I found — with kind help — a way to get rid of the reply function in the comments. I hope you, like me, enjoy the return to chronological order. I never liked comments jumping the line, displaying above comments that had gone up earlier. It was especially bad because my browser still displayed the comments in chronological order and therefore had many comments that were replying to who knows what.
Anyway, I've said it before and I like to repeat it: the greatest order of all time is chronological order:
In the previous post, I wrote: "[Chronological order is] the most obvious order, used by lovers of order all over the world and through the grand course of time. There are other orders — alphabetical order, order of importance...."
This made me want to put order... in order. I don't really want to do something I know I can't do. It's more that I want to do a top 10 list, with 10 types of order, ranked so as to amuse me and amuse or provoke you.I'm not going to fool around with alternative meanings of the word "order," so no need to steel yourself against jokes like "ham sandwich." I'm talking about orders like chronological order and alphabetical order. I like order, so I want order in talking about order.Also, I'm not talking about the order that exists in nature that benefits us and would be horrible to live without. I'm talking about the way human beings put things in order so we can understand them or find them later or enjoy the appearance of orderliness and so forth.Some strong contenders for #1: Linnaean taxonomy and the Dewey Decimal System.But maybe chronological order is destined to win. Wikipedia redirects "Chronological order" to a page with a simpler title "Chronology," which reminds me that there's an order of size — or order of complexity — that causes us to prefer "Chronology" to "Chronological order."How much can you say about chronology?Chronology is the science of locating historical events in time. It relies upon chronometry, which is also known as timekeeping, and historiography, which examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods....You can't put things in chronological order until you have a concept of time and you keep track of it.
While of critical importance to the historian, methods of determining chronology are used in most disciplines of science, especially astronomy, geology, paleontology and archaeology....But once you have a system of expressing time and you can figure out more or less when things happened, chronology is nothing more than numerical order. The ordering itself is easy and uncontroversial, because numbers — the kind of numbers used in expressing dates — are inherently ordered. That's why numerical order seems to rank higher than alphabetical order.
But I'm going to give alphabetical order credit for doing so much with so little. It's random, but agreed on, and insanely useful.
Alphabetical order was first used in the 1st millennium BCE by Northwest Semitic scribes using the abjad system. However, a range of other methods of classifying and ordering material, including geographical, chronological, hierarchical and by category, were preferred over alphabetical order for centuries.If I was going to make a Disney movie out of characters representing the different forms of order, I'd make alphabetical order the hero.
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First !
Notice the formatting looks better now too. Blogger calls this "embedded" comments.
Bach chose chromatic order /parallel minors for his 24 Preludes and Fugues (twice). Chopin chose circle of fifths/ relative minors to order his set of 24 preludes.
Well... I rather liked being able to see the replies under a regular comment, but this is your blog so your rules. I could see things sequentially if I clicked on the post, then if I clicked Comment I had the option of replies...
I'll miss it, but I understand.
Displays nicely on Android phones again. The threaded version was way too small and defied justification, so would be both small and drift way out of the boundaries of the screen.
Thanks for putting the time to find the solution.
And I think you have the making for a Pixar movie: "Order, Order" or "Order in the Court" or "Order Up"
Typical lawyer, sort everything by date. Better yet, go to the bottom and read them in reverse chronological order!
Dang it! I really liked jumping in line. It was like the old Disneyland FastPass.
Alphabetical order is so useful because everything has a name, but not necessarily a number or a date. That’s why encyclopedias and my DVD collection are in alphabetical order. I agree that chronological order is better for comments though.
Of course, an Althouse would find alphabetical order praiseworthy. The Millers and Youngs might disagree.
Much better. The "reply" feature was wearisome on a mobile phone. And the larger font has returned. Good stuff. Thanx Prf!
"all in good time." - my mother
Glad you made the change. I read on the browser because the phone interface is less convenient in multiple ways, but nice in that I can still interact without a computer.
One issue, I seem to not be allowed to log into the browser to post. I am stuck typing with my thumbs on my phone to make this entry.
