I'd really like to read a story on SOL without having to scroll through public comments to get to the bottom of the chapter. Is there any way to do that?
Thanks
I'd really like to read a story on SOL without having to scroll through public comments to get to the bottom of the chapter. Is there any way to do that?
Thanks
They only appear at the end of the last chapter, so I never really see them because they're easy to skip over. However, I use a PC and that makes it easy to go down a long way.
I'd really like to read a story on SOL without having to scroll through public comments to get to the bottom of the chapter. Is there any way to do that?
There is practically nothing below the comments at the end of the last chapter of a serial.
Anyway, yes, you can hide the comments.
Click 'My Account'
Click 'Change' next to 'Story Display Settings:'
Click the 'Edit' button for your setting.
Uncheck the 'Show Reader Comments' check box.
Click 'Save Changes'
How about making the ability to uncheck this box a premier-only function (greyed or amber-shaded like the advanced search)? This would mean that the bots would always scrape the comments with the story necessitating more work for the bot-herder to get clean copy, and since they're only shown on the last chapter, it won't affect basic members once they realise that the comments come at the end of the story-so-far so there's no more to read.
ETA: They really are at the very end of the content, so they can be skipped just by closing that tab (the close button, which comes after the comments, could be replicated above the comments), or ignored by selecting one of the links just above them. I can see only two reasons to suppress them, to save a little bandwidth and to get clean copy for saving the story. Bandwidth-wise, it's only a fraction of a KB per comment so that's irrelevant relative to the rest of a story; for saving, a premier membership has direct saving available in a few different formats.
more work for the bot-herder to get clean copy
Just a little. They already have to substitute the links. Finding and stripping the comments is trivial. The extra bandwidth? They probably steal that too :D
ETA: As a premium feature I would reverse it: only premium members can switch public comments on.
That would work against creating a sense of community. You want to have everyone engaging with stories and each other.
That would work against creating a sense of community. You want to have everyone engaging with stories and each other.
True, reconsidering that only a switch-off for premium members as madnige suggested would be better.
How about making the ability to uncheck this box a premier-only function (greyed or amber-shaded like the advanced search)?
It would be interesting to know what proportion of readers turn off the displaying of comments, and whether this varies between free/premium accounts. If only a small proportion use the feature, making it a premium one is not likely to to influence people to become paid-up members.
It would be interesting to know what proportion of readers turn off the displaying of comments, and whether this varies between free/premium accounts. If only a small proportion use the feature, making it a premium one is not likely to to influence people to become paid-up members.
Yes, that would be interesting to know. I have a premium account and turned them off. Not that it makes a real difference for me because I rarely read on the site. I usually download completed stories and read them locally.