Feature Update: Collapse Comments On Long Discussions

One of the challenges of popular posts on Google+ has been navigating through (or skipping!) extended comment threads. Google+ comments remain unthreaded (which means there is one long list; in other words, you can’t directly comment on a comment), but it’s now possible to “collapse” them. Before this feature, the only way to clean up your stream would have been to mute (hide) the post.

Moreover, Google says that they’ll keep track of which comments you’ve read, to make it easier for you to catch up (should you want to do that).

To collapse comments, click any where in the “comment” field. The arrows will reverse, depending upon comment status:

Google+ Comments Are Not Collapsed

Google+ Comments Are Collapsed

The feature does not appear to be retroactive; in other words, I’ve checked some older posts that have lots of comments and click-to-collapse does not work.

Jonathan Terkeski announced the feature on G+ (of course). Here’s the transcript:

It’s been great to hear that one of your favorite parts about Google+ is the dynamic nature of the Stream. In real-time, posts and comments arrive in your stream — no refresh required.

While this is pretty awesome, it can sometimes be overwhelming. You’ve said that really active conversations with lots of comments can take over your stream. And comments appearing in real-time can sometimes make updates hard to read.

Well, today, we’re fixing all this.

First, we’re making it so you can easily expand and collapse comments in the Stream. Just click once to expand, click again to collapse.

And when comments arrive in real-time, we’ll automatically collapse them. But, we’ll still keep track of which comments you’ve read and which you haven’t. This way, you get to choose when to engage and when not to.

We hope both of these features make your stream more pleasant to read. These are just two of the many improvements we’re making based on your feedback.

Thanks again for all your great ideas and keep them coming!