Hey @jtbayly, just to close the circle on this, it sounds like essentially what you want is both
- a total count, e.g. “45 total replies”; and
- selected replies appearing e.g. 3 mod-like replies,
to appear at once. That is indeed a custom setup that is not supported out of the box. But we could make a version of that work. To recap:
a total count, e.g. “45 total replies”
This will work out of the box, as discussed.
When you get to that stage, create a new topic in Support > WordPress and we can figure it out based on your needs then.