How would you make COMMENTS look and work on mobiles?

Comments can make or brake engagement on a content-focused social network. Mobile traffic overtakes desktop traffic on social networking sites. Getting comments to look and work perfectly on mobile devices is crucial for social software platform like Dolphin. Let's talk about what would constitute the most elegant, user-friendly, efficient, secure and engaging commenting system.

Then we'll build one for you.

Actually, we'll just improve the existing one, which is even better, because you know... it won't take as much time. So, let's see...

Nesting 

You know that different sites and developers take different approach to nesting. And, even though it is possible to create various setting and options for users to choose what they want, it's always best to try and get it right for the default setting. 99 out of 100 people will not care to change settings. 

Some sites allow multiple levels, indenting every level to visualise the structure. 

That's useful and helps to comprehend the conversation flow, but once we get to a limited screen width... things start turning ugly.

By the time you're on 4th or 6th reply even short words don't fit a single line. 

You could limit nesting to just one level, like we do here on BoonEx, but still profile pictures would take up at least half of the screen on mobile devices in portrait mode. We can compromise by making profile-pics really small and indent only half-way for each new entry, though. 

And, naturally, there's always the good old flat view. 

 ...which looks nice and simple, but makes it difficult to create and track conversations that stem from comments. Flat view can help to keep people focused on the main post, though. 

Grouping

Next, if we allow replies to comments, we need to figure out how do we show the conversation groups. Should they be open or closed by default? Keeping them open helps with on-page search and SEO. Replies may also attract attention of people that would otherwise leave replies threads closed. On the other hand showing too many replies may create a problem where all top comments sans the first one are pushed down too far. General compromise is to show a few comments and hide the rest. What's your take? And is it better to show the oldest replies or the newest replies first? 

Positioning

And yet another question is where to show them. Surely, Dolphin can allow you to position blocks as you wish, and comments can sit in the side block, underneath, or on a separate page. That's great, but now we also have this new trend of "inline" comments. It's when you leave a comment to a specific paragraph or a text selection and your comment sits somewhere close to it. 

Interaction

And on top of that we have all those questions about how the should refresh if new comments are posted while you're reading; where to show the inline reply field; where to show the just posted reply; how to display threads opened from permalink; etc, etc.  Some answers are obvious and clear, some... not so much. 

Comments, comments... they are interesting to work on. They do make a difference in how the site is perceived. They also permeate so many modules. They can also present in a form of reposts. They may be substituted by external comment plugins. They can be plain text or rich text. They may allow attachments. They may have privacy settings, #tags, @tags, auto-links, no-follow links, etc, etc. 

Now tell us what you think a perfect social software commenting system should be like? Share your favourite solutions and most importantly - talk about what works best on mobile devices. We are listening.