(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . DK6 Day 10: Let’s talk comments formatting [1] ['View Profile', 'Lisa Needham', 'Emily Singer', 'Walter Einenkel'] Date: 2026-04-24 This is a daily update on the Daily Kos site migration. You can see all past updates here. Welcome back! Now that I’ve been back a couple of days and have had time to really dig into feedback and get a better read on the overall vibe, several core themes have emerged. The first is that you, as a community, have given us real grace as we work through the bugs that come with a transition like this. As many of you have noted, the team has been moving quickly on the catastrophic issues while steadily working through the things that are annoying but not blocking. I’m deeply appreciative of that, and I share your admiration for what the tech crew has pulled off in a very short time. Thank you for that. Some fixes can happen quickly. Others will take a week or two. But we are moving. For example, yesterday I approved designs to fix the blockquote formatting in stories and to add nested indentation in comment threads. Both are important for readability and structure, and we’re pushing to get them implemented as soon as we can. At the same time, progress can slow when backend issues pop up. This morning, for example, our ability to assign authors to staff stories suddenly broke. That’s not something most of you would see, but it immediately became a top priority and pulled resources away from visible fixes. That’s the reality of working through a transition like this—we triage and keep moving. And not all critical issues are resolved yet. Some of you still can’t access comments at all because of Viafoura’s interaction with ad blockers and certain browser security settings. That’s driving us crazy. We’re pushing them hard on it, because it directly impacts your ability to participate. It needs to be fixed. The second theme is frustration around features we’ve lost that are outside our direct control. The most prominent one is the ability to see who liked your comment. I understand why that matters. It’s not just a feature, it’s part of how people experience connection and recognition in the community. The challenge is that we’re now on a third-party platform, and that’s not currently something they prioritize. We have a broader wishlist of improvements for them, and once we get through required items like social media embeds, we’ll continue pushing for additional features. But their roadmap is shaped by what benefits their entire client base, not just us. We’ll make the case, but I can’t promise outcomes here. That’s the constraint we’re operating under. The third theme is the hardest, because it comes down to a real philosophical difference. My reaction to the new comments—especially the lack of HTML—was more positive than I expected, and I said I “love” the cleaner threads. That didn’t land well with some of you. I understand why. There’s a gap between my experience of improved readability and the experience of those who feel they’ve lost important tools. So let’s talk about the tradeoffs more directly. Removing rich text formatting improves readability, performance, and consistency across the platform. Heavy formatting tends to fragment conversations—introducing visual clutter, breaking the flow of discussion, and making long threads harder to follow, especially on mobile or lower-powered devices. It also creates uneven experiences, where some comments dominate visually through styling rather than substance. A simpler, uniform format keeps the focus on what’s being said, and ensures threads load and behave reliably at scale. The counterargument is also valid. Formatting isn’t just decorative—it can support clarity. Italics, bold, and blockquotes help convey tone, emphasis, and structure. Without them, nuance can be lost, and longer or more complex comments can be harder to follow. For some users, especially those writing about books, research, or detailed arguments, formatting is part of effective communication. There’s also a status and identity component. Power users developed a voice and style partly through formatting, and losing that can make everything feel more generic, stripping out some personality. I understand that many of you used those tools intentionally and responsibly, so their removal feels less like simplification and more like a tradeoff made to guard against worst-case misuse. Even if readability improves on average, for those who used formatting well, this is a real loss in capability. Both of these perspectives are true. What I’m balancing is readability and accessibility across the entire system versus expressiveness at the individual comment level. Right now, I don’t have the ability to change the underlying system directly. What I can do is push Viafoura for improvements, and this is an area where I think there’s a reasonable case to be made, since other publishers would likely benefit as well. If we do get the ability to reintroduce some formatting, my goal would be to prioritize tools that meaningfully improve clarity without introducing significant visual noise or UI complexity. Italics . They add nuance and emphasis in a lightweight way, and they don’t disrupt the visual flow of a thread. . They add nuance and emphasis in a lightweight way, and they don’t disrupt the visual flow of a thread. Hyperlinks . Being able to attach a link to a word or phrase improves readability significantly compared to pasting full URLs, which looks awful. See? I don’t polish a turd if I think it’s a turd. . Being able to attach a link to a word or phrase improves readability significantly compared to pasting full URLs, which looks awful. See? I don’t polish a turd if I think it’s a turd. Blockquotes. They add real structural value. They make it easier to follow quoted material and improve comprehension in longer discussions. Where I’m more cautious is with tools like bold, strikethrough, underline, bullet lists, and similar options. The issue isn’t that they’re inherently bad—it’s that in a comment environment, they tend to add complexity without adding proportional value. Unlike italics or blockquotes, which clarify meaning or structure, these features often introduce visual noise and make threads harder to scan, especially when they get long. They also increase the likelihood that comments compete visually rather than contribute to the conversation. There’s also a UI cost. Every additional formatting option adds controls, edge cases, and potential inconsistencies across devices. In story/diary publishing, that tradeoff can make sense. In fast-moving comment threads, simplicity tends to produce a better overall experience. So the goal isn’t to eliminate expression. It’s to focus on the tools that improve clarity and communication without degrading readability or performance. That’s the framework I’m using. Will we get those features? I hope so. Will it fully resolve concerns? Probably not for everyone. But I want to be clear about how I’m thinking about it and where I see room for improvement. And stepping back for a moment—we are not permanently locked into Viafoura. There is a scenario where we build our own system again. But that would be a significant investment, and not something we can take on right now. If that ever becomes a serious option, it would require strong community support to make it viable. APP IS COMING Now that we are on WordPress, we can actually get an app done! We are in the process of selecting an agency to build it, but it looks like we’ll be able to have it live before the midterms. RECENT FIXES Trending Stories list finally works! Oh that was a nasty one. Comments thumbs-up “like” button turn orange, thank god. Minor infrastructure fixes that you guys don’t see, but improve performance Tightened ad filters to block unwanted gross ads. We have reports that this problem hasn’t completely been fixed, so we are continuing to tune. Story scheduler in user’s local time zone. CURRENT WORK LIST Testing out fixes to comments timing out on some slower connections Implementing stronger spam filters for stories/diaries. Tuning ad-network filters. Also, I want fewer ads on the site, so we are tracking ad performance so we can make informed decisions about which ones to eliminate. Training comment auto-moderator. We went from 300 daily false positives last weekend, to around 30-40 earlier this week, and the trend continues downward. It still gets stuck on some weird innocuous stuff like “stupid” and “idiot,” but getting there! It’s impossible to talk about Republicans without using those words. Also, please don’t try to censor yourself to appease the auto-mod. We WANT it to fail so we can train it properly. So if you say something that is within the community guidelines and it’s blocked, be happy! You just helped improve the site. Our human mods will see the comment is kosher, approve it, and give the auto-mod a stern talkin’ to. Updating the default group and user background image in the profile page that accidentally looks like a bunch of … uh … it’s not great. ON TAP Add complete comment history to user profile page Some edge cases were certain subscribers still see ads Issue where some images don’t appear in image library under “mine” Migrating groups that were created in the few weeks before the new site launch Blockquote formatting in stories is ugly Add tags page to follow/unfollow A host of random bugs, performance, and usability fixes LONGER TERM [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/4/24/800027095/announcements/dk6-day-10-lets-talk-comments-formatting/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/