Last modified: 2014-04-08 00:16:32 UTC
Created attachment 14467 [details] Screenshot showing IPv6 address which may confuse new users When a user is presented with the option to leave a comment, their username is displayed above the edit box. For anonymous users, this means their IP is displayed. This can be highly confusing if you're not technical enough to know what an IP is, and will leave you scratching your head as to what the long, seemingly random characters above the box mean (see screenshot, showing an IPv6 address above the box). Suggestions: 1) Do not display username above the comment box. 2) Do not display username above the comment box if you're logged out. 3) Inform the users somehow (e.g. with a tooltip) what the long hex number means.
We're doing #3 - an instructional tooltip with links to login/create account :) Look out for it in the next release. I've done a lot of user testing (in-person and remote) on this, and while many people are indeed confused by the random string of numbers, a surprisingly large number of people either don't notice/don't care OR do in fact understand that that's their IP and just kinda shrug it off. But yes, explicitly calling this out and giving people a prominent login link is still definitely important.
You've basically satisfied my intent for filing the bug with your patch that adds the instructional tooltip, so this is fine to me.
