A Quick Update On Commenting

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Happy Opening Day of Baseball to all who celebrate, but especially the guy who wore a throwback Mike Piazza Marlins jersey to Yankees opening day. You’re a hero. As you may have noticed, we introduced a new commenting system yesterday. Things seem to be operating fairly well so far, but there are a couple of issues and one (good) change we’re immediately employing.

1. Email Notifications Are Turned Off By Default Now

We had the site setup so that anyone who commented would receive information via email pretty much any time someone replied to a comment. I liked this feature, but if you comment a lot it can result in a lot of emails. We’ve turned this off, but you can still get replies via email by clicking the subscribe button above the comment bar:

Screen Shot 2023 03 30 At 2.54.34 Pm

Unfortunately, the side effect of this seems to be that the little orange reply notifications aren’t working? For now, we’re going to keep email notifications off so we don’t overwhelm anyone’s inbox. We’ll try to get this feature separated so it works without the auto-emails. Though, if you like the emails, let me know.

2. We’re Reducing Spam Moderation And Turning On Approved Comments

The spammers (they don’t appear to be bots) who show up from time-to-time kept adapting what they said to bypass our spam filter. As their phrases evolved, it ended up causing more people who were not spammers to get caught up in moderation. We’ve since changed our site moderation policy to: only those with approved comments can reply. This means that, if you’ve never commented before, you may have to wait. At the same time, we dialed our filter down, so fewer of you should be caught in moderation. This should be a net improvement.

3. Appearance Weirdness

We are getting reports of comments sometimes not appearing. We’re looking into them.

Thanks!

 

 

 

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84 thoughts on “A Quick Update On Commenting

  1. Ooh, there’s a spoiler! [spoiler title=”What’s a spoiler? “] It’s that wingy thing on the back of a car, or this new feature that lets you make a comment and hide the answer. ???? [/spoiler]

  2. My comments are posting but I actually cannot see any of my account information. If I click on account, it sends me to get a new email link. If I get a new email link and then use it, it puts me in an endless loop. Not a big deal since its working but figured I would report it. I am using google chrome and gmail fwiw

    1. I’ve been doing the latter, personally.
      This system is a fantastic improvement, but now I’m hoping at some point I’ll be able to view my prior comments from a list and see old replies to them.

  3. So it looks different, interesting. I would really like to see notifications of replies to comments or lines through a menu I can see when I log into the sight. Most every other forum I work with has a feature like that. Really don’t want emails I get way to many emails. Something lights up shows a number on the top I click on it, it takes me to the latest posts with reactions whenever I want when I go to the site. EDIT FUCNTION. Post Pictures!. That is all. Man would it make make this a more lively place

  4. I find the real-time comment updates getting splashed on the page as I’m trying to read the article very distracting. Is there a way to turn that off?

  5. Hey screw this happy opening day. I was listening to bob and tom in Cincinnati this morning. Opening against the Pirates. One guy wearing a Pirate shirt and they made fun of him. Now granted bob and tom show sucks and they arent very funny. They go through laugh track machines like a meth addict goes through fruity pebbles. I usually am good at anything that approaches dad joke status. But really making fun of a lone Pirate fan a team that sucks so bad the average little league can beat them? 2 years of over 100 losses.

    1. I feel you there. I remember attending an LA Dodgers game in ’88, the year they won the championship and had Kirk Gibson’s epic homer on one leg, etc. Meanwhile, I grew up on the east coast and am a lifelong Phillies fan (the franchise with the most losses in American professional sports history and who happened to be in the cellar at the time).

      The Phils were getting whooped and I remember catching a bunch of grief from a particular Dodgers fan every time something bad happened to my favored team. I was finally able to get him to shut up by asking something to the effect of, “razzing the opposition is fine, but don’t I at least get some credit for showing up in hostile territory and supporting my crappy team?”

      Give some respect to the people who are obviously true fans and not bandwagon riders.

  6. I would like the emails if someone replies directly to me, I don’t often get the chance to come back to the same article. But the subscribe button might be good enough.

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