(no subject)

[alexseanchai]

it would be nice if, when someone comments on your work on AO3 in reply to another commenter, rather than in reply to a comment of yours or directly on your work, the comment email notif told you this thing

(preferably with a copy of the comment being replied to, as is Dreamwidth standard and is also what AO3 does when someone replies to your comment…)

Comments

[bladespark]

I've gotten notifications for comments in reply to other comments before??????

[alexseanchai]

I may have explained the problem poorly. Compare:



I would like the first one to behave more like the second one.

[bladespark]

Ah, I see. I thought you were saying it doesn't happen at all, not that it doesn't happen exactly the best way. Meh. I usually go to the thread anyway when I get a comment, so.

[graycardinal]

As noted downstream, I have had just this experience and would prefer better context than I got.

Imagine that you are part of a fic exchange. In this exchange, there is a lively DW-based round of guess-the-authors going on during the week when stories are up but creators are still anonymous. Someone posts a lovely comment on the story you wrote, excerpted in part as follows:

[Player One]
...
Beautiful! It's lovely to see this forthright loyalty, especially since there is still a sense of tentative newness in their sibling bond.

Then Player Two posts a reply to Player One's comment, as follows:

[Player Two]
...
Damn, I was all ready to finger you as the author till I saw this.

But because you see the email notifications first, you get both of the notifications at once, and have no way of realizing that the appearance of a disturbingly accurate guess on Player Two's part is a fraud, because the notification email doesn't tell you that Player Two's post is a response to Player One and not to you directly.

Here are the next two messages in that thread:

[Me]
...this is flattery of a very high order (though more than a little startling when received via email without benefit of proper threading).

[Player Two]
Yes, that is laugh-snorting you hear, all the way from Brooklyn.

[graycardinal]

No, the explanation was exactly accurate (he said, having had exactly this experience a couple of rounds back in a particular fic exchange).

And I'm right there with you; this is a Bug, not a Feature.

[madgastronomer]

You could put in a feature request.

[silveradept]

Yes. Threading happens on AO3, it should also be able to happen in comment notification emails.