Nit-picking

The reply count was indeed useful. I actually _did_ understand that the ’unlabeled’ number was the reply count. Did somebody ask you about it? Was the (2) for example not obvious enough? When you’d click the link under recent discussions, you’re brought to the post which magically has the same number of replies as listed in the parentheses. I thought that was more than adequate, but maybe to idiot-proof it, instead of having the new: "#2 - date - time" format you could write "x replies - date - time" where the replies > 1, "1 reply - etc" where the number of replies = 1, and "No replies yet - etc" when nobody has written a reply yet. OK this post is long enough. (:

Well, at least my mom still loves me.

Kim votes pro-replycount too, via phone, as does Steve via IM.

It’s true that the reply-count is redundant for posts that are currently on the main page, but older posts are not.  And the recent discussion list is on every page, not just blog pages, so it’s not redundant there either.  I think that’s enough to justify its continued existence.

So... the thing is, I want it less cluttered, and I can’t seem to find a good place there to stick a solitary digit.  I didn’t like the old (N) format because it made the title-line too long.  I could make a whole new line that says "N Replies" but I’m not sure I want each one to be 4 lines instead of 3.  And I don’t want to do "N replies - date -time", again because I don’t want it that wide -- one of the driving forces here is the need to make the side columns narrow in this 3-column layout.

It’s not always too long; it depends on the length of the title, and on the user’s choice of text-size in their browser.

This is the size I normally browse at:

Even at this small size, adding a (0) after "Shado..." would put it directly against the content column.  Or worse...

At just 1 text-size notch bigger, the title is already wrapping even without the longer line that (0) would create.

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I think you have chosen wisely. I am biased though since you seem to have gone with ’my’ No replies/1 reply/x replies strategy. OK I won’t take full credit, you did put it on a separate line and all. Hehe. (: