Avoid showing edit box when comments aren't allowed.

[chriswaterguy]

Title
Avoid showing edit box when comments aren't allowed.

Short, concise description of the idea
If someone only accepts comments from friends, for example, then there should be a clearer notice, or (best of all) there should be no edit box unless one is logged in, and friended.

Full description of the ideaI just spent some time composing a

Comments

[sofiaviolet]

+1

[matgb]

Assuming when the OP says 'edit box' that commenting is meant, yes, heartily concur, if you can't comment, then you shouldn't get the comment box at all; I always assumed it was a glitch.

[lied_ohne_worte]

However, non-friends would need to get some kind of notification, else less experienced users would see that there are comments, wonder why they can't leave any, and subsequently open Support requests about it. In my opinion, the fact that there is a comment link therefore makes sense, but I agree that the "only friends may comment" message could be placed more visibly.

[anotherdream]

The edit box allows for the option of commenting as someone else than the logged-in user. Because of this I don't think it should be completely hidden. What if I happen to be logged in to another journal when viewing a friend's entry, but want to input my main journal username and pass to comment? What if I got logged out by accident - as long as I still have the comment box, I can just log in again while commenting. Removing the comment field altogether would disable all this, and I wouldn't like that inconvenience.

[ladysorka]

Perhaps instead of disabling it entirely, a note above it that says "this poster has restricted commenting to friends only" like the note that says "this poster has enabled IP tracking" or whatever that says?

[kateshort]

But that already happens, doesn't it?

Well, with a friend, I get this:

Anonymous- this user has disabled anonymous and non-friend posting. You may post here if [username] lists you as a friend.

Don't know if that's only for non-anons, though, as opposed to non-anon and non-friend...

[ladysorka]

Honestly, I have no idea if it does or not - no one that I friends restricts to friend-only commenting (that I've ever noticed), so. If it's there, I don't think I've ever seen it.

[christine]

The only reason I can think of not to do this is because the server would then need to check the identity of the page user against any comment limits that the journal has each time the page is loaded, instead of only when the comments are submitted. Since comment pages are loaded much more frequently than comments are submitted (especially when you take the quick reply into account), that might be an additional strain on the servers. As it stands now, the server doesn't check for compatibility, it just states the journal owners limits (I believe).

There is also the other point that was raised, that users can comment under usernames other than the one they're logged in on. Or they could view a page anonymously, and then decide to comment.

[ruakh]

The server already checks whether you have permission to view the entry, which means that if it's a friends-only post, it already checks whether you're a friend; I can't imagine it would cause noticeably more strain to perform that check on public posts where commenting is friends-only.

[christine]

good point