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that other browsers are not an option wasn't in the problem statement

Nor was "Silas is too stupid to try a different, non-MS browser when one won't render LW correctly."

Good point, that edit I made was a rationalization.

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14 I can't see comments anymore -- what was recently changed?

by SilasBarta

5th Aug 2011

1 min read

14

I can't see the comments under posts anymore. This just started happening in the last day or so. (If I know a comment is there, I can still see it in the "recent comments" section.) I'm using IE8 at work (CORRECTION: IE7), where a lot of stuff is blocked for security reasons, but not in a way that kept me from seeing comments until recently.

What changes were recently made to the site that would cause this? It would be really nice to undo those.

Btw, I won't be able to see the replies to this post unless I find them under "recent comments", so ... if you want more specifics about how it looks on my end, you'll probably have to PM me.

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[-]FAWS13y60

I just tried with IE8 (the only version I have installed, usually unused) and it's showing comments fine while not logged in, but as soon as I log in the comments stop showing. Use a second browser window as a temporary workaround?

[-]SilasBarta13y20

Thanks! It works on IE7 -- I can see comments while logged out. (Will have to get this in the bug report list, wherever that is.) This will do as a workaround, I appreciate it!

(RobertLumley, take note.)

[-]khafra13y50

My experience supports Silasbarta's model. IE7 at work, a web proxy that hasn't changed (I would know, I work 3ft from the proxy guy), comments just stopped showing up last week. If I view source, I can see the comments, but I don't have an old comments page archived, and I'm not familiar enough with IE7 quirks to identify the problem without that.

[-]Oscar_Cunningham13y30

Things look weird for me too. The comment box is really short and in the wrong place and I can't see the vertical line that indicates a quote in comments. I just went up to Firefox 5, so I was assuming the problem was on my end, but now I'm not so sure.

[-]RobertLumley13y10

That's interesting. I'm on Firefox 8, which is highly beta, and I have no issues. I would expect a more beta version of the same browser to have more issues, not fewer.

[-]David_Gerard13y00

FF8 here too, no problems. And it's alpha - it's the trunk nightly channel :-D

[-]Oscar_Cunningham13y00

Then it's probably just one of my addons. It's not affecting fuctionallity though, so I can't be bothered to chase down which one.

[-]RobertLumley13y10

How many addons are you running? I don't really have very many. And most of them don't work with 8.0 anyway. ;-)

[-]Oscar_Cunningham13y00

50 :-)

[-]RobertLumley13y10

Oh wow. Where do you possibly find that many useful addons?

[-]Oscar_Cunningham13y00

Just browsing through https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

It's amusing to watch other people try to use my browser though. It's maximally efficient for my but utterly counterintuitive for everyone else.

[-]RobertLumley13y10

Yeah, most of the ones I see are completely useless to me though. And I find that most addons just slow the browser down.

[-]AdeleneDawner13y10

As of right now, I'm seeing comments okay using Chrome.

[-][anonymous]13y00

I've now checked using IE7. Comments display okay there, too, for me.

Details: This is the IE7 that came installed on this computer, which I haven't previously used in any nontrivial capacity. It has no add-ons and was in fact running with addons disabled. I didn't log in. The page looks fundamentally the same as in Chrome or Firefox, though some of the details are different, for example the post karma being displayed in a rectangle rather than an oval.

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[-]Vladimir_Nesov13y-10

I just opened this page in IE6, and although the comments are visible, there are artifacts on the page all over the place. I'm guessing compatibility with IE (or just IE that old) isn't being maintained. Try a different browser.

(Edit 1: That other browsers are not an option wasn't in the problem statement.)

Edit 2: Retracted edit 1 as a rationalization.

[-]SilasBarta13y00

If I had the option to use a different browser from where I'm trying to access LW, do you think I would be posting the issue in the first place?

that other browsers are not an option wasn't in the problem statement

Nor was "Silas is too stupid to try a different, non-MS browser when one won't render LW correctly."

[-]Vladimir_Nesov13y40

If I had the option to use a different browser from where I'm trying to access LW, do you think I would be posting the issue in the first place?

That LW doesn't work in IE7 is an important issue irrespective of whether you can use a different browser, as it affects other users, not just yourself. So maybe you wouldn't be posting it, but you'd ought to.

[-]SilasBarta13y30

Well, yes, so that would be a second reason why your initial reply was unhelpful, sorry for not mentioning it in my first response.

Btw, it's not just that "IE7 won't show comments"; it's that, "IE7 was showing comments just fine a few days ago, so did anything change on the site to break that functionality?"

[-]Vladimir_Nesov13y40

Simple things get overlooked all the time; don't form an ugh field around the hypothesis that something stupid was overlooked, by yourself or any other smart person you know. The low-hanging fruit is often in not making stupid mistakes, so the priority should be ensuring they are not made, rather than signaling improbability of making them and punishing others for signaling that it's conceivable that you made one.