Heh. Managed to fix browser issue right after posting from phone. Had to drop shields in Brave browser.
Reply mode is a zigzagging path through a mirror maze. So ugly. Too many low value comments of the "you win the internet" type. But the worst was that it reverted to chronological mode when you use a browser, which I do most of the time.
"Typical lawyer, sort everything by date. Better yet, go to the bottom and read them in reverse chronological order!"
Since that's where you land when you click on "comments" that's what I do. It also allows you to see if your thoughts have already been posted.
Thank god it is back! I hated replies.
I would implore commenters replying to others to at least identify the person's name or nic, all the better to understand the context and the response to it.
Over at Prof. Turley's blog, the comments area is just useless, since he just lists them chronologically AND allows people to post as "Anonymous". So "Anonymous" replies to another "Anonymous", and no body knows what the hell they're talking about.
Then again, they mostly fling snot at each other over there. So, read Turley..... ignore the comments.
If you want to reply to someone, just begin with @name or a quote from their comment.
I sort scanned documents on folders on my hard drives by name/topic, then by date in YYYY-MMDD format. I had the concept in Junior High but when personal computers became available to me it made life easier. The naming conventions that I use are in whatever format makes sense to me, but within lists of each name, the documents fall in chronological order.
Yes. Order is critically important crutch for those whom cannot cope with the chaos and disorder that our entropically Universe produces. I like the new old order because it's easier to read the comments on the smart phone.
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...and yes, the way it works in your blog now is much better.
""[Chronological order is] the most obvious order, used by lovers of order all over the world ...."
I would propose that the 'greatest' order on the table over the past two weeks, is the Executive Order.
I like all the forms of order. I think that people who are good at categorizing are relatively rare. A good category breakdown is very illuminating. So, I'll vote for that one as the order superpower I'd want to have.
I saw the new blue button that said “Sign In With Google” and was afraid that I would have to remember a password, but it was automatic when I clicked on it. Good. I actually liked the Reply option, since it made it obvious what was being replied to. It is what it is, though.
I own very few books or dvds since streaming became reliable. I don't have anything to put in order. It's frustrating and annoying that the streamers don't use order at all, though. I'm looking at you, Amazon. They've taken the clutter off of my shelves and reconstituted it online when a computer should offer the top end of order.
"I saw the new blue button that said “Sign In With Google” and was afraid that I would have to remember a password...."
Yeah. I was required to sign into the newly formatted comments section... but only in Safari, not in Chrome.
For some reason, I have always used Safari for reading things and then Firefox or Chrome for writing. I don't even remember why I started that, but I keep using 2 browsers at once.
I think there was a time when Safari looked better, but Firefox made more "buttons" visible.
The new order also works much better for writing comments on my iPhone and iPad. Thank you very much!
I, too, think chronological order is the best order. One of my pet peeves is when someone is writing about something that has changed over time, and they use the formulation "changed to _____________ from ____________" instead of the other way around. I often get it backwards because I instinctively read it chronologically and ignore their prepositions.
As Jerry points out, previously you had the option which format to view. It's hard to understand why that is not preferable to insisting everyone always view it just the one way.
But it's your blog.
I like the Reddit style reply but I’m not going to call anybody a nazi over losing it. Here’s looking at you Dems. 😉
I’ll wait until the end of my day to comment. Thanks.
Order must be imposed
This is a general reply. To whom, we shall never know.
Oh thank God! The old order was nearly unreadable on my phone
Even better, I can once again access the text of the original Althouse post above the comment space. Huge improvement!
Before, you'd have to open a new window (then click approval to go to an outside page), before you could copy and paste text from the original Althouse post.
Now, if you could only restore the "preview the comment" before posting feature, that'd be great.
Moreover, I can actually see the comment line I'm typing on my iPhone now. Another huge improvement!
Within the field of information architecture (which is really an offshoot of graphic design) we use the acronym LATCH to remember all the ways to order things.
