been watching all of this with dread and I KNOW some of you have probably been up since the release trying to figure out how to work around it.

Re: Pie/Cake/Nanaimo Bars

[need-no-moon.livejournal.com]

Oh look! I can type here!

*offers a truffle*

I keep waiting for an OOC thread. Why do I keep waiting for an OOC thread?

Re: Pie/Cake/Nanaimo Bars

[furnaceface]

But seriously, thank you guys all so much for working so hard on this. This was pretty much a kick to the gut for any community-based activity that goes on over LJ at all.

Pie, cake, nanaimno bars, and booze. All for you.

Re: Pie/Cake/Nanaimo Bars

[vanillajello]

/obligatory cake icon

[glacial_queen]

Thanks for getting this discussion post up here. It's definitely too early for making any big changes or decisions, but knowing that we can, as a game, make some together has me feeling a lot better.

...Part of me is just going, "YAY SOMEONE IN CHARGE IS LISTENING TO US!" even if the people I'm now referring to are only in charge of a game and are users themselves.

Re: Pie/Cake/Nanaimo Bars

[wasthecuteone]

Yeah, seriously, thank you. I know you're users too and we're all in this boat together but your comment this morning after I'd been running around just trying to get the ability to comment back half the night made me feel like, "THANK GOD, SOMEONE IS LISTENING TO ME."

Re: Pie/Cake/Nanaimo Bars

[dollpocalypse]

Holy crap, this workaround is fantastic. Speaking as someone who is teeeeerrible with coding and whatnot no matter what the icon indicates, this was hugely helpful. THANK YOU SO MUCH. YOU GUYS ARE ROCKSTARS.

...and sorry for failing with the OCD. I CAN DO THINGS, I SWEAR.