Improving Conversation on KDO

I’ve been really pleased with how KDO comments are working lately — you folks have been lively, informative, fun, and pushing conversations beyond what I can individually manage. And the vibe of the threads are more closely matching the vibe of the community guidelines. All good! The one-size-fits-all-ness of social media has its advantages, but some are looking for quieter spaces and more orientation around community and shared sensibilities. Through the comments, KDO has been growing into one of those places.

Note: comment threads on the site are free for everyone to read, but in order to participate, you need to be a KDO member. Join us if you fancy a group chat.

In order to give us a few more tools to facilitate conversations, I’ve been working on some new stuff over the past few days and some of it just went live:

• Improved thread design. More compact (not so much indentation) and better on mobile especially. I feel like some of the spacing isn’t quite right yet, but that’s easy to tweak as I see how it works on real threads. I spent a lot of time trying to get the right mix of simplicity and info into the comment design, so I hope it works.
• Images. You can add images/photos to your replies now — just paste or drag them into the comment editor or use the image button in the toolbar. You get two images per comment. From the community guidelines: “Posting images and embeds (video and audio) should safely err on the side of utility. I love Phillip J. Fry waving a wad of cash and saying ‘Shut Up And Take My Money!’ as much as the next person, but we’re not doing reaction GIFs/images/videos here.” Animated gifs will not work.
• Embeds. Pasting a link to a YouTube video, Vimeo video, or SoundCloud audio on its own line will embed the appropriate player right into your comment. You get two embeds per comment.
• Replies. You can reply to individual comments now. Threading is still only 1 level deep (i.e. there are “top” comments and replies indented under those top comments) but each reply now tracks the comment you’re replying to. (This is difficult to explain! But hopefully easy to understand when you’re looking at a comment thread.)
• Better reply tracking in “latest” and “popular” sorts. When comment threads reach a certain number of comments, you’re able to sort them reverse chronologically or by number of faves. Previously, it was difficult to distinguish “top” comments from replies to comments (which often read as incomprehensible outside of their context). Now, each reply shows a) who it’s in reply to, and b) a snippet of the replied-to comment (which you can click to read in the thread). Again, difficult to explain (we’re firmly into “how the sausage is made” territory here…my eyes are glazing over re-reading this…) but easier to use — I hope!
• Mentions. You can mention another member in a comment. Typing “@” and a couple of characters will bring up a list of members who have been recently active on the site — select the one you want and their name will appear in your comment. Their name will have a dotted line under it and hovering over it will bring up their profile bio (if they have one). I hope this will be useful in referencing and connecting replies in threads (e.g. “I love what Franklin G. said in his comment and will be thinking about Maggie W.’s reply as well…”) and also between threads (e.g. “This reminds me of something Darcy Wong wrote last week…”). You can’t see your mentions on your profile page yet, but I will be adding that soon.
• Reposting social media posts. I’ve been able to do this in threads for quite awhile (here’s a recent example) and I just opened it up for everyone else. Post a public Bluesky or Mastodon link as the only thing in the comment box and it will automagically expand to a repost (including up to two images from the post). No idea if anyone else will use this! But it’s there.

Ok, I think that’s it? At least for the public-facing stuff. I’ve also been tweaking the KDO post editor (Movable Type is now completely out of the loop, RIP to a real one) and it’s getting goooood. I’ve been streamlining the posting process, especially for adding images and doing Quick Links, and it’s really a pleasure to create posts now. More to do on this front as well.

Anyway, feel free to try some of the new stuff out in the comments — I’m hoping this will make conversations easier to follow, both for participants and readers. I’ve got some ideas for further improvements, but I wanted to get these out here for now. As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome! And thanks for your membership support — it means I can spend time making improvements like this.

• kottke.org