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I have seen many people share links which go directly to a specific comment. I wanted to do this too today but I couldn't figure out how. I had to search here on Meta to find this Q&A:

Direct Link to a Comment

It turns out that the timestamp beside each comment is actually a link to that comment.

I have a few problems with the way this works currently:

  • This was not intuitive to me
  • The timestamp is not formatted like a link. In fact, it is often greyed-out or otherwise unemphatic
  • The text of this link is contextual ("yesterday" vs. "19 hours ago" vs. "Dec 19 '11 at 17:48") which makes me have to think about where to look for the link

Can we somehow improve the UI of comments so that the permalink is more intuitive to find?

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    Meh, given the high probability of comments disappearing over time, and their lack of importance (them being 2nd class citizens), I'm not sure that's all that necessary.
    – Bart
    Aug 16, 2013 at 17:11
  • Time stamp permalinks are not just restricted to SE. They are used on other sites, too.
    – asheeshr
    Aug 16, 2013 at 17:12
  • @AsheeshR Did you mean "not just restricted to SO"? Or do you mean there are other websites (outside SE) that use the timestamps as links too?
    – Jesse Webb
    Aug 16, 2013 at 17:17
  • Outside SE. Although, I am not sure who or where this design started from.
    – asheeshr
    Aug 16, 2013 at 17:19
  • @Bart Why do you assert that comments have a high probability of disappearing over time? I would view questions and answers as being just as volatile. And the point is kind of moot since comments already have perma-links; I am simply saying that they are not easily discover-able. I do agree though that they are second-class citizens and, therefor (maybe) not as important.
    – Jesse Webb
    Aug 16, 2013 at 17:24
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    @Bart - but then why allow links to comments at all? My view is if we have functionality, lets make it more intuitive if possible.
    – chue x
    Aug 16, 2013 at 17:40
  • @JesseWebb Comments are more freely removed already. And there are even ongoing meta discussions on comment removal after a certain period of time or to have more aggressive comment cleanup. See this for example Adding a feature as you propose would give them more importance than they should have. Instead of merely allowing comments to be linked, it would explicitly encourage the sharing and linking of them. I don't necessarily think that's a good idea.
    – Bart
    Aug 16, 2013 at 18:27
  • @YakkovEllis Please, please, please add another way to get the link! This would really be helpful for all the users who can't see the timestamp any more because of meta.stackexchange.com/questions/339756/…
    – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz
    Feb 4, 2020 at 20:29

5 Answers 5

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I personally find the UI unintuitive as well. I had no idea of how this worked until you mentioned it.

My suggestion would be to add a share link somewhere after the time:

share-link

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  • +1 This is probably a better idea than mine; it doesn't make the (important) flag button less accessible.
    – Jesse Webb
    Aug 16, 2013 at 17:40
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    I might make it "13 mins ago (share)" rather than using the pipe. The advantage of this is that it keeps the share link with the timestamp. Using the pipe would suggest that the share link is different than the timestamp link. If there is an external standard that says that the timestamp should be a shareable link, then the pipe would add confusion. Pipes are normally used to separate links, not to combine them.
    – Brythan
    Aug 16, 2013 at 18:01
  • @Brythan - As to the pipe, I'm not sure one way or the other. We also have to account for the "edit" link and pencil icon. I think I would remove the link from the time altogether.
    – chue x
    Aug 16, 2013 at 18:06
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After using SO for quite a long time, I only now accidentally found out that comments support permalinks. The feature-request for the ability to link to a comment has many duplicates even after it was implemented, which highlights that the link from the timestamp is not intuitive and not discoverable by users.

Adding a permalink icon image (e.g. any of these from a web search) next to the timestamp will be a hint that it's a permalink.

Such an icon will take less space than a "share" button like that suggested by chue x. Also, an icon wouldn't actively promote sharing, which is a concern for those who consider comments as an unimportant part of Stack Exchange.

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    A visual clue, IMHO, would be useful. In the past I have always had to "inspect" a page's source to find the link to a comment, until I did a search today on meta and I have just discovered that it was hidden in the comment time stamp. If the link icon had been there, I would have saved a lot of time.
    – Greenonline
    Nov 24, 2016 at 11:18
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I too didn't manage to find myself that the timestamps are links.

When I saw other people linking to comments, I first used "view source" to make the links by hand. I can't remember now how I ultimately found the provided way but vaguely recall it can very well be that someone told this in a discussion.

