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by studio625 5099 days ago
4chan's comment system is awful. I still don't really understand how it works. It seems like they could improve the design and pipe in new comments as they arrive, thus negating all the extra server load caused by browser extensions refreshing every second.

Of course, I have no experience dealing with ~1B page views/month.

6 comments

>4chan's comment system is awful.

They better change it to be successful.

Hacker newsers: don't get caught into this silly line of thinking. Remember myspace? Remember how many people wanted glittery text of their name?

The comment system is part of its charm, it comes from the japanese imageboards.
What's not to understand? It's so simplistic it can't be simplier.

You just have a thread with no hierarchy (except for the opening post). You can "reply" on some post in some thread, but the "reply" is just marked by post ID.

The 4chanX helps with this.

What kind of comment system do you want?

I'd write something in detail but I really can't guess what your complaint would be. Unless you want recursive threading or tags.

Install the mentioned 4chanx extension. Hovering a quoted post ID will actually show the post, and you can also see/expand replies to a post in the top right.
The chaotic comment system IS the application. There's nothing else and that's what makes it so unique.