Sorry to go off topic. Is it just me or has the page at http://boingboing.net/page/1 stopped listing how many comments there are on a given article? It seems like it is getting harder and harder to enjoy boingboing.
Yeah, you could always get to comments from the front page until recently. Bit of a pain now.
Yes, the comments link, and the post count, on the main page dissipated during the underwhelming site revamp - but in exchange we get a confusing two column front page. Score! (The mobile view is much better and still has a single column sorted by time and date posted.
Two things:
Comments links from post pages themselves are currently missing due to a bug. They’ll be restored soon.
Links to the comments are only absent on the front door when the post isn’t shown in full there. The traditional blog view, though, still needs work.
We’ve found that comments are better when the comment link is placed such that people will have read the post.
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And to be clear, this part was our fault which actually led to a minor BB outage 
apologies, has been fixed!
Then it would seem that the default should be to show the full article when one clicks over to the comments rather than having to click to show full post, especially given that right now the comments link is only at the top of many articles, instead of at the bottom or both.
Also, thanks for noting the move of the comments to this thread in the thread of the post they came from.
I think it’s a shame the article no longer appears at the head of the comment thread, to be honest.
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You’re welcome. It happens automatically. Another little thing that makes BBS pretty darn cool.
Except when Jeff et al fix it too hard and it breaks 
There’s always one in every thread eye roll
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I fix things too hard, like, all the time.
I hear you, but I think with refinement and design tweaks, the way we’re heading will “feel” right.
On the homepage:
• If there’s just an excerpt, send people to read the post.
• If the whole post is on the homepage, send people right to the BBS thread without bothering them with the useless intermediary permalink.
And on posts’ permalink URLS:
• Links to the comments at the bottom only, after y’all have read it and not before.
The pain point is that readers can’t jump to the comments after having just read the excerpt. This is a good thing for comment quality in general, but the fact that the full text and the comments are then on separate pages makes life a little more annoying for people who know they’re gonna comment anyway. They have to click to get to the article, and then have click again to get to the BBS thread.
I figure the best thing for these power users is BBS itself as a complete alternative to the homepage: effectively, you get the full content and the comments in one place.
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The comment links are only unavailable on features. On the short blurb type stories in the left column, the link to comments is on top of the article on the right side of the “social” bar.
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I’m finding the inconsistency of where to find the comments button to be a frustrating interface problem. It shouldn’t matter whether it is a feature or an aggregation blog post or what not. The comments button should always be in the same place, using the same graphic. Consistency is one of the keys to good interface design.
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You’re right. I was reading through the blog and the layout is totally inconsistent, especially with regards to social media. I’m aware that there is some kind of article template for different types of content, but the layouts should be consistent… that it’s so different makes using the site very jarring. Here are screenshots of the “social” section first three articles I see on the blog (skipping over the bbs link):
It’s terribly inconsistent.
Note that the last article is actually rendered in a narrower column than the other articles as well. That’s because this particular type of content has a sidebar that isn’t present in other types of content.
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