Until today, comments added to posts have been displayed with a sequential number starting at 1.
People referring back to that comment have coded, e.g. @7 to refer back to comment number 7.
This has led to problems when comments have been deleted for whatever reason.
From today onwards, comments will display a largely unique three-digit number which will never change. I say “largely unique” because, obviously, comment numbers will rollover back to “000” after “999′. The chances of that ever being a problem, I think, it’s fair to say, are very slim.
Hmm. This makes a bit more cognitive work… I often scroll up to remind myself of a clue/solution (most frequently because some people insist on writing things like “I struggled with 10a” without stating the solution, as if we’d all memorised the entire grid) and now we have to remember a three-digit number instead of a one- or two-digit one in order to scroll back down to where we left off. Ditto when revisiting the page later to read newer comments. Admittedly it does look so far as if the numbers, which are at least sequential, are sufficiently dense that one can just remember 85 instead of the actual 485 or whatever, so I suppose we’ll get used to doing that.
Also, I liked being able to see at a glance how many comments in total there are (though I can’t quite put my finger upon why), whereas now we’ll have to scroll to the top of the comments list in order to see that.
The original problem wasn’t so much that a comment gets deleted and later comments before the deletionemd up referring to a non-existent comment; it was rather that the numbers “shunted up” after the deletion meaning that the ID of the deleted comment was reassigned to the subsequent comment, leading to confusion. Wouldn’t an alternative simply be to replace the unwanted comment with a stock phrase such as “comment removed”, rather than delete it?
I agree with everything in comment #462 above.
*end up referring
Looking at https://www.fifteensquared.net/2025/10/12/independent-on-sunday-1859-by-filbert/, after just seven comments the numbers have gone from 388 to 458, so they’re not as dense as it first seemed. So we really will have to memorise three-digit numbers, especially on the Guardian posts where there are dozens of comments.
Also, this appears to have been applied retrospectively, making the comments in all of the tens of thousands of previous posts very hard to make sense of, when doing a older puzzle (many of us do, and especially beginners who are going through the QC or Quiptic archives) and when referring to “site lore”, i.e. classic comments usually made by the most recognised commenters on here, which very often cite earlier comments or wider discussions, all of whose ref numbers no longer mean anything.
The expression “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes to mind.
It’s clever and logical but somewhat overlooks the user experience. Crosswords can be hard enough as it is without turning commenting into a Krypton Factor mental agility round. I’m fine with the occasional gap, I quite like it even. As AP says @465, if we need a solution, “comment deleted” would be a more elegant one.
Oh dear, looks like you cant’ win, Ken.
I agree with AP @462
Just to echo #465, the retrospective application of this has made things worse. I’m grateful to you for attempting to fix the deleted comments problem, but this solution, unless it is tweaked so as to apply only to future puzzles, isn’t appropriate.
@471
Ain’t that the truth!
Everyone else, it was broke, it needed fixing.
Don’t worry, we’ll soon get use to it.
I posted here without realising that there had already been a discussion about this in the Site Feedback channel, although nothing said there changes my opinion of it all, except for the issue of holding a post for moderation, for which I think the ideal solution would be to “reserve” the comment number.
Scrolling thought the wider comments on that page, https://www.fifteensquared.net/site-feedback/ , it is clear that there (and on the couple of other semi-permanent ones) that the same 3-digit number will get reassigned with an undesirably high probability; and also that when reading the “middle” comments in the list one gets completely lost, having no idea where one is in the list. This won’t be a problem on the daily posts, however, since there aren’t 1000 new comments per day across the site.
kenmac@474, sure, but the fix is almost as problematic as the original problem.
It doesn’t strike me as being better but I guess we’ll see. Thanks for the explanation.
Sorry Ken. I didn’t realise people had highlighted an issue before. I see you edited my post to include a number. If you could do that every time it eould really help, new system or otherwise! 😃 Thanks for your efforts.
Ken @474 I am sure you’re right and we will get used to it, but meanwhile, the words sledgehammer and nut do occur to me. Sorry.
@486 – er, that’ll be a “NO” on my part.
😀
kenmac @ 488
I don’t know how much programming logic you can build into this site, but if you make the number
(number of messages with IDs less than this one in this post) + 1
Where ID = your new global sequential number.
