The only other thing I can think of is to maybe let us be able to put pictures in the comments, although that’s the most risky idea of mine, I could easily see that going in a bad direction, even if there were restrictions put on inapropriateness and such. While on the other hand, it could also prove useful. Hmmm.. maybe it would be better to just stick to posting links of the pictures in question. Oh, and is there a complete, simple list of every DI article somewhere?

Boy I hope somebody might still be stickin’ around to read this…”

Yes! You are amazing, these are great ideas. (Forgive my editing of your comment,plz.) I would love to be able to pop in a few smilies or emotion thingies, that could be fun; huh? And like your pie you tried to bake above ;) we could just pop in a little pic instead ya know. Kool like ade!

Yeah that would definitely be useful. A method of browsing past DI articles, where they can be arranged chronologically or alphabetically would be a very useful way of finding particular articles to complement the search and section functions.

A list such as this with a number next to each articles title showing the comment number is what I was envisaging when I said:

Or maybe if there was a page we could see with a table that lists all the articles and when they were last commented upon.

I agree with that last comment by Mez, in terms of the comment preview thingy… it does continually freak people out (although I thought I remembered once seeing it having been fixed some time ago, hmm). Anyway, what would also be nice is to be able to put spaces in front of new lines of text. That way, people can indent paragraphs, etc.

I think that the comments update thing could be really neat, but a page with ALL of the articles and when the last comment appeared would be a little difficult to keep track of, as opposed to the twenty or so previous comments menu. In addition to that menu there could be some other things as well. Forinstance, I know that once a new article comes out, it rakes up comments lickety split, quickly eliminating any comment placed elsewhere that might be represented in the list… so maybe there could be either another button showing a more extensive list of the last fifty or so comments given OR OHH OOH! EVEN BETTER than the last twenty comments idea (and what would help out the quick elimination due to new articles thing) would be to have a menu that, instead of showing the twenty most recent comments and their location, would show the past two or three days worth of comments and their location. I’ll put these two ideas together here for people to ponder over which they prefer.

The other addition to the comments update thing is to maybe have an option to keep an ‘eye’ on certain members’ comments. This could help in a number of ways. First of all, I know that a few select members here continually post the most (hey that rhymes) fascinating comments and intriguing questions. A few members here always have coments that I enjoy reading. If there could be a list of where those individuals have posted their last twenty comments, then I could continually enjoy their input.———The other way this could help is a little less fun. Forinstance, I understand that in the Norwegian dog article, someone (I won’t say who) posted an ad for World of Warcraft, I believe. I’m not sure how well you guys in the background of DI keep an eye on comments posted in old articles, but this tool might help with making sure that none of that crap shows up anywhere you might have missed.

Along with those suggestions (wow, I’m really churning out a lot of ideas here) is something that I noticed in a chat room (which wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. Kind of a compliment to the amazing forums idea). In that chat room, there was an option to ‘ignore’ certain individuals who you were just tired of reading their stuff (it might be the most pointless thing here, not to mention difficult to work around if you did integrate the #ing comments thing and whatnot)… just putting it out there. Oh, and *this could be a cool thing to do* is to make it so that you could put in a comment that would only be visible to certain people. Obviously this comment wouldn’t fit into to numbering system either. (wow I’m getting really sick of the word ‘comment’). It would be kind of like an e-mail, messaging, or “private commenting” system right inside of DI.

The only other thing I can think of is to maybe let us be able to put pictures in the comments, although that’s the most risky idea of mine, I could easily see that going in a bad direction, even if there were restrictions put on inapropriateness and such. While on the other hand, it could also prove useful. Hmmm.. maybe it would be better to just stick to posting links of the pictures in question. I’ll leave this paragraph up for the scrutiny of fellow commenters.

Oh, and is there a complete, simple list of every DI article somewhere?

Boy I hope somebody might still be stickin’ around to read this…

Yeah I’ve got no idea how easy/difficult or bandwidth-consuming this would be, but it would definitely make commenting more user friendly. I’ve managed to work some minimal html tags to format my posts with bold, emphasis and quote, but the list of other html tags that pop up in the window that tells me I’ve made an html mistake suggests there are further secrets for me to unravel.

Perhaps the tiniest of things here could be to have a small number next to each individual comment to show what number comment they are on the list (that might help when someone is referring to certain comments or are just looking for one they remember reading).

I agree. This would be extremely useful for both the reasons that Misfit mentions, as well as for returning to where I left off reading the comments to article with many comments.

Oh and I’ll bet it would be nice to have a small button somewhere where people can pull down a menu and see where the 15? 20? or even 25 most recent comments have been located.. I know I’m worried (especially here) that when I put a comment in an article that’s even two or three articles old, it won’t get read. If there were some way for people to see that a new comment has arisen in ANY article’s comment section, it would make it much much easier for it to be recognized.”

Or maybe if there was a page we could see with a table that lists all the articles and when they were last commented upon. Since so many new people are continuously discovering the wonder and joy that is DI, and it is often hard to resist commenting, even on a very old article, this would allow us to see at a glance if our post is still the most recent. (When I discovered DI I spent several weeks going back through all the old articles, and occassionally commenting, so I’m particularly interested in being able to check easily if someone else retracing that well-worn journey of fascination has anything to add to my very belated comments.)

Or perhaps an even better idea is if we could subscribe to certain articles so that we get an email alert with every new post. If this would cost too much bandwidth, maybe such subscriptions could be limited to articles that are no longer on the first page or two.

Keep up the excellent work Alan et al! I believe your integrity and constant desire to improve are strong influences on the overall culture that has developed here, including the usually respectful, relevant and insightful comments posted.

Pie Hater! Quickly guys, throw your pies at him!

Alan Bellows said: “We do hope to add something forum-like as soon as we have a little time. It’ll be a big project to integrate it into the site, but it would be spiffy.”

Very spiffy, since we’ll be able to talk to each other besides responding to your DI articles.

https://www.damninteresting.com/?page_id=317

You can also suggest a story/article here:
https://www.damninteresting.com/?page_id=350

And you can see the profiles of the other writers at the About Us page.

Happy Thanks Giving (USA) every one! May your plates, and hearts be full this season.

Oh, and maybe perhaps have a couple more writers on staff? Just a thought. I’ve noticed that the current writers, Alan and Jason especially, have been working their asses off to get much of the articles that we’re seeing lately. And yes, I know that the process of getting new writers itself requires the strength of a lumberjack, but it might pay off in the end, who knows? Just puttin’ it out there.

Hopefully someone will read this, I know it’s been almost a day since anyone’s written a comment in here, and I should know; I wrote the comment previous to this one!

If I think of any more ideas, I’ll let you know.