Getting anal about how new posts are described...

3stripe · November 2005

This might be stupid but it has puzzled me for ages so just gonna spit it out.

When you have just posted a post, it is listed something like this :

Started by: 3stripe / Comments: 1 / Last comment by 3stripe

However, technically, if it's the first post, should it really be described as having 1 comment?

Maybe it should be listed as....

Started by: 3stripe / Comments: 0

It all depends on the exact syntax of what is a post and a comment I guess?

ADM · November 2005

Well technically it is 1 comment.. you're thinking more of replies. I understand where you are coming from as a comment is usually considered a reply as well, but in terms of this message board each "post" is called a comment.

3stripe · November 2005

Lol, I got ya! The way I look at it is, you need to comment ON something. So you can only comment on something that's already been written - which means that the first message can't truly be a comment. Hmmmmmmmmm

Krak · November 2005

I agree with 3stripe. The first post is the discussion, the posts to the discussion are the comments on the discussion. So it should say "comments: 0" when no one has posted a reply. If "comments" was changed to "threads" or something then having the 1 would make sense. Thats how I see it.

Mark · November 2005

You've got discussions. Discussions are based on a topic. People add comments to the discussion topic. So, this is a discussion about "getting anal...". The discussion was started by 3stripe and he also provided the first comment. That's how I think about it and how the database is structured. If you were going to change anything, I'd change the wording from "comments" to "replies" and subtract 1 from the number.