(And thus surgeons don't use checklists, I'm guessing.)

[-]SilasBarta13y10

Why is this getting modded up? Can someone explain to me which "stupid thing" could have been overlooked, and which would result in me reporting that IE7 rendered comments correctly yesterday but not today, and which is rectified by me being told to stop using IE7? That's a completely different approach from "let's check everything that could go wrong, even those involving stupid errors", and so is not justified by Vladimir's lecture about ugh fields and overconfidence.

[-]RobertLumley13y00

"don't form an ugh field around the hypothesis that something stupid was overlooked"

That's why I upvoted. I can't speak for others, but my prior for p(site issue) is pretty low. You do not seem to have exhausted the possibility that something was changed on your end without your knowledge.

[-]SilasBarta13y10

Good point, so remember to phrase your brilliant insight next time as, "Does it work in other browsers?", and be sure to pay attention to such details as "It was working a day ago, but not now" so that you know it's not merely a problem of using the wrong browser.

Great troubleshooting advice there, let's make sure to follow it in the future.

Also -- I'd advise against flipping between, "use a different browser" and "wait! It might matter for other people if a specific browser doesn't work, so don't dismiss the problem just because you can avoid it that way."

[-]RobertLumley13y10

Sarcastic responses aren't generally very productive. (I may be misreading this, but I don't think I am.)

And you're leaping to the conclusion that it's something on LW's end. I'd be surprised if anything changed at all - it seems more likely to me that something changed on your end without your knowledge, in terms of the security settings at your work.

Furthermore, information on other browsers is relevant. P(Site issue|Broken on other browsers) > P(Site issue|Not broken on other browsers).

[-]SilasBarta13y00

I didn't leap to conclusions: I noted that the site worked fine on IE7 until very recently, which suggests that IE7 is not the problem. It's a datapoint that you still don't seem to have accounted for, considering that you're taking its performance on other browsers to be relevant to the matter of why LW stopped working at a specific time on (at least) one browser.

(Note: as I am involved in this exchange, I'm not modding down anyone's comments, including yours.)

[-]RobertLumley13y10

Well obviously IE7 didn't change - I'm not suggesting that it did. But it's possible that something changed with the security settings on your work computer(s), which would cause strange things. Maybe security software was added to the computers or something.

[-]SilasBarta13y30

Sure, and it's possible something in LW's software or dependencies changed. Both are low-probability. I'm seeking answers on my end. I'm also asking here if there were any changes on this end so that I can distinguish which one is more likely.

You have no evidence to offer that would favor one possibility over another, and yet you post anyway, and rather confidently. Why?

[-]RobertLumley13y30

Well, as I've said, my prior for p(site issue) is fairly low. Especially given that several other people have suggested (in other browsers) that they're seeing things fine. And I don't mean to imply certainty. You're correct - the only evidence I have is what has been posted in the comments here. I'm just trying to propose an alternative hypothesis, that you hadn't seemed to consider. If you had, then I apologize for the redundancy, but you made no mention of this possibility in your OP.

[-]SilasBarta13y00

Especially given that several other people have suggested that they're seeing things fine.

Really? Who mentioned seeing the comments just fine in IE7 over the past few days, rather than yesterday but not today?

I'm just trying to propose an alternative hypothesis, that you hadn't seemed to consider.

More accurately, you're telling me your priors. I'm interested in likelihood ratios though, and you had nothing to offer on that front.

[-]RobertLumley13y10

Really? Who mentioned seeing the comments just fine in IE7 over the past few days, rather than yesterday but not today?

Other people have said they're seeing things fine in other browsers. Sorry. Edited for clarity.

More accurately, you're telling me your priors. I'm interested in likelihood ratios though, and you had nothing to offer on that front.

The two are not mutually exclusive. And both are relevant.

[-]SilasBarta13y00

Other people have said they're seeing things fine in other browsers. Sorry. Edited for clarity.

No need. The point is, the fact that other people see things fine in other browsers (which, btw, I already knew) does not help to establish why IE7 previously worked but recently stopped, nor suggest that nothing changed on LW's end.

The two are not mutually exclusive. And both are relevant.

No, likelihood ratios are the only concern for a Bayesian, unless I have a particular reason to put credence in your priors.

[-]RobertLumley13y30

the fact that other people see things fine in other browsers (which, btw, I already knew) does not help to establish why IE7 previously worked but recently stopped, nor suggest that nothing changed on LW's end.

In fact, it does. Unless you're suggesting that compatibility with IE7 and other browsers is statistically independent, p(site problem | no problem in other browsers) < p(site problem | problem in other browsers). It may not be strong evidence, but it is evidence. Although, at this point, it's moot, since your bug has been duplicated.

No, likelihood ratios are the only concern for a Bayesian, unless I have a particular reason to put credence in your priors.

