Do You Prefer To Read The Latest Comments First Or Last?

March 10th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

Filed Under: Blogging • Everton

Tags: comments, paged comments, site design, Wordpress

As part of his work to speedup my site and server, my techie Chris inadvertently changed the way my site displays comments.  Now rather than displaying the oldest comment first the site is showing the newest comment first.

I was about to change the configuration file so that the oldest comment was displayed first, but I thought I’d ask first to see what the readers prefer.  Personally I prefer to read the oldest comment first and then follow the timeline of the discussion before I add my two pennies worth.  But some people prefer to read the latest comment first, which is handy if you’ve already read the old comments and are maybe leaving your second or third comment.

Which do you prefer?

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About the Author

Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University, and currently runs the Portal and online operations for one of the largest ISPs in the UK. He also writes for Windows 7 News.

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There Are 22 Responses So Far. »

Pages: « 3 2 [1] Show All

1. #10
   

   Comment by The Masked Millionaire on 11 March 2008:

   Newest comments first.
2. #9
   

   Comment by Zath on 11 March 2008:

   For me, they have to be in chronological order, otherwise I tend to never read more than the first couple since they are out of a follow-able order.
3. #8
   

   Comment by Matt on 10 March 2008:

   Oldest comment should be first. Chronological order is the way to do it!
4. #7
   

   Comment by mlankton on 10 March 2008:

   yeah I had a small stroke when I posted my initial reply

   comments should be displayed in chronological order
5. #6
   

   Comment by Pete on 10 March 2008:

   @Everton : Ah ok, I somehow made the association that the change was part of a tweak. I understand now, it was just truly inadvertent

   I think oldest comment first is probably best? Like Adam said, we can read them chronologically. On http://ww2db.com I had newest-on-top at first, but have since changed to oldest-on-top for readability.
6. #5
   

   Comment by John on 10 March 2008:

   I’d prefer older first as I read left to right, top to bottom it makes senses to read the article and then keep on reading down…
7. #4
   

   Comment by Everton on 10 March 2008:

   @Pete

   It doesn’t! He updated the plugin that creates the paged comments, and didn’t change the config settings.
8. #3
   

   Comment by Adam Dempsey on 10 March 2008:

   I prefer the read the older comments first, so I can read them chronalogically.
9. #2
   

   Comment by Pete on 10 March 2008:

   From a technical perspective, how does listing oldest comment first make the site run faster?
10. #1
    

    Comment by mlankton on 10 March 2008:

    first

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