It actually makes sense to have the OP "Recommend" button at the top, because that separates it from the "Rec" button on each reply post. We're all just learning as we go here, so let's not be quick to criticize. Neither way is better, it's just what we're already used to doing and now we have to change that.

Are you suggesting we should hit the rec button before we actually read the post? I won't be doing that, which means I'll have to scroll back to the top to rec the better posts.

The rec button is still at the bottom via my phone's interface, but not on a desktop view. It *is* annoying to have to scroll back up to rec a long post. Not sure what prompted that change in format - especially in a world where I hope a site like DU would want to encourage people to read more than the headline before recommending. Vain hope, as of course this will happen anyway. But it will also lead to people not recommending posts because they'll get to the end of the post and go on to read replies or reply themselves and will navigate away without thinking to rec. An odd design choice.

On large monitors it appears at the top. That's because I restricted the width of a post's content on large monitors, in order to prevent a post's text from stretching too far to the right and left and becoming annoying to read. This created a fair amount of white space on the left side of the post which seemed like a natural place for the Rec button. Given that most OPs on DU are not super-long, and also given that this would only affect people on larger monitors, which meant that they would have less scrolling to do anyway, I thought this placement wouldn't be a problem.

I should also note that your preference for where the Rec button is may depend on whether you're a recommender, or a reader. If you're someone who likes to recommend threads, I understand that it's a bit of a pain to have to scroll back up a long OP to rec something. That's not ideal. However, if you're a reader -- either a member who doesn't rec much, or a non-member who doesn't have the ability to rec -- I'd argue that placing the rec information at the top is more useful. It's helpful to see how many recs a thread has before you read it.

The ideal solution for larger monitors would be to leave the Rec where it is but have a second Rec button at the bottom of the post. We tried to do it this way very early in development but unfortunately we ran into unexpected technical difficulties which prevented us from getting it working. It's something we could perhaps revisit.

Bottom line... when it comes to fixable vs. non-fixable, this is one of those issues that does allow for some flexibility -- the Rec button could be moved. (Or potentially, an Account Settings option could be created to allow you to move it as an option, although that would be a fair bit more work). I'm just not 100% sure it's necessary at this point...

I haven't updated my coding skills for 20 years or so, but might it be possible to have the rec button "scroll down" when reading the post? That way it could be at the top and also be present at the end of long post rather than have a redundancy with it on top and at the bottom. I'm picturing the way some ads or news videos will continue as a kind of free-floating/pinned entity.

I agree it's not a huge deal, but it would be great to not have to scroll back up at the end of a long post. Especially since I'm much more likely to rec a long, thoughtful, and newsworthy post than one with a video or a short paragraph stating a DUer's opinion on the GOP outrage du jour.

And I could do it right now with just a minor code change... the question is will people then start complaining about the Rec button sliding around?

Probably no harm trying it to see what people think... I can always put it back the way it was.

Implemented in real time! I came here to look for your response because suddenly it's floating on the page!! You're a rock star, EarlG!

On larger desktop monitors (Default Mode and Night Mode only), I've made a change so the Rec area now stays on the page as you scroll down the OP, meaning you don't have to scroll up again when you get to the bottom of the OP.

If you don't see this happening right now, wait 15 minutes and try again (the servers might not have synced yet).

If people like it, I'm fine with this.

It's a minor annoyance but it is one.

You should now see the Rec button remain in place as the page scrolls -- the effect will be more noticeable on long OPs. That means you can rec an OP at any time while you're reading it, whether you're at the top or the bottom. If that's not happening for you, please let me know.

After living with it for a bit I think it's pretty cool! Good suggestion by intheflow.