..you will get the desired sequence. Fairly straightforward in SQL, let me know if you think this is do-able, but need help.
Another one agreeing with AP@462. The new system feels awkward (especially the non-sequential numbering) – I’ve never seen this system anywhere; and the alternative approach suggested by AP sounds reasonable to me.
Having said that, I’m very grateful to creators of this site for all their efforts in maintaining it, and I guess we’ll just have to live with whatever they think is best…
Really don’t like this change – it’s not as if comments get removed that often – i’ve never seen it as a problem.
In the Guardian comments under each crossword they just put “this comment was removed because it didn’t meet our standards/ rules ” or some such.
Why not, as AP earlier commented, just do the same.
Thanks kenmac. To echo AP@465, the application of the new numbering to the archive is really problematic. I spent years working through some of the archive, and still am, and there were constant references by number to previous comments that will now be impossible to navigate. Would it be possible to apply the new system only from the present day, and restore the original numbering to the archive? I’m sure it will work well going forward
Keep things as they are. It is a wholly unnecessary change for change’s sake.
I don’t like this. Why not just replace offending comments with Comment removed, as AP suggested? Other fora to which I contribute do this.
With respect and gratitude for all that is done to maintain this site, I suspect this change may make people less inclined to comment and refer back to others and that would be a shame since it’s (mostly) a friendly and supportive community.
I think that the first comment says it all.
On the site – a WordPress one – that I administer, I simply edit an unacceptable comment to say “comment removed”, or whatever else may be needed.
I also allow “nesting” of replies – sub threads – so that commenters can reply directly to each other without anyone needing to back-refer, though I do understand one rationale for that facility not being provided here.
I don’t mind the new numbering system but I don’t see what purpose the # key fulfils. If we refer back do we use @#666, for example.
I can see why comment removed is a challenge – as one of the bloggers. We’ve got a special rule for the Guardian Quick Cryptics – we don’t allow times to be posted – and I know, from experience, how fiddly it is to go in to a comment to redact a time – and it’s the same action to redact the comment by writing “comment removed”.
Most comments are approved automatically, some are held for approval, some get sent to spam automatically. To get comments redacted assumes all comments go to approval and/or the blogger and/or admin reads every comment. In theory, bloggers receive every comment as an email – but it doesn’t necessarily work, I get some but not all of the comments in my inbox, some go to spam and some disappear.
It also assumes that Ken and/or the blogger is not at work, out, sleeping or doing something else, 24/7, so can jump on all the comments as they come in for the 3 or more blogs every day.
I don’t know how many people noticed on Saturday, but of the bloggers posting I was in Edinburgh and climbing Arthur’s Seat as the Quick Cryptic boob was spotted and corrected, mc_rapper, who posted the Guardian Prize and Private Eye’s Cyclops was taking part in the Times Crossword competition. So for three of the blogs, the blogger wasn’t available, to my knowledge, I don’t know what other bloggers were up to.
Are you really asking all bloggers blog, then are available to resolve any problems on a blog immediately? And for how long are you asking us to hold ourselves ready? Or are you asking Ken to be available at all times to check every post?
@546
I envisage people doing what I’ve just done.
The # is an internationally recognised symbol for “number”. I first tried it without # but it didn’t quite look right.
I completely agree with Fiona @493
For a long time I lived with a phone system that for some reason couldn’t show the post numbers on fifteensquared, so I had to search back for the poster’s name. I was very pleased when a new phone solved the problem. Now it looks like all back-references on older blogs (and all references on later blogs to something said at comment 27 in the Paul blog on such and such a date) will now become meaningless. I think the cure is worse than the disease.
Thanks for the reply @549. That works.
When I return to a blog hours later, if there had been say eight comments earlier, I quickly scroll to comment nine to pick up where I left off. Can’t do this now. If I was organised I guess I could work it out from the entry times, but this is an extra strain on the grey matter, especially with different time zones involved. 🙁
Shanne @547 I totally get your point. No one expects bloggers or admin to be available 24/7. I’m amazed that anyone takes on the task at all and we’re all grateful that they do.
