• Put avatar image next to comments
• Make 'comment' edit box larger
• Wiki comments should work like forum comments

1. In Wiki comments, when you click on a reply to read it, the original message disappears so you lose context
   • Instead, the reply should appear under the original message
2. In Wiki comments, when you click on "reply to this message", the original message isn't quoted
   • Instead, the initial edit box should contain the original message with each line starting with >, like the forums do

• Use Gravatars?
• Anonymous comments should optionally require email or homepage to be specified (for Gravatar use, and to distinguish comments)
• All comments should be visible in a single place so that administrators can moderate comments, remove spam etc.
• All comments should pass through a library that checks for banned IPs, banned words, etc as a spam stop (much like ))WordPress,MoveableType(( etc)

List of other products with similar/interesting/related features.

Here I would like to see some "editorial" content. How do our features compare to others?

(see ))WordPress,MoveableType(( and other products for good (high volume) comments handling and anti-spam capabilities)

This is where new features being developed and only in CVS are documented. When the CVS becomes RC/official release, the info in the CVS docs is transferred to update the official docs (FeatureXDoc).

There are several places where comments go:

1. Articles
2. Forums
3. Wiki Pages
4. Blogs

There are probably others. Comments are extremely popular on the World Wide Web, much more so than Wiki pages. Therefore this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart. Just look at Slashdot for an example of the popularity of comments.

When a comment is added to an article, wiki page, blog, or forum (in 1.9, Wiki comments can optionally trigger emails, but only for those who are subscribed to the Wiki page), Tiki Wiki currently doesn't consider that "event" to be substantial enough to notify others about it via email. Slashdot, on the other hand, does a very good job of notifying users, via email, about comments: when someone replies to a comment, the author of the original comment is notified. This is extremely convenient.

Similarly, the RSS notification system ignores comments. The act of entering or modifying a comment should appear in the RSS feeds. When a comment is added to a Wiki page, the RSS feed should have an entry stating this fact.

Thirdly, when a comment is added to a Wiki page (or modified), the Wiki page should appear in the "last updated Wiki pages" module.

Finally, comments don't appear on the calendar.

Comments are just as important as changes made to, say, a Wiki page, and users need to know about them. Otherwise, the comments won't ever be seen and users will stop adding comments.

Please note that there is a module called "wiki_last_comments" which is very helpful for tracking comments for Wiki pages.

• Global comment by Chealer9 : This can be discussed on UserWatchesDev. This question is tricky. I really don't think comments should show in RSS neither lastchanges. However, my idea is to include a checkbox "consider like page edit" or "notify change" option. Eventually, comments notify better be separed from page monitoring.

• userpageterris : The fact that the tw.o forums don't send email when someone replies to my comment is more than an annoyance — it undermines the usefulness of forums. And there is no difference between a Wiki page and a forum topic, in my opinion, based on the way I use the Wiki.

In the forums, there is no "reply" link for topics that don't yet have any comments. See this track item. This is just plain wrong. It doesn't follow the more popular open source bulletin board projects such as phpBB. The usability of existing forum softare should be copied unless somebody can come up with a good reason not to.

Secondly, when you reply to a comment, all other comments disappear. Even after you submit your reply, the other comments are still missing. It is unclear how to make them appear.

• I believe there has been work on this in 1.8...can't tell you more. Chealer9

This can be an option (which I think should be on by default). When I click on an article, I should see the comments without having to click on anything. This is the way Slashdot behaves and it's just natural. Perhaps it blurs the lines between an article and a forum topic, but I believe that users want to see the comments; otherwise, they wouldn't have clicked on "read more...".

• This was already discussed without concrete results. I guess articles can have a "number of comments showing by default" option. Chealer9

Wiki pages don't display replies to comments automatically. Instead, you have to click on a link to read the reply, and this creates a round trip. Either comments should always be visible (given some threshold) or the page should be rewritten to use Javascript to display replies instead of using a server round trip.

This is a problem because comments are dispersed around the application. However, all comments received can/should pass through a library that performs sanity checks. Ideally, this library should have plugins that perform specific checks (eg. IP checks, profanity checks, spam checks etc). Any comments that fail the check should be discarded or put into a holding pattern awaiting a suitably privileged user to authorise them.

Smilarly, all comments received should be viewable in one place. Suitably privileged users can then moderate comments (by editing them) or simply delete them (if undesirable or spam). Also, this could lead to a module that provides a list of recent comments (which may lead people to pages people are talking about, much like a "last 20 changes" module does).

Presently, if the user clicks on a "view comments" link for blog entries, the user goes to a page containing only that article or blog item, but the comments aren't displayed. Instead, the user must click on "comments" at the botttom of the page to view the comments.

This has been fixed satisfactorily in TW 1.9.