Given that we vote for entire comments, we don't expect people to split their comment into many sub-comments.

snek_boi@lemmy.ml to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 20 points –

A different thing are conversation back and forths: each comment is in a new branch of the comment tree.

19

WTH are you trying to say?

At a wild guess, that you may upvote a comment that you support – but there's a second part that you wouldn't agree with. Or that people should split up their comments so that people can upvote/downvote individual parts?

1 more...

I think OP is referring to comment where multiple talking points are made, but you can’t selectively apply your upvote/downvote to specific parts of the comment. You either upvote it all, or downvote it all.

So if I start talking about how pineapple is ok on a pizza, a downvote for this take also means you downvote how I’m trying to clarify OP’s message.

I hope I made it clearer by editing the post. Let me know if it's still not clear :)

1 more...

We generally take for granted “1 comment per user per comment level”

We do?

You would reply twice to the same comment, generally

My post tried to convey that most people do this:

[Original post by OP about COVID-19] Comments:

  • User A: "COVID-19's symptoms can vary from person to person, and the vast majority of people do not present life-threatening symptoms. This can make it easy to conclude that COVID-19 cannot possibly kill someone [edit: here's a source that shows that many people actually believe COVID-19 cannot possibly kill someone: statistics.net]. This is an unfortunate situation, because trusting the science can lead people to use appropriate masks and reduce its spread. [edit: added the word "appropriate" thanks to User C]
    • User B: "Really? I don't know anyone who believes COVID-19 cannot possibly kill someone"
      • User A: "I responded to you by adding a source to my original comment through an edit"
    • User C: "My niece used a cloth mask in the Prague metro and still got COVID-19. I suppose the type of mask matters."
      • "You're right! I'll edit my original comment to reflect that."
    • User D: "I'm sure you won't reply to this comment if I say that I don't accept science."

and they don't generally do this:

[Original post by OP about COVID-19] Comments:

  • User A: "COVID-19's symptoms can vary from person to person."
  • User A: "Many people think COVID-19 cannot possibly kill someone."
    • User A: "My source for this is statistics.net"
    • User B: "Really? I don't know anyone who believes COVID-19 cannot possibly kill someone"
      • User A: "I responded to you by adding a source to my original comment through another comment"
  • User A: "Mask usage helps reduce the spread of COVID-19."
    • User C: "My niece used a cloth mask in the Prague metro and still got COVID-19. I suppose the type of mask matters."

The point is that we usually don't split our points into many comments of the same level. Levels here refer to this:

  • Level 1 of a comment tree
    • Level 2 of a comment tree
    • Level 2 of a comment tree
      • Level 3 of a comment tree
  • Level 1 of a comment tree

When I say that we take that for granted, I mean that I don't see people splitting up their comments in the same level. Neither do I see people talking about splitting up their comments. In other words, neither in practice nor in discourse do people split up their comments.

Edit: Rewrite for clarity

You may be an exception, posting each part of what you wish to say in a different comment.

I'm not and I have no idea what you're talking about, since you edited the thread and I have no recollection of what it stated originally.

Yeah. Sorry for the lack of clarity. I edited the comment. I hope it makes sense now

If you find yourself typing a long comment that might have contradictions or presents several options, you should consider shortening it so that it only contains the most important point. Save the rest for follow up conversations. This makes a better conversation for several reasons besides voting.

Interesting. What makes you say that?

Yes exactly. If anyone cares enough about the subject they'll ask you to tell more.

It's a waste of your own time to type out everything you know in advance if no one cares or everyone already knows.

Fair enough. I can see how I could save myself time and effort. However, I've read many long comments in the past that are very interesting. And, considering the 90-9-1 rule, I suppose this happens to other people too.