Clicking reply on a private comment does not check the "private" flag

(I know, I know, this could very well be considered "lack of a feature". But I just thought I'd post it, anyway. Won't be offended if you try out the "No." status.)

If you click reply on a profile comment that is marked as private, it does not mark your new comment as private. Seems like a bit of an oversight and an easy way to shoot yourself in the foot.

I don't think that's a bug. I don't think it should be assumed that a reply to a private comment should also be private. That should be left to the sender.

Right, as I said, I'm fine if Tim doesn't think it's a bug.

And I don't think we should exploit the bug mechanism by posting our pet feature requests as bugs in hopes that they'll get more attention that way.

And I think we should have a more civil Talk system. Oh well, can't have everything I suppose. :P

FYI, the main reason I feel it's on the borderline between bug and feature enough to report it as a bug is that it's unexpected behavior. I expect you may disagree with that, as well (wouldn't surprise me). But if you click on a private comment, I think the expectation is that your reply will also be private. That's the way most systems that have private/public comments work. I consider unexpected behavior that has a significant downside to the user and doesn't have a GOOD reason for behaving unexpectedly (some constraint that forces it) to be a bug.

I'm on the fence about what's expected here, actually. Probably it's about 60/40 one way or the other if you poll people. I think it does make a lot of sense to have it the way you suggest, and I'd support the change -- I'm just unsure about whether it constitutes a bug (and I realize you're unsure as well.)

To me, a bug is something that is intended to work a certain way, and doesn't, not something that I (or other people) think ought to work differently.

8> No, I agree, there's validity to that. But I think to some degree, that can describe a lot of things. Like Canonical Author being set to blank if you blank out the field. Well, if you want, you can also look at that as "you just set the CA to blank, so now the author's name is blank. CA was never designed to allow removing the value." Or if you talk about the Contained in BETA feature. You can't delete them. Is that a simple "lacking feature" or a "bug."

Now I'm not really claiming that is the case, but there's just a lot of fuzzy gray areas. But I think we can all agree that there's a big area where it's not gray. If I posted something like "Lists are missing" or "Multiple authors with the same name all get stuck on the same page", that'd be a pretty obvious attempt to sneak a feature in as a bug. :D

I think it's borderline, but I'm closing it.

First, it's borderline. Second, I think it's not worth working on, since we should replace the feature with a more wall-to-wallish interface.

> 10

Tim, can I just say a big thumbs up for the bug/talk thing? I know it's only early days at the moment, but it's good to have both the status and a comment in the talk thread about each of the bugs.

At least now if you don't fix/change something we know why.

Well, I thought I was coming up with silly examples in #9 about things that could be considered "lacking features" if you really wanted. But Tim has outdone me!

http://www.librarything.com/topic/99402

ETA: And btw, I'm all in favor of a profile revamp that includes more of a back-and-forth view, though I never much cared for the particular UI facebook used for wall-to-wall.

Well, I'm sure glad we got that whole "more wall-to-wallish interface" implemented. Would hate to think we're still stuck with the same crappy behavior two years later... ;)

Heh.