How to efficiently find the newest activity in a multipage thread?

Question

How to efficiently find the newest activity in a multipage thread?

Docs 16,711

After using Q&A search a thread is opened.

The thread may have 10 pages or more.

There may be hundreds of answers and hundreds of comments.

Viewing page 10 displays an old date.

How do you efficiently find the newest activity in a thread?

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

simo-k 57,970 Volunteer Moderator

There is a button at the bottom right of the question in the thread that allows you to change the sort order, so please try using it.
　　 User's image

<Japanese>
スレッドの質問文の右下にソート順を変更出来るボタンがありますので利用してみてください。

Docs 16,711 Reputation points

2025-07-21T00:48:53.1533333+00:00

Where is the sort link? Does it sort only answers? Does it sort only comments? Does it sort both answers and comments?https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/3857664/win-11-version-24h2-install-failed
simo-k 57,970 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2025-07-21T01:24:11.78+00:00

Threads migrated from Microsoft Community only have anonymized "Answers".
For threads created in Microsoft Q&A, the sort order is applied to the "Answers".

<Japanese>
Microsoftコミュニティから移行したスレッドでは匿名化された"Answer"しか存在しません。
Microsoft Q&Aで作成されたスレッドでは、"Answer"に対してソート順が適用されます。
Docs 16,711 Reputation points

2025-07-21T01:40:05.78+00:00

When members make a comment in a multipage thread only thread followers that get email will be able to easily find the comment. New viewers will struggle to find the newest comment. Ctrl + f does not find what is not expanded.

Members must manually scan each webpage for comments then expand all then use ctrl + f. If one expansion was missed then ctrl+f will miss it. This must be repeated for each webpage.

The q&a website needs a feature for each webpage and / or each thread to expand all comments so that the newest comment can be found or so that the information sought can be found using ctrl + f.

Do you know any other method to search comments in addition to answers? (the above one paragraph (from a smart phone) was just edited on a computer to create paragraphs)
simo-k 57,970 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2025-07-21T03:39:40.7033333+00:00

Comments are used to ask questions, etc., and are not "Answers (advice)".
New viewers will not focus on new posts, but will check all posts.
They will likely focus on what is written in the "Answer", right?

<Japanese>
コメントは質問へのヒヤリングなどに利用されたりするものであり"Answer(advice)"ではありません。
新しく閲覧した人は新しい投稿に着目するのではなく全ての投稿を確認します。
"Answer"に書かれている事を中心に閲覧するのではないでしょうか？
Docs 16,711 Reputation points

2025-07-21T05:08:00.6766667+00:00

The problems are that very frequently members post useful information into the comment section instead of the answer section.

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For example there may be a request for a share link that is posted as a comment instead of an answer. Then it's a repetitive struggle to find the comment.

'

Or a new member to a thread may comment that they had a similar problem and how they solved it. This again can be hard to find.

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For our website improvement I'd like the top of each thread to have an expand button for all for comments.

.

Another option to make it easy to find the newest activity in a thread is to have a button for the last one or two email notifications that was sent to those signed up as following.

(original post made from smart phone > edited on computer for spacing)

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How to efficiently find the newest activity in a multipage thread?

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