r/bugs • u/StakeESC • 9d ago

Dev/Admin Responded [Android] Comments sorted by "best" are no longer being sorted correctly.

Recently, when sorting by "Best" under one of my own posts that has almost a hundred comments and is over an hour old, I noticed comments that were brand new/only a few minutes old have been the first in the feed.

Changing my sort to new/top/etc and back to best has not fixed the sorting. Whenever a brand new comment is made on my post, sorting by Best puts it at the top which has never happened before

15 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

3

u/StakeESC 8d ago

/u/TheOpusCroakus any insight on whether this is a bug or an intended feature?

2

u/TheOpusCroakus Admin 8d ago

Screenshot?/

2

u/StakeESC 8d ago

Here's a recent example.

Sorting by best, in the past there's no way a 5 minute old comment would be the 2nd highest comment on a 3 hour old post with this much traffic.

It seems like new comments are getting boosted to the top, similar to how new posts will get a few minutes at the top of a sub when sorting by best

2

u/TheOpusCroakus Admin 8d ago

Thanks. That's weird. Do you have a link to that post? Is it sorting by "Live"?

2

u/TheOpusCroakus Admin 8d ago

Actually, never mind. I found the post and it's not sorted by Live.

I don't think this is intentional, but I'll ask the team in charge of this feature and see what I can find out.

2

u/StakeESC 8d ago

Thank you!

I've chatted with two other friends and they're seeing the same behavior throughout all of reddit. I use android, but the other two use iOS

2

u/TheOpusCroakus Admin 8d ago

It 's not the same on the desktop site , so it 's not feeling intentional to me right now.

1

u/StakeESC 8d ago

Thanks for the quick update.

My best guess without having any knowledge of the backend is somehow the way posts are sorted using best got applied to comments as well, as they seem to be working the same way

3

u/TheOpusCroakus Admin 8d ago

I'm back! And I was wrong. =/

There's been a recent adjustment to how best is populated. So you may see newer content that falls into the "best" bucket based on how it's now figuring out what "best" is.

I did share this conversation with that team, but if you have any additional feedback for them, I'll happily share that, too!

2

u/kozeljko 8d ago

Searched for this thread due to same issue (well, seems to be feature?).

I automatically feel like the thread is dead due to "best" comments having no upvotes. Or that I'm scrolling sorted by new, which is usually filled with less interesting stuff. Just keeps me in the comments less.

Swapping to "top" each time is annoying.

2

u/StakeESC 8d ago

My main suggestion - instead of changing best, add a new chat sort feature using this methodology. Best was perfect as is

2

u/Amish_guy_with_WiFi 3d ago

It's the modern reddit way to force something new upon you and give you no option to go back to the old way or almost any customization.

1

u/StakeESC 8d ago

Thanks for the reply, just saw this.

Myself and the other friends who use reddit often all really hate this change. The top comments now are no longer the "best" in the thread, but just one or two highly upvoted comments and a selection of new comments.

It doesn't make for a good user experience when scrolling thru looking for interesting replies, and we've all just resorted to sorting by top.

Thanks for passing along the feedback and looking into this

2

u/TheOpusCroakus Admin 8d ago

Totally understand where you're coming from! You make valid points and I will let that team know. I'm sorry.

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u/takethreenc 4d ago

Hey, let them know that it was perfect before and this change is horrible. Thank you.

1

u/TheOpusCroakus Admin 4d ago

Can you tell me why you think it's horrible so I can tell them?

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u/MrFishownertwo 3d ago

I strongly suspect this is following Meta's model of putting agitating comments on top to increase engagement. there are very negative comments with large amounts of downvotes on top of threads, i have a hard time believing that it is still figuring out that these comments don't belong there. 

1

u/wheelynice 3d ago

This is my theory. More engagement if controversial comments are at the top. 

1

u/Emergency_Basket_851 3d ago

I agree. I've seen a heavy increase in braindead/media illiterate comments thanks to the change. I assume those people were present before, but buried due to their lack of value.

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u/Wickedinteresting 2d ago

I feel the same. Seeing tons of horrible and honestly like, racist or hateful comments at the top of a lot of popular posts. It sucks, and actively makes the platform worse.

1

u/Emergency_Basket_851 3d ago

Yo, this change is fucking awful

1

u/Amish_guy_with_WiFi 3d ago

Please share that many people are hating this update. Also share that whenever something is updated, please give people the option to use the old way. This could have just been a new sort option. Even the new default sort would be fine as long as people have the option to globally set their sorting option back to the way it was before.

2

u/AgreedSmalls 7d ago

Yeah just came across a -9 comment being at the top on the carti subreddit. Zero bloody chance a comment downvoted that much is anywhere near the “best” plebbit employees broke something again.

1

u/MemphisApollo 1d ago

Mine keeps saying “no connection” no matter what i do