I think we should get rid of the "Offer your reply" links which currently appear on top-level views of posts — The Monastery Gates and the section pages (Seekers of Perl Wisdom, etc.)
The rationale is that users shouldn't be encouraged[1] to post a reply to a post without having first been encouraged[2] to read the existing replies.
Thoughts?
(Note: the "Comment on" and "[reply]" links would not be affected by this proposed change.)
[1] I'd say "allowed", but the fact remains that a savvy web user can overcome the lack of a link.
[2] I'd say "forced", but ... you know the old adage about horses and water.
This RFC was inspired by something our esteemed anonymous monk wrote in Re: RFC: A Design Proposed for Anonymous Monk (logged out view).
Here are some earlier threads on the same topic, more or less. Note that many of them raise issues which are now resolved or
OBE.
- Offer reply in thread to "toplevel"?
- Offering a reply and replying
- "Offer your reply" link on node page
- 'Comment On' needs guidance notes, too
- Tidying up 'reply' and viewing reply thread
- "comment on" easy to miss