Feature Request for Home Assistant Blog Comment Structure

Feature Requests
1

I’d like to propose a feature for the Home Assistant blog, specifically related to the release notes section. Currently, the comments under the release notes are a mixture of different types of feedback:

  • “Feature A doesn’t work for me.”
  • “Feature B works fine.”
  • “Here’s a workaround for Feature A.”
  • “Feature C has a bug.”
  • “Feature B has a minor issue.”
  • “Feature C is great.”

This results in hundreds of comments, making it difficult for readers to follow discussions or get an idea of what’s already been commented. It also makes it harder for developers to identify bugs or useful workarounds without missing important information.

Proposed Solution:

For every new release note chapter, automatically create a thread in the community forum and link the thread directly to that chapter in the blog post. This will help:

  • Keep feedback structured
  • Prevent valuable information from being lost
  • Make it easier for developers to spot issues and track solutions

This would provide a more organized way to manage feedback and improve the overall readability of the comments.

2

Do you mean a thread like this one?

Have you ever noticed the Blog category on the forum?

3

Don’t think so…
My reading is that OP wants to have a separate Forum Topic per section of the release blog post…so for 2024.9 OP suggests a separate forum support post for each of the (major) sections below…

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for me I’d be pushing that one reads through the post/comments…there’s never that many after an initial surge upon release and maybe you can assist another user or learn something new as you do…so not something I’d vote for but I’m just one voice

4

I missed the per section. But it still doesn’t make any sense, because usually discussion diverts to things which are not necesarilly captured in the section topics, and moderators are spawning separate topics if any issue is overwhelming in the original one.

5

yeah…I’d be on similar page to you…it can be hectic the day or two after the release but overall what’s there now works well enough IMO

6

Although it can be difficult to follow, it is much easier if

  1. People read the thread

  2. People didn’t ask the same question over and over.

3 Likes
7

Therein lies the problem (and this is the forums as a whole) a reply to a user does not quote the person they’re answering to by default, and you have to press the “quote” button and then edit the quote if you don’t want to quote the entire message (just like I did above) - so you get these comments that may be out of context if the reader doesn’t take the time to scroll back up through the thread to see what the commenter is replying about.

I would think there would be an administrative level option in the forum software to quote users by default on replies, and that would make following the threads much easier.

8

Only if they only quote the part they are replying to.

In any event you don’t have to scroll up, you just click and you shall be transported.

9

So, if you click on a comment’s Reply button
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then you get added to your comment, who you were replying to.
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If you read the Forum on mobile it is visible there as well.

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10

Note that this doesn’t seem to happen if the comment you’re replying to is directly above your post.

I believe it used to show it consistently, but when the Discourse updates came along, it no longer shows, at least for me.

11

If you are replying to the last one, then it is not showing, because it is a straight logical answer.

1 Like
12

Just select the part you want to quote, and a button pops up to quote that bit in a reply. But regardless of how easy quoting can be, you still have to think about it.

Unfortunately, splitting the release thread up in subtreads won’t solve things either. You’d need one for each topic, for each breaking change, and one overall to say: Great work, y’all! And then people will pick whatever thread, and if you want to keep up you’ll need to follow them all.

The thread now is the one under the release notes, so that would not be possible either.

13

that point should be pinned and shown in flashing neon font given how often we see a deleted and reposted comment in a thread because of this :man_shrugging:t2:

14

Yep, like I hinted at, I don’t believe it was historically that way, but only came around when Discourse was updated this year.

I’m not against it now that I’m used to it, because like Gabor said, it IS logical.

However, those deleted comments you’re seeing are probably just people who weren’t aware of the change and thought they hit the wrong reply button.
I’ll admit to being guilty of this behaviour until I got used to the change.

1 Like