Re: [Slashcode-development] comment question

[Ask S. G. <cl...@sl...>]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2001 22:53:16 -0700, CertIndex.com Webmaster said:

>  >
>  > *COMMENTSPILL* is the threshhold a user sets so that they can get more
>  > "threads" displayed per page on a story with a large number of comments. Put
>  > simply, if a story goes over <commentspill> comments, then it is automatically
>  > switched to indexed mode.
>  >
>  > Some people prefer this than having to scroll thru 10-20 pages of comments to
>  > see most of the threads.
>  >
>  > Scenario:
>  >
>  > A story is posted that is more popular than normal and it goes over 600
>  > comments.
>  >
>  > User A, with a commentspill set to 500 and preferred post mode of "nested" will
>  > view the article and comments will be displayed in "indexed" mode, instead.
>  
>  Aha, and what is the difference between indexed mode and 'non-indexed mode'? 
>  I looked into this a while ago I believe and I think it only applies to nested 
>  displaytype correct? If so then it's not relevant to us since we only have 'flat' and
>  'threaded', and comments never 'break out' of their thread status and show fully. 
>  Only when they are on the 'comment level' that is being viewed are they shown.

Then you should never see commentspill take effect.

Basically, an 'indexed' display only shows links to a comment. It never shows
that conmment unless the user sets taht comment to "break out" based on score.
Since your site does not do this, commentspill is effectively unused.

Another thing to note...if the "breaking" variable is set low enough, many
users will NEVER SEE their commentspill setting take affect. The highest value
this can effectively be on Slashdot is 49. If it's >=50, it will never happen
because Overload mode will occur first (and a users comment limit will never be
greater than "breaking" / 2, the "breaking" value on Slashdot is 100.

>  
>  >
>  > What I was referring to before was 'Overload Mode'. Slashdot has a "breaking"
>  > variable, which when set, will effectively limit the maxiumum size of a users
>  > CommentLimit setting. Basically if CommentLimit > Breaking, then CommentLimit =
>  > Breaking / 2.
>  
>  Ahh, why / 2 ? Why not just 'ignore' comments after the 'overload mode' threshold is met? 
>  So if you have a story with 1000 comments and you set the 'overload mode' threshold to 500, the >  user only has 500 of the most recent comments to work with. (well i guess unless they display
>  oldest first, which case they'd only have 500 of the oldest comments to work with)

Divided by half for performance reasons. I don't know the reasoning BEHIND
this, but it makes sense if the point here is to save bandwidth. The reason why
comments are not DROPPED is because it is
impolite. If Overload Mode is hit, then comments.pl will attempt to paginate
the comments as best it can so that you don't HAVE to lose the later x portion
that your method would cut out.

Hopefully this brings you closer to enlightenment. I must say I found this
little bit of detective work educational. ;)

- Cliff