But surely we’re just talking about those very few dodgy posts that are approved in the automatic process. In those cases very often someone reading the post either points it out in another comment, or emails admin, and then at some point the dodgy post can be replaced by the “removed” message. I’m not talking about spoilers or the boastful posts. We can easily disregard those. I mean the abusive ones or those with suspicious links.
gladys@9.23am on the Brummie blog today has come up with a good suggestion to use the commenter’s name and time stamp to refer to earlier comments. It works well. Only took a second to train the eye to look for the name and then to the right for the time of entry. It gives the order of the posts, gives you an idea of how far back to scroll for an earlier comment, and deleted comments don’t matter. So do we need the new numbering system, or any numbers?
Paddymelon, your reference to gladys was thought to be an email address and turned blue! Inserting a space circumvents this.
Just keep the original number and show the comment as removed. This is a mess.
Apparently commenters in other time zones also see UK, rather than local, time (I must admit that this hadn’t occurred to me as a potential problem. I hadn’t spotted the potential for generating an “email address” either, so maybe it isn’t such a good idea ). But for the time being I am using time, rather than post number, as my reference to previous posts.
Time stamps usually only work for the posters in the same country – I suspect the time stamps seen in Australia and the USA are going to change from those seen in the UK.
We see UK times — see my post in Brummie’s blog.
GDU @563 – Yes indeed. I characteristically revisit / refresh the blog page a number of time during the day with the intention of reading new comments that have been added since my last visit.
GDU @10:10am on 13 Oct 2025, I agree. Sun’s gone down here, as I suspect it has for you, so no way is it 10 am.
I’d like to say thankyou to @kenmac and all the bloggers for what you do.
This not a service that we pay for, nor one that we’re entitled to. It’s provided by people who are generous with their expertise and their time. They deserve better than some of this ‘feedback’.
Some of the comments are constructive but the tone of many of them is one of complaint, and I’ve only seen one or two genuine, practical offers of help.
And for those saying it wasn’t broken, the OP has clearly explained what the original issue was.
So, thankyou again to everyone involved in this site. You’ve taught me so much and brought me much entertainment.
Quite agree with Balfour @589 and GDU @563: I like to see the latest comments on a blog I’ve done (as John) and it’s convenient to know where to start. With all this one has to hunt around tiresomely.
Shanne@547 8.22 I’m not sure what you’re referring to in the second half of your post! The general concensus so far is that people would prefer simply to have a “deleted” comment redacted to say “comment deleted”, thus not affecting the enumeration. No extra work is required of the blogger/admin, beyond doing the redaction instead of clicking the delete button. I appreciate from what KenMac and you say that this is extra work… but it doesn’t involve monitoring comments that you weren’t previously monitoring.
Wil Ransome@597 10.36 well its more that you now have to remember a longer number and fiddle around more to locate it.
@ various. Yes I saw that my comment @ 9.55am produced a link but I/we can learn not to do that. Thought about mentioning that the comment is recorded in UK time, but we all know that. It’s a good record of the order of the clues. I don’t think we need anything else.
[paddymelon@599 10.48 I’m not sure we did all know that 😉. I knew it because I happen to live abroad, and had happened to notice it in the past, but there’s no reason why UK solvers would know one way or the other, and in fact the usual assumption would be that the times adapt automatically to the reader’s timezone.
If the current situation has to be lived with then certainly it would help if we cite the post time when replying; in fact it’s probably what I’ll try to remember, rather than the three-digit number, when trying to relocate myself where I left off.]
AP @597 – the only way we can go in and redact a post – be it redacting the time or adding comment deleted, is actually being near a keyboard, opening the comment and typing in “comment deleted”. There is no button to press that does it. (I’ve not tried it on a phone, but I’d rather not.)
The buttons bloggers can press on posts are: approve, hold or delete.
So to add Comment Deleted is to ask every blogger and/or Ken as admin, to go into each post you want held on the system and change what is posted to “comment deleted”, individually.
Thanks Shanne@604 11.06, that clarifies things!
Sounds like a custom button is needed…
Given that most other blogs do this, I wonder whether there’s a plug-in available for it.
Well said, Lucy#595.
OK. I’ve reverted to the old way. Deleted posts will not be indicated.
I don’t understand how referring back to a time is any more helpful. I don’t understand the comment that suggested that these post numbers (last three digits) are liable to change. That is completely illogical.
Let’s just live in the past.
kenmac@48, I find it easier to remember the time than a meaningless (as far as the reader is concerned) three-digit number, which makes it easier to pick up where I left off when revisiting the page to to read newer comments later in the day, or if I scroll up and then return to where I was.
