The Mew trick essay got its 21st comment a couple of days ago (from TheScythe!), and this ended up prompting me to make a number of updates to the commenting feature and thus the guestbook and update comments as well:

• I've fixed a bug where the previously unseen second page link for page comments would actually go to the second page of the guestbook, not the second page of comments on this page. It should now navigate as you'd expect.
• Page comments are now shown in reverse chronological order, with the newest first, like guestbook posts and update comments - previously they were in chronological order, with the oldest first, which meant that once there were more than twenty comments on a page, new comments would not be visible by default at all, which didn't really make a lot of sense.
• Following from that, the comment form is now above the current list of comments. This was kind of inevitable - it was just weird once the latest comments were at the top that you'd have to scroll all the way down to the bottom to leave your own.
• It is now possible to reply to a comment, including guestbook posts, update comments and page comments, using the "Reply to this" link at the bottom of each comment. This will always post your comment to the same page/update as the original comment, if applicable, and include an "In response to" link on your comment leading to the comment you were responding to.
• Back when I first made a guestbook, it was pretty standard in website guestbooks that you could enter your e-mail address and this would create a mailto link that would allow other users to e-mail you. But honestly this has not been a good idea for a very long time now, with bots harvesting e-mail addresses anywhere they can find them to pump spam their way, and I doubt this was ever seeing any legitimate use. The guestbook now no longer has mailto links for users who enter their e-mail address; this means the e-mail address is no longer made visible anywhere.
• Instead, you can still enter your e-mail address, but if you do, it will only be used to alert you if I respond to your comment. I mulled over whether it made sense to make it e-mail you if anyone responds to your comment, but ultimately I didn't want some bad actor to be able to make the site send fifty e-mails to someone overnight by responding to their comment fifty times. Chances are if you're on this site and making a comment you may be interested in whether I respond to it, but it's probably less likely that you care if someone else does; obviously, if you are interested, you can still check back manually.
• Alongside this, I made some light UI improvements to the post form: the required fields are now marked, and also marked as required in the browser so that the browser will validate that they're present without having to submit the form; the e-mail field is now an actual e-mail input; the fields now have placeholders; and it should now be a bit clearer that the website fields are for entering your own website/blog/social media profile if any, not The Cave of Dragonflies. I would kind of like to make the form not quite as bulky (I have a certain worry that people might miss the existing comments just because it's so far to scroll past the form), but that might be a change for another time.
• The spam verification Pokémon is no longer regenerated on every pageview of a page that has a comment form; instead, you'll see the same one until you actually go to submit a comment (or regenerate it with the "don't know it" link). This avoids pointlessly regenerating it on every pageview where you probably aren't even about to submit a comment, but should also fix an issue I'd bumped into myself where visiting any page with comments while writing a comment or guestbook post in another browser tab would cause an error about tampering with the verification Pokémon when the comment was submitted.
• Finally, one cute little addition since I was doing all this fiddling: your spam verification Pokémon is now saved and shown as a little party sprite in the top right corner of the post (inspired by a similar feature on Thousand Roads). Unfortunately there are no shiny party sprites, but if you got a shiny, it'll be shown with a yellow glow around it, recording your good luck for posterity.

Phew, that was a lot and probably more work than a feature to comment on a Pokémon website really needed, but I am at least feeling better about several things about it now. Let me know if you bump into any issues.

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