Hello Everyone!
As any long time reader knows, it is one of the perennial frustrations of the site architecture that the comment count displayed by reddit always reflects the total comments posted, whether removed by the Moderators or not, and that in /r/AskHistorians, this of course creates a unique form of frustration, given our high rate of removal. *Today, my friends, that frustration ends!
We are *incredibly* indebted to a member of the community, /u/almost_useless, who reached out to volunteer their services and has been working with the moderator team to develop a simple browser extension that remedies that issue!
The extension is available for both Chrome and Firefox, and provides a excellent enhancement to the /r/AskHistorians experience! It works for Mobile Browser if you use Firefox.
Thread with no visible, non-distinguished top-level comment.
Thread with one visible, non-distinguished top-level comment.
Mouse over the extension's count to see the breakdown!
Monitor up to ten questions at a time to track whether they have received a response yet!
The extension is available for both Chrome and Firefox.
We would of course still add the disclaimer that the mod team is only human. We do a pretty good job checking responses, but a response being visible isn't always a guarantee that it is a good answer. It might simply mean that you managed to see the thread before we did, or that we think something is fishy, but haven't finished our due diligence. It is always important that you, as the reader, engage critically with every answer you read here, and make sure to report anything that doesn't seem right to you!
Now all we need is an extension to filter questions about Nazis.
Is this compatible with RES?
You're really not doing your username justice, /u/almost_useless.
In 20 years, can we make a post asking about the events that led to this extension being made?
This is peak meta for /r/AskHistorians. I absolutely adore it.
Cheers for the extension, /u/almost_useless! Keep up the quality work, mod team!
Nice, mods hate this one neat trick!
This is the day we've all been waiting for. Thanks, /u/almost_useless
It seems to be working fine for me (Firefox). And if I can use it...
Thanks to /u/almost_useless - good job! We (I didn't do anything really) have fixed AH, now we only need to fix the world!
Yes! Yes yes yes!
Pin this, put it in the sidebar, put it in the automod, put it everywhere! All hail /u/almost_useless !
Awesome. Another question: is there a place to read the deleted comments of a thread? Some other subreddit had this feature because often the commenters would leave interesting, uh comments, that didn't fit the guidelines but still had useful information.
We'll be be adding it as many places as we can :)
Well, now all I can think about is wondering if there's a what-if book out there about Hitler at the Nuremburg trials.
You’re a good man u/almost_useless, thank you
Miracles do come true!
Does the count thing work for other subreddits too? That is, could I use this tool to see the difference in comments vs. total comments for other subreddits? I understand it won't be as dramatic as it is in /r/AskHistorians, but it would still be useful.
Safari one day?
Hi! Does the extension also ignore the auto mod comment?
Is there any way to get this on mobile?
Thanks a lot for this /u/almost_useless.
What is a "distinguished" vs. a "non-distinguished" top-level comment in this context? A flair posting the comment vs. just a regular user?
I've been using the beta of this the past couple of months and it's really handy. Thanks for this and good job on getting it fully released.
this is great, thanks for all the work.
Thank you.
this is great
That's a fantastic idea.
However, I'm experiencing quite some lag when loading /r/AskHistorians now.
Running Chrome.
Also using RES.
Damn this is brilliant, I only tend to browse from the front page but it'll be useful all over reddit, and that watch thread thing looks excellent too.
Is the source code available? Do you have plans to make the source code available? /u/almost_useless
Any plans for other browsers? I use Opera.
God bless you u/almost_useless!
Is it possible to merge this with the Roundup? That is, have the text in the "link to comments" column only show the number of visible comments?
The extension seems to work well, except nothing happens when I click "monitor".
Honestly, I'd just prefer the option to see the removed comments. I wish they were hidden instead of deleted. The whole point of reddit is to encourage discussion. I can judge their veracity for myself. I don't need everything to link to a peer reviewed source. Other questions and anecdotes can add perspective and offer additional insights to research for myself. The gatekeeping is obnoxious and the arrogance a huge detractor for those seeking knowledge.
I want to know why we have to have an extension just to see posts with answers. Everything gets deleted. And people on mobile can’t do anything.
This does nothing for mobile users. Thanks.
spend your time making a website rather then forcing this social form into something its not.
