Re: RFC: Eliminate the "Offer Your Reply" links

[Argel]

That link is only really useful until someone has replied to the post. If you could check if there is a reply or not, then you could use that as the deciding factor on when to display it.

With that said, I never use it and would welcome freeing up some additional screen real-estate.

[tye]

That's the best idea yet. If there are no responses (and no 'readmore' tags?), give an "Offer your reply" link (or "Post a response" or whatever the standardized wording ends up being). If there are replies, give a "Read more/Contribute" link (that just duplicates the functionality of clicking on the thread title, which is good because the result of clicking on the title is a common convention but isn't actually described for those unfamiliar with the convention).

Actually, replace "Offer your reply" with either a pair of links, "Read more | Post response", or a single link, "Read more / Contribute".

[steve]

I agree with Argel, it does make sense to have those links for posts with no replies yet. With that being said it seems that having a difference in the display for posts which have replies and those without replies will lead to wasted space on the majority of content on the site. The only idea I have is to make the "0 direct replies" link direct traffic to the reply page, or move the "offer your reply" link next to the "0 direct replies" link.