George Rebane
I have removed the indented reply feature from the comment threads. A reader suggested its implementation, and it seemed like a good idea. But then it soon became apparent that new comments were suddenly buried 'in the past', attached to some previous comment thread which was invisible to an arriving commenter. This obfuscation was also picked up by one of my critics who promptly accused me of changing the comment format so as to hide his and other critics' comments. Finally, it turned out that it is more difficult to manage the comment stream in such threads, especially trying to find comments that have no place here and should be deleted (e.g. this morning's droppings from a 'Mike Smith').
So we're back to the old format which seemed to work. I recommend that we maintain responses and comment threads by continuing to address the previous commenter and, perhaps, adding the specific date/time of the previous comment responded to - e.g. 'Harry re YYMMDD tttt, ... ' - using the 24 hour clock to indicate the previous comment's time stamp.
On my part, I will do my best to cull the off-topic gratuitous attacks so that they will not waste the time of readers not interested in such personal vendettas. Let's see if these efforts will work, and thank you for your patience in all this.
George, your deletion of personal attacks is welcomed by me as they take away from the discussions at hand. RR is not the venue for vendetta's.
p.s. I like the 'old comment style' best; thanks for switching back.
Posted by: Mikey McD | 04 May 2011 at 08:58 AM
Good call George, I like your previous version too.
Posted by: Todd Juvinall | 04 May 2011 at 09:09 AM
Whatever your preference is works for me.
I suspect a decrease in the vendetta banter will encourage broader participation in the exchange of ideas.
Posted by: John Galt | 06 May 2011 at 12:17 AM