Well, LJ has gone and fucked up again.

[conuly]

This time it's the commenting.

No subject lines. (The guy who did the change doesn't use them, so nobody should have that choice!)

No preview. (No reason given that I can see.)

No "link" button unless you hover (if it works), no "parent" or "thread" links.

No alphabetical icons. (Because in date-added order is so much more intuitive?)

Ugly design, and it zooms up and down when you comment.

Naturally, the news comm is going nuts. Oh, that's another thing - no replies yet from staff.

There is one plus, though. Newly posted comments are now labelled "new comment", so they're easily identified. That's the ONLY good thing I see. New system doesn't even seem to work for many users, and it's all accompanied with a jerkish attitude from the guy who made it.

Comments

[kyrielle]

There was some discussion on his journal, where he was a d***. The other benefit is that commenting can now be done in line in more styles of page, I believe, and you can comment with just an enter or shift-enter or something instead of having to mouse.

So not worth it.

If you use S2 comment pages you should be immune, but....

[codeman38]

and you can comment with just an enter or shift-enter or something instead of having to mouse.

Now if only there were a way of choosing a user icon without having to mouse. Like, y'know, there was on the old form.

[conuly]

Yes, I think him being a major jerk about it all is what REALLY pisses everybody off.

Even on LJ, loss of subject lines and lack of communication after the fact shouldn't require a zillion comments to discuss.

[codeman38]

They've also completely destroyed keyboard accessibility. Seriously, just try selecting a user icon without using the mouse... I'm not sure it's even possible.

(Old comment form? Just tab to the 'icon to use' dropdown and use the up and down arrows.)

A temporary fix

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

This fix is limited to those who can use S2, in other words the paying users. Can't remember if you are one, but if so, go here

http://www.livejournal.com/customize/

and get an S2 type layout. Then, go here

http://www.livejournal.com/customize/options.bml

Scroll down to where it says "Presentation"

The option that says "Disable customized comment pages for your journal",
choose "NO".

This will allow all comment pages to appear in your personal style.

Subject lines, preview, spelling check and most of the rest are still there.

"We are also planning to create a new S2 commenting style which will appear & function in the same way as the old site scheme commenting page to be included in the near future." Don't know when this will take place. Again, you'll have to use S2.

There are also some clever people who are designing scripts to get around this all. These will probably be usable with S1. Usually you can find them talking about this in the comments to news and lj_releases.

Re: A temporary fix

[conuly]

I do have my own set-up which allows for subjects - but I don't particularly want every community to need to be paid OR for me to have to use workarounds and scripts to get things to function the way they always did.

Re: A temporary fix

[bondlesseye.livejournal.com]

It works for Plus users as well, IIRC, but if you or your comms are Basic you'll need to upgrade.

[lady-angelina.livejournal.com]

What Connie said. I disabled customize comment pages for a reason: because before Release 88, system style comment pages used to load much faster and required much less overhead than do custom comment pages. I shouldn't have to relinquish my own customized theme layer nor to add Greasemonkey as an add-on (which I can't do on a mobile phone anyway, and that's where I access LJ most of the time from) just to get the semblance and functionality of the former, much simpler comment pages.

And even if those stripped features could be jerry-rigged to work again... it still doesn't address the serious issue of dozens or even hundreds of icons loading all at the same time with each pageload. Great if you actually wanted to view every single one of them (but that's what allpics.bml is for). Not so much if all you wanted to do was just pop in a quick comment without changing your userpic from the default.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I hate this BS and the way LJ plays with its users.

You can has subject line

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

I see that your journal layout still has subject headings. Mine does too, I guess because I use an S2 style. I hate the way communities are laid out, though. The comment style is so annoying, and I hate not being able to find my icons in alphabetical order.

Re: You can has subject line

[kyrielle]

If you're using an S2 style, you can select "View all journals and communities in my own style" at http://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/?cat=display and/or the comment page option below it to also help.

Of course, then you can't see THEIR style, but you also can't get stuck with their S1 comments. :|

Re: You can has subject line

[conuly]

Yes, but what good does it do to do things like leave comment titles if other people can't see them?

Also

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

I read something on dreamwidth that was written by one of the actual beta testers. She, or he, said that the beta testers didn't like a lot of the changes to the comments section. Guess what, the changes were made anyhow!

found it:
http://gehayi.dreamwidth.org/438621.html?thread=4256349#cmt4256349