Though the comments thing is underworks last I heard I was wondering is if it is possable to make story threads turn to updated under the story map when comments are added so writer can find them faster instead of looking at each thread with new votes as well as readers if interested. P.S. Thanks to all those who have left comments on my stories.
Threads should NOT be marked as "updated" just because someone voted or left a comment - it'll be confusing and make it hard to tell which threads are actually updated. Some indication which threads have new comments would be nice, but it needs to be different from the indications for new and updated threads to avoid confusion.
Maybe just a marker on the side, such as a colored dot for unread comments? Something that could be represented the same way on the actual thread page, like a forum thread. I'm not yet feeling that each individual vote is so important. Even something as a simple up or down arrow to indicate the average has increased or decreased feels a bit moot to me, but then my approach is to the writing rather than the scores. It might be nice to see how many comments a story thread has in search results, next to its score and votes.
I could imagine a chronological comment overview (from whole story) with linking to the specific post.
Some way to follow comments in a story would be very helpful. I know that in my own stories, I miss comments sometimes, or stumble across them long after they have been left simply because I have no idea that they are there. By having a "Recent Comments" option at the start of a story, this would make it much easier to locate and respond to feedback and comments. From a writer's viewpoint, being able to access comments easily, or even being notified somehow of new comments could be a very valuable tool.
How about if the notification said '<user> added a new comment to your thread <thread>'? Substitute rating for comment and story for thread. Then in the story map it has a new color for threads that have had a comment/rating added. Maybe its function could be customized in the user controls. If the user doesn't want to see this in their notifications they could turn it off, or they could adjust how far-reaching it is. Notify you of only your stories, or only your threads, or maybe all bookmarked stories? Not sure how taxing that last would be, though.
Or rather, have notifications work on a check box system, where you toggle on what you want to be notified of. [ ] Stories [ ] Threads [ ] Bookmarks [ ] Comments Er, whoops. That's actually kind of what we have now. Haha! It's been a while since I checked my options. We'd really just need Comments added as options for notifications.
