Display comments order - best practice

Question

I wonder what is the best comments order on the website. I assume there are two major methods to display comments:

1. from newest to oldest,
2. from oldest to newest.

Facebook uses method one and displays the newest comments on the top of every disscusion, but for example comments on most WP based pages are displayed the opposite - oldest comments are on the top and the newest are on the bottom.

So I wonder which solution is better, is there really a better solution or maybe it depends on context and - most of all - are there any studies/articles/research on this topic?

Answer 1

My friend at Malmö University, André Mabande, wrote his Bachelor degree on the topic with the title Designing for Dialogue. He concludes that:

The findings in this study seem to validate the hypothesis of the chronology as a major factor for generating a consistent discussion within a commenting field. When comments are shown in the order posted (i.e. later posts after earlier in the order of reading) the amount of replies to a specific post are significantly higher than when shown in the reverse chronological order.

It's something to consider when you design any kind of social feed. Mr. Mabande also gives some advice on how to design for the most interaction:

To create a path of action that leads the user into conversating with others about the topic the design should display comments chronologically with the comment posting section placed after the last visible comment. Also more than 20 comments should be shown to give the user an incentive to read a large section of what’s been previously posted to increase the possibility to see the context of the discussion. Whether a single-thread or a multi-thread structure should be chosen is up for debate, but I would recommend the single-threaded due to the risk of repetition in the different branches of the multi-threaded design.

Answer 2

If you expect comments to be part of a conversation, then you should order them from oldest to newest (bottom posting). This follows reading direction, and is far easier to follow a series of related comments. Examples include this site's comments and Reddit.

If you want to emphasise novelty over conversation, you should order comments from newest to oldest (top posting). Examples include YouTube where there is rarely anything like a conversation.

Answer 3

Another way is to implement a way to upvote/downvote the comments, like here, reddit, disqus, and display the highest ranked posts first.

It gives insightful comments more visibility.

Youtube also display the two most upvoted comments (also regarding the age of the comment).

Answer 4

If your website is public and people are posting about things that are potentially controversial (such as, everything), then putting comments in chronological order gives people an incentive to get their opinion up very quickly and thereby secure the prime real estate at the top of the list, where it will remain forever.

This encourages participation, but mostly by spammers and the highly opinionated, which may then discourage participation by everyone else.

This isn't the only consideration by any means, but it's a potential issue to keep in mind.