I didn't say they were relevant to the question asked, but they were relevant given the context in which they were mentioned.

[-]RobertLumley13y-20

And if you're not downvoting my posts (and this isn't meant as an accusation of lying) I'd like to know why other people are, I don't see anything fallacious about them.

Edit: Perhaps it's because I started writing a sentence, went off to write something else, and forgot to come back and finish it. I'll go change that. :-)

[-]FAWS13y40

I voted some of your comments down (as well as some of Silas') because you seemed unnecessarily confrontational, and to a lesser extent because I disagree with your priors.

[-]RobertLumley13y10

Ah, thanks for explaining. I don't feel I was especially confrontational though, especially given Silas's tone. Could you point out what made you feel that way?

[-]FAWS13y20

Nothing that would stand out as confrontational on its own, but things like describing him as "leaping to a conclusion" that add up.

As for Silas' tone:

Since he is an (albeit high functioning) autist I'm willing to give him the benefit of doubt to some extent.
Even though I don't think anyone was attacking him as such I can understand why he felt attacked.
As I stated I did vote several of his comments down.

[-]SilasBarta13y-20

No, for the time being you should probably stick with the hypothesis that it was because you were writing Nesov-style unhelpful comments.

[-]RobertLumley13y-40

No, for the time being, I'll develop my own hypotheses, and not be told what to think.

But you're just being rude at this point. I started out posting what information I had, in an attempt to be helpful. As Nesov did. And now you're just insulting both of us. I have no intention of continuing this further.

[-]Vladimir_Nesov13y110

Robert, comments like this make a step in the wrong direction, they engage on emotional level, rather than trying to understand what's going on, they don't break the usual pattern, and so encourage following it further. Silas is allowing his emotions to make steps in the conversation in a way that distracts from its topic, and now you do too. It's better if at least someone in a discussion doesn't do that, and it's much, much better if nobody does that.

[-]RobertLumley13y40

You're right. In re-reading my comment, it wasn't helpful. I have a tendency to engage on an emotional level when I am engaged in such a manner.

[+]SilasBarta13y-110

[-][anonymous]13y00

I'd advise against flipping between, "use a different browser" and "wait! It might matter for other people if a specific browser doesn't work, so don't dismiss the problem just because you can avoid it that way."

These considerations don't seem to be at odds.

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[-]Vladimir_Nesov13y00

The issue is the strength of your emotional reaction, not quality of the advice. We both agree advice is useless, but it looks like we disagree about your reaction.

(The useful content of my comment was mostly presenting the results of trying IE6, generalizing to other IEs, and concluding that it's probably not the security restrictions specific to your setup that are at fault, but lack of maintenance for the whole browser lineage.)

[-]SilasBarta13y10

What would have been the appropriate reaction for me in the blank?

Me: Comments used to be visible on IE7, but not anymore. What changed?
You: Don't use IE7.
Me: I wouldn't be asking if had that option.
You: That doesn't matter, it means there's a problem even if you had an option, because other people might use IE7!
Me: ____

So what's the story? I describe the parameters of a problem the site is having, and you knowingly post unhelpful comments that aren't even consistent? Sorry if I'm not optimally prepared for people who are just going to troll bug reports.

[-]Vladimir_Nesov13y20

Me: Comments used to be visible on IE7, but not anymore. What changed?
You: Don't use IE7.

My answer is unhelpful, and would be even more so if there was nothing else in my comment.

Me: I wouldn't be asking if had that option.
You: That doesn't matter, it means there's a problem even if you had an option, because other people might use IE7!

You used words "posting the issue". I think that you should've posted even if you had that option, posted for an entirely different reason, which becomes relevant specifically in the hypothetical where you have that option (being located in the hypothetical, this reason can easily be "inconsistent" with ones relevant in reality, in our case perhaps in the sense of not sharing relevance with them). I agree that this consideration has nothing to do with (1) helpfulness of "use a different browser" (we both agree it's unhelpful), and (2) strength of emotional reaction to "use a different browser" (we disagree, as I believe it's useful to not have a strong reaction in such cases, so as not to miss other low-hanging fruit that might be perceptually similar). As such, it's a completely unrelated point, and shouldn't be taken as acting on other elements of this conversation. (But it's a valid point, I think we both agree on that as well.)

[-]Vladimir_Nesov13y30

that other browsers are not an option wasn't in the problem statement

Nor was "Silas is too stupid to try a different, non-MS browser when one won't render LW correctly."

Good point, that edit I made was a rationalization.

[-]RobertLumley13y-20

I'm seeing comments fine on Firefox 8.01. My guess is it's on your end.

[-]SilasBarta13y40

Well, yes, it's something on my end. But that thing on my end didn't prevent me from seeing comments until recently, which suggests something changed on LW's end.

And yes I already know that other browsers will allow me to see comments. That option is not available at work.

(I found this comment through the recent comments section.)

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