I can't think of a title

February 15, 2011 6:05 PM

The My Comments page isn't showing the number of new comments anymore.

Maybe it's just a weird glitch for me, for some reason starting this afternoon, the My Comments page shows threads I've commented in, but not how many posts have been made in that thread since I last looked at it. Was this a deliberate removal of what was a very convenient feature, or did something just bug out somewhere?

posted by kafziel to Bugs at 6:05 PM (14 comments total)

No, we didn't change that page. We have been tuning the way the server handles sessions to deal with the new comment poller feature, and that could change the behavior of the x new comment counts. As the server checks for new comments with the new feature, your connection to MetaFilter is held open longer than before. So it's possible that the while the way you're using MetaFilter hasn't changed, the new poller feature is keeping your session alive longer than before.

Try completely closing your browser and then coming back. That should reset your session.
posted by pb (staff) at 6:09 PM on February 15, 2011

The new comments are named Wildfire, and they run like the wind.
posted by klangklangston at 6:26 PM on February 15, 2011

My answer is a little jargon-y so I'll try to explain a little more. A session is the way a web server identifies you for a block of time. Here's my description of how our server calculates the "x new comments" you see in places like the front page and the My Comments tab on MetaFilter.

In the old way of doing things you might take 15 minutes to read a page and in that time your session times out. Our server says, "oh, kafziel left for a while, time to update new comment counts." But with the new comment poller active, you're continually connecting to the server in the background so it never has the chance to time out. Our server says, "kafziel was last here 1 minute ago, no need to update counts" even though you're doing exactly the same thing as before.

I hope that makes more sense.
posted by pb (staff) at 6:29 PM on February 15, 2011

I mentioned this towards the end of the thread where the new feature was announced. The new comment count has always been a little inaccurate and with the dynamic loading, they're much worse. Is there any point in keeping them around? They just seem like cruft at the moment. Especially if you have to keep logging out to update them.
posted by elephantday at 9:46 PM on February 15, 2011

They do serve a purpose. They're not precise, but they do indicate new activity if you've been away from the site for a while. Just to be clear, you don't have to log out to update the counts. You just need your session to timeout—15 minutes without activity on the site. Or you need to close your browser completely.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:01 PM on February 15, 2011

The new comment count works fine if you actually close your browser between visits. I like having it, basically ignoring it during a visit.
posted by grouse at 10:01 PM on February 15, 2011

Yeah, I understand that. It's just that if you happen to keep one thread open polling for updates (for instance if it's a huge thread), then the comment counts are inaccurate for all the threads next time you go to the main page. It's probably a bit of an edge case, but I'm just sticking it out there.
posted by elephantday at 10:15 PM on February 15, 2011

elephantday, if you're using a browser capable of running Grease Monkey scripts, you may want to look at Plutor's Mefi Scroll Tag. While the scroller function is nice, the biggest benefit (to me) is that it replaces those new comment counts with literal counts of new comments for you. In other words, say a thread has 300 comments when you first open it, and you read up to comment #101. If you come back, and nothing new has been posted in that thread, the new count on the Front Page will say (191 new) instead of 0 new. If, say, 50 new comments had been posted since you loaded it, it will say (241 new).

It doesn't seem to play terribly nice with the new comment count in title functionality, but I think he's working on that.
posted by SpiffyRob at 6:10 AM on February 16, 2011

It's probably a bit of an edge case, but I'm just sticking it out there.

What you're "just sticking out there" is suggesting that a feature that is used by many other people be removed just because you no longer find it useful. I would suggest that those asking for a feature removal do so a little more thoughtfully.

Just sayin'.
posted by grouse at 7:28 AM on February 16, 2011

No, we didn't change that page. We have been tuning the way the server handles sessions to deal with the new comment poller feature, and that could change the behavior of the x new comment counts.

Just as a point of feedback, I just logged in through a different computer than usual, immediately clicked "hide" on The Deck ad, which reloaded the page and made all of the (x new comments) disappear. That kinda sucked.
posted by donajo at 9:09 AM on February 16, 2011

Sorry about that donajo, I'll see if we can fix that up.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:16 AM on February 16, 2011

Thanks, pb!
posted by donajo at 9:24 AM on February 16, 2011

The My Comments page isn't showing the number of new comments anymore.

Same here. I'm viewing MeFi on Safari Version 5.0.3 (6533.19.4) ... and I miss the feature!
posted by ericb at 6:30 PM on February 18, 2011

ericb, have you tried logging out, completely closing your browser, restarting it, and logging back in? That should reset your session.

If you're seeing new comment counts on the front page, check the My Comments page and you should see the same count for the same thread.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:05 PM on February 18, 2011