Did you Know? Getting the Comments to Load “Oldest First” Right Now: Another One of Seon-ha’s Temporary Tech Fix Editions

I’m staying far out of the conversation about whether the main post comment threads should or should not load “most recent” or “oldest” by default. However, there is a feature of the site that should let you choose between these two chronologies that is a bit broken right now. Here’s a workaround until the feature is fixed.

The following has worked for me on Chrome (Windows and iOS), Safari (iOS), and Microsoft Edge (Windows). The Fan Wall seems to be working normally, so all that is below has been tested on the main posts only.

If you’re on a main post, and you want the comments to load with the oldest first, you can append the command “?comments=all” to the end of the base URL.

So, today’s WWW post URL is:

https://www.dramabeans.com/2023/10/team-dramabeans-what-were-watching-october-28-2023/

Click that and the comments load “most recent” first by default.

https://www.dramabeans.com/2023/10/team-dramabeans-what-were-watching-october-28-2023/?comments=all

Click that and the comments will load “oldest” first. You can just type “?comments=all” in yourself.

When you submit a reply, it might reload the page you were on with the “?comments=most” command there instead, and it’s back to this reverse chron. Just change “most” to “all,” reload, and that should work.

Advanced Topic: When You Also Want to Go to a Particular Place and Retain the Ordering

I’ve tested it and even if you’re going to a particular comment on a thread, the following syntax works for retaining the “oldest first” chronological order.

https://www.dramabeans.com/2023/10/team-dramabeans-what-were-watching-october-28-2023/?comments=all?nid=4518488&nidwpc=4133044#ready-comment-4133044

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