Should I hit 'reply' or 'comment on'

To clarify what LanX said: You use [comment on] if you want to reply to the top visible node of the thread you are currently reading. But you use [reply] next to a particular comment ("node", or what you might think of as a sub-post) if you want to reply to that node instead of the top node.

Whichever of the links you choose, the forum will show the node you are replying to directly above your edit-the-new-post window, so you know where exactly in the conversation you are.

So, when I am looking at your Re^6: Need to speed up many regex substitutions and somehow make them a here-doc list, I clicked on [comment on] to reply to your "Apologies" post -- and I can see the text of that post while I am creating my answer. (Once I [preview] my post, I lose that context and instead see the rendered version of my post above the editing box before [create]-ing it.) If I had wanted to contradict LanX directly, I could have clicked on [reply] next to his post in the threaded view (and in fact will be, soon).

OK, now I get why it's confusing, after nearly 15 years I don't see that asymmetry between top node and sub-tree posts anymore.

Would be more consistent if the "comment on" was renamed to "reply" too.

update

I.O.W. [comment on] is the [reply] for the top node of the displayed (sub-)tree.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery}

This is a full threaded forum and every node of the tree will display the subtree of all specific replies. But the comments are always per node.

If you're used to list oriented boards this might be confusing at first.

In some situations, I disagree with the generic advice please don't reply to different sub-threads in one post, as there are times when the replies to each are essentially the same (either because both say essentially the same thing, or the narrative of your reply to one highly depends on the other); in such cases, I link to all the predecessors in my reply. But in a situation like this, where a user was doing three unrelated replies in one post, I do tend to agree with the generic advice given by LanX.

(and xnous, I replied in this instance by using the [reply] next to LanX's post, because I was looking at your post at the "top" but wanted to reply to that response rather than directly to you.)