In a feature discussion titled ‘Need to have box to click and start typing,’ justin_gordon suggests adding a clickable reply box at the bottom of each post—similar to Facebook and Disqus—to boost user interaction. He also proposes simplifying account creation for logged-out users. A snippet of obfuscated code appears in his post, possibly a placeholder or error. ronteras agrees, supporting an open text field for replies, noting that such features are very inviting. codinghorror offers an alternative: making the like button a call to action for anonymous users to log in, implying that engagement could be driven through existing UI elements rather than adding new ones. The conversation reflects differing views on improving reply accessibility—either by adding a direct reply box or leveraging existing interactions like liking to prompt login and participation.
I’ve got a friend who used to work Facebook, and he told me that discourse should have a box at the bottom of each post to just click and start creating a reply, like Facebook and Disqus. He said it definitely makes a difference in terms of getting interaction.
If the user is not yet logged in, we could make it very easy to create an account to comment.
At the very minimum, this would be a great setting to turn on-off.
Yes, open text fields are very inviting.
What I would rather do at this point is make the like button accessible to anonymous users as a call to action to log in.