Noting the times of the comments also helps understand where one currently is in the long list of comments (most comments on most pages are posted on the same day; if you’re reading comments on a Guardian puzzle page in the afternoon and you’ve only reached comments made at 10am, then you know full well that you’re only near the start or at best at the middle. In fact, this is the only difference really between the three-digit system and the timestamp idea; and given that the difference falls in favour of the timestamps, I think we’d have all just started using the timestamp exclusively and ignored the three-digit ids completely.
All of these points in favour of the timestamp also apply equally to the old consecutive ID system.
I do think the ideal solution is to find a pkug-in to make “comment deleted” easier to achieve
Commenting on last Friday’s Fed this morning I was almost looking forward to seeing if my comment’s number would be a duplicate of one already assigned, and was a little disappointed to find on posting that the old numbering system had been reintroduced!
It was an interesting but clunky solution to what I never found to be a big problem. Yes, sometimes the numbers slipped, but the comment referred to was always going to be fairly close to the slot identified, and if it bothered us at all it was only momentarily.
Well done Ken for going back to the past, and for all you do to keep this site going.
On the Guardian site a message is posted to replace a deleted post. Can that not be done here?
Apparently not, and I am happy to take Kenmac’s word for this: he’s the one that would have to implement it.
Muffin@51. I guess The Guardian pays someone whose job includes doing that sort of thing, whereas this site relies on volunteers who can’t be everywhere at once. It’s a relatively small problem, let’s just learn to live with it.
Erm … this one is good ol’ 54 still. I would like a more interesting number please.
As Sheffield Hatter says at 50: well done Ken for going back to the past, and for all you do to keep this site going!
Thank you, Ken for listening, and reverting to the (IMHO) much easier-to-read system.
As Lucy @40 says, this is not a service we pay for, but perhaps this is a good time to point out the big orange Buy Me A Coffee button at the top of the page. If you love this site, and can spare a coffee, I’m sure it would be appreciated! Hosting bills aren’t peanuts, and they do have an annoying habit of cropping up every year…
Excellent shout Mev @56.
Great reminder Mev@56. Donation made. Anyone else?
@Mig, Lucy, Mev 👍
Is the site now secure? It was reported as not being for some time after KenMac rejigged it.
@54 What’s wrong with 54? It’s my birth year after all.
Anyway, here’s a new number and extra points if you can tell me where it comes from.
R.A.15042699
Got it from Google, KenMac, but I wouldn’t have remembered it otherwise.
To repeat my question @60 – is the “Buy me a coffee” now secure?
As far as I know, it’s secure.
If you go to https://buymeacoffee.com you’ll see that it uses “https” and you should have a little padlock (or similar) in your address bar.
Paul b @54 here is a more interesting number
Twice as good, in fact
Jay @64 Alex Bellos in that piece did not mention, and perhaps did not know, that 108 in the Odyssey is also the number of suitors to Penelope in Odysseus’ absence. For that reason, it is also the number of sonnets in Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella, in which the beloved ‘Stella’ is Penelope Devereux/Rich. ( I don’t imagine that I’ll have another opportunity to share that here.)
Haters gonna hate. Keep up the good work admin. Much appreciated.
51, muffin.
On the site that I administer as a volunteer I don’t delete the unwanted comment. I just edit it to say “Content deleted, as it does not meet site standards” instead of whatever was posted.
That said, it’s fortunately something that I very seldom need find the time to do, and other sites may well differ.
btw the answer to KenMac’s poser @61 is Sergeant Bilko.
Heres’ my 2 cents worth (or 3 cents if the 2 cents have been deleted).
1. Comments are deleted relatively infrequently, so the numerical confusion doesn’t often arise.
2. When it does, the misnumbered comment is usually only out by one or at most two, so it’s not difficult to find the comment you are looking for, provided the commenter’s name is included (as it almost always is). If someone refers to a comment by Cellomaniac@21, and it’s really @22, a reader should be able to find it without overexercising their grey cells.
3. If a lot of comments are deleted, making the numbers hard to reconcile, we can always refer to the commenter’s name and time of comment, as Gladys has suggested.
Nice try, kenmac, and we appreciate the effort, but I think we should be able to sort out any numerical confusion when it arises, with a very little effort on our part.