Google does give Direct Link to a Comment as the 1st link on "stackexchange link to comment".

But, to even try to search, you need to already know there is even a possibility for there to be a supported way! Yes, there are anchors in the page source all right, but who says it's an officially supported way? Because everywhere else on the Net, it is an implementation detail! No one in the entire world gives enough damn about the hapless idiots whose only purpose to exist is to boost one's ego and/or fill one's pockets their users to even consider this!

(And for comparison: there is no provided way (that I know of) to make human-readable links to posts, only permalinks, which cause page reload.)

So, yes, the current interface is unintuitive. But I can't think of any way to improve this. The link next to the timestamp suggested by chue x is outright ugly (imagine it next to every comment in a row).

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-1

I am going to make my own suggestion for an improved UI.

First of all, it is worth mentioning that we already include extra white-space in comments which are only 1 line. This happens because we reserve 2 lines per comment automatically for the up-vote and flag buttons.

Here is an example of 1 line comments taking 2 lines:

enter image description here

My suggestion would be replace the flag button with a "more options" button. This would open up a little pop-up, similar to the "share" button on questions, which could include the flag button, the permalink, and anything else we want to add.

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  • I saw this answer, whilst searching for permalinks... It is an interesting idea, shame about the down votes - they could be because the answer doesn't answer the question, or because people disagree with the proposal - as no comments were left, you will never be sure why. IMHO, I think that it would be better posted as a separate question, as a "feature request", whilst referring back to this question. It still might get shot down with down votes, but then you would be sure as to why.
    – Greenonline
    Nov 24, 2016 at 11:10
  • Sorry, just realised that you were the OP. Maybe posting the answer as a new question isn't such a good idea, after all. :-)
    – Greenonline
    Nov 24, 2016 at 11:21
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I support the request now, after having some change of mind over the years.

To add my $.02, I suggest changing the timestamp style to be same as links, to make it more clear it's actually a link:

timestamp as link

Below is the original answer, where I didn't support the request.

Comments are not important part of Stack Exchange.

I don't think there is any real value in the ability to publish and share comments in external sites, like we can do with posts.

e.g. sharing "Thanks, +1 this is awesome!" comment won't be any good. Will it?

So, personally I don't think this feature is really necessary. The comment timestamp is a nice bonus, but no need to improve it any further.

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    The comment timestamp should not be a hidden bonus, but be available to all users, who need it.The functionality is available, it can be used to refer comments in internal and external sites. It is issue with design, that it hard to discover, and only very familiar with SE users have a knowledge to use it.
    – Michael Freidgeim
    Jun 25, 2016 at 5:06
  • @MichaelFreidgeim most SE features are like this: viewing the vote split on a post by clicking the score (for 1k rep users), viewing post revisions by clicking the "edited" timestamp etc.
    – Shadow The GPT Wizard
    Jun 25, 2016 at 5:27
  • The features you mentioned are for advanced use of SE, but refer to comment will be useful for an average user.
    – Michael Freidgeim
    Jun 25, 2016 at 5:50
  • @MichaelFreidgeim since commenting requires 50 rep, which is not trivial, I'd say it also can be considered as "advanced use".
    – Shadow The GPT Wizard
    Jun 25, 2016 at 7:55
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    I would be happy if permalink clue for comments will be visible for everyone with 50+rep
    – Michael Freidgeim
    Jun 25, 2016 at 13:59
  • @MichaelFreidgeim tooltip will work nicely, in addition to the full timestamp, agreed.
    – Shadow The GPT Wizard
    Jun 25, 2016 at 15:13
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    No, tooltips are not good for new information. They are useful if the user already knows what feature they want to use, and all they need is a small reference to remind them of all the details(ux.stackexchange.com/a/84804/82016). How do I know, that I should hover timestamp to read tooltip? And tooltips are not supported on mobiles, iPads and other touch devices. However when permalink icon or "share" link will be added to timestamp, it will be nice to add a tooltip to provide some detailed instructions (or even warning that comments are volatile)
    – Michael Freidgeim
    Jun 25, 2016 at 22:33
  • A visual clue, IMHO, would be useful. In the past I have always had to "inspect" a page's source to find the link to a comment, until I did a search today on meta and I have just discovered that it was hidden in the comment time stamp. If the link icon had been there, I would have saved a lot of time.
    – Greenonline
    Nov 24, 2016 at 11:20

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