Developers and Uploaders for a course can always see all comments on that course. For each review cycle, you can choose if Reviewers can see each other's comments. This toggle can be found on the Details page of any given course, located under “Review Cycle Settings.”
If a review cycle did not allow comments to be shared, then Reviewers during later cycles will not be able to see those previous comments.
Some teams use this for internal/external reviews. For example:
- The first review cycle can be used for the internal team with comments set as not shared. As Developers, they can still see each other's comments.
- Then, upon creating a new cycle for external Reviewers, comment sharing can be turned on and the new Reviewers will not be able to see comments from the first cycle.
Technically, you can update this setting at any time, but in practice you may want to avoid changing it late in the cycle. It may confuse Reviewers if the other comments show/hide during the cycle.
Note: Once you create a new cycle, you cannot go back and change the sharing option of the older cycle(s). So if sharing was turned on for a cycle, everyone in the next cycle will be able to see those comments and you will not be able to go back and change it.