L - Location - as in a map
A - Alphabetical - as in a dictionary
T - Time (or chronological) - as in a blog or a recipe
C - Category - as in a department store
H - Hierarchy - as in lowest price to highest price
I've been in the business for decades, and these really are the only ways to order things.
I agree with Wince. Thank you for the change (back).
I like chaotic (e.g. evolutionary) order... follow me if you can.
What about alforgetable order?
@Howard "for those whom cannot cope"
Please lookup the proper usage of "who" and "whom." I've seen you make numerous mistakes about this. "Whom" is a noun, but the subject, a noun, in that sentence fragment is "those" and "who" should be the modifier, not "whom."
I like "in no particular order" because my experiential self encounters that as a stream of consciousness. Think about it -- you're reading a historical novel about Thomas Cromwell and the phone rings. The caller is Kimiko who lives 700 miles away from me in another time zone and for whom, English is a second language that developed (or was still developing) 500 years ago.
The alphabetical organization that we take for granted in encyclopedias nowadays didn't triumph without opposition.
Wordsworth's buddy S. T. Coleridge, for instance, derided the Encyclopedia Britannica for lacking any scientific or logical order and separating topics that belong together.
His own Encyclopedia Metropolitana was organized by topic or theme (as determined by STC and his colleagues): '"Pure Science" including Logic, Rhetoric, Mathematics, Metaphysics, Morals and Theology. "Mixed and Applied Science" covered Mechanics, Pneumatics, Optics, Astronomy, Heat, Light and Sound; among the "Fine Arts" one would read about Painting, Heraldry, Music and Engraving.' (Quoted from Simon Garfield's wonderful book "All the Knowledge in the World.")
Probably available on Amazon.
"I'd make alphabetical order the hero."
Aaron the Almighty and his best gal Babs are opposed by their nemesis, Zeke the Freak.
Testing?
Testing?
@Althouse: But the worst was that it reverted to chronological mode when you use a browser, which I do most of the time.
In Safari, going below the fold produces comments in chronological order; selecting "Comments" provided the Reply format.
I found myself backing out of below the fold to Comments because I think the Reply format makes it easier to keep track of responses.
But then I have a desktop with a 27" monitor.
Five by five, Quaestor.
Send Sundar Pichai a bill for services rendered, Althouse.
Spontaneous comment combustion persists, it seems.
Totally OT: to avoid italic avalanches, use autocorrect to type the html. I use ,,i — replace the commas with dots — which returns [i][/i] (where [ and ] stand in for < and >), then move the cursor to between the start and end tags.
To make embedding hyperlinks easy, I use ,,hr, which returns [a href=""][/a]. URL goes between the quote marks, and text goes between ] and [.
"I'd make alphabetical order the hero."
In grammar school I watched several of those classic EB films hosted by Francis Condie Baxter, Ph.D. displayed by a loud as bloody hell Bell & Howell 16mm projector. They scratchy, distorted, shopworn, and covered a gamut of subjects, all completely forgettable to me accept one devoted to elementary astronomy. None about logical orderings, that I recall, so there's likely plenty room for a magnus opus in that department.
I've always—for decades here—used the chronological format, and for some time didn't even notice that the nested alternative had been added, till folks started talking about it. Since then I've used the nested format only for occasionally closing the bold/italics faucet that people sometimes leave running.
The pre-solution for the latter, by the way, is proofread.
At last the mystery of why people replying on this blog didn't clearly refer to whom they were replying: I always use a browser (and didn't even know any other order was an option, otherwise)
If you are stuck getting "who" and "whom" right, substitute "he" or "him," whichever sound right corresponds to the right case of "who"
"Him I saw on the sidewalk." -works
"He I saw on the sidewalk." -ouch
Only one of them works.
"He was eating grapes" -good
"him was eating grapes" -ouch
Only one of them works. After a little while, it becomes natural, even if substituting "he" or "him" directly for "who" and "whom" is a little clumsy .
Another thing rescued by Althouse's timely discovery, the original Althouse post. It's to nice to have conveniently up-page rather than a separate and automatically closed window.
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