Poll: Blogs, Entries, Posts, Comments, or Replies

[jesse_the_k]

When I prepare to publish something here, I think "I'm writing a post." When my gentle readers respond to what I've written, I think "they're making comments." Yet the official Dreamwidth vocabulary is not so straightforward. These are the things that keep me up at night!

To publish the current item, I tapped the "Post" link on the navigation bar. The next screen is called "Create Entries," yet the final action button is called "Post a $securitylevel Entry." With each entry I control who responds with "Comment" settings, yet the relevant FAQ talks about "replies."

One of Dreamwidth's quirkier features is how you can customize much of the user interaction texts https://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/options?group=text My favorite example is sovay, who titles the Comment/Reply function "Performable Epic."

Poll #20999 What Do YOU Call It?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44

View Respondents

When you visit this platform, what are you reading?

View Answers

A blog
6 (14.0%)

A journal
22 (51.2%)

A Dreamwidth
6 (14.0%)

A diary
1 (2.3%)

@jesse_the_k's stuff
2 (4.7%)

Will explain in comments
6 (14.0%)

The basic unit of communication on Dreamwidth is

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a post
32 (72.7%)

an entry
11 (25.0%)

a squee
0 (0.0%)

a topic
0 (0.0%)

a moan
0 (0.0%)

Will explain in comments
1 (2.3%)

When you're moved to respond after you're done reading whatever the previous item is called, are you making a

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comment
42 (97.7%)

reply
0 (0.0%)

response
0 (0.0%)

big deal about nothing
0 (0.0%)

Will explain in comments
1 (2.3%)

How does this poll strike you?

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irrelevant
2 (4.8%)

fanciful
16 (38.1%)

ticky box
34 (81.0%)

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

I get around that "which comment" ambiguity by turning on the "Explicit Comment Heirarchy Indicators" -- a nifty feature with a terrible name, which I added to Dreamwidth:

https://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/settings/?cat=display

This provides outline numbering/lettering to every comment, so I can always know where I am in the heirarchy.

[sonia]

You added that to dreamwidth? How cool!

If you're set up for dreamwidth development, any chance I could talk you into adding a separate option for greying out/enabling "Everyone" vs. defaulting to "Access only" for a new post??? Pretty please? Happy to do whatever official bug reporting would be needed. As I said, I brought this up years ago and got brushed off, but it's the single most irritating anti-feature I encounter while using dreamwidth.

I like your barcode icon too!

Ah, I misspoke

[jesse_the_k]

I didn't ADD it, I suggested it, and whined about its implementation.

If I could do perl development, I would be all over this stuff. The only programming I ever did was Excel macros, in the 20th century.

So--go to dw-suggestions and make the case for it! I'll back you up.

Re: Ah, I misspoke

[sonia]

Perl? Ohgod, I thought it was php... Anyways, I looked into the dw-suggestions, and I'll let you know when I've posted a suggestion.

PS: Congrats on making a cogent accessibility suggestion and getting it implemented. I need to think about how to advocate for a change I think should be obvious...