The Autopian Is Rolling Out A New Commenting System (With Editing And Notifications) TOMORROW

The New Comments Are Here
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After months of shoving floppy disks into his Apple Lisa, Jason has finally gotten to the last one, and our new commenting system (all 83.4 megabytes!) should deploy some time this evening — certainly by tomorrow! What does this mean for you? Many of the features you’ve asked for will be available. Here are the details.

[Editor’s Note: But first, let’s get into the details of those floppy disks I was shoving into that Lisa, because they’re fascinating. They’re fascinating because they weren’t like other floppy disks of the era, they were weird-ass proprietary disks made by Apple just because they wanted to make their own disks, because of arrogance or madness or glee or all of that. They were called “Twiggy” disks, after the famously thin model, and they were weird. 

They looked weird, they spun at variable speeds, unlike most floppies, and all that weirdness let Apple save about 870K per disk, which is incredible when you remember that the Apple II 5.25″ disks only stored 143K! They were notoriously fragile and unreliable, though, and were a dead end. Still, I’m glad I had enough around to get the new comment system loaded! – JT]

It should just work, but you may have to re-log in

Jason (actually, our wonderful tech team at Jazel) has worked hard to make this as seamless a transition as possible. We’ve also set the permissions so that, once you get a link, you’re not constantly asked to log in again. There’s a chance that you may need to log in again, but if you’ve transitioned your account via Memberful there’s also a chance you won’t need to. We will update this post when comments are fully deployed so you’ll know if you’re not seeing them.

There’s an edit button!

Edit Button 1

Of the many requested features, the biggest one seems to be an edit button. I’m not sure why. My language is prefect. For the rest of you, just hit the gear and it should give you the option to edit your post.

You Can Decide How You Want Comments Ordered

Screen Shot 2023 03 28 At 12.42.20 Pm

Do you want to see the most discussed article or do you want to see the most favorited? It’s up to you! Use the icons above to decide how you want to see comments. Because this is a friendly place, we’re not doing upvoting and downvoting. Your only choices are to give something a smiley face (favorite) or do nothing. We hope this also discourages trolling and keeps this a fun place to interact.

Notifications. Oh so many notifications.

Replies

Our new commenting system features a nice little comment notification system when you are within a post. The little comment circle floats with you and it gives you a couple of pieces of information. The first number is the number of comments on the post you’re reading, which is fairly straightforward.

The second number, which is orange, can give you even more information. If there’s an awesome conversation you want to keep tabs on without having to keep scrolling through everything, you can subscribe to it. You can also choose to just subscribe to your replies. If you do nothing, it should still alert you to replies when you’re on that post.

All Your Activity In One Place

Screen Shot 2023 03 28 At 12.47.38 Pm

In our current system, it’s hard to tell where your conversations are. Now using the “activity center” you can see all your most recent comments and also all your “subscriptions” (i.e. the conversations you saved). You can always reach this by clicking the little person and gear next to the comment counter on the articles.

We Will Be Adding Features As We Go

The new system includes numerous options we can turn on, including notification via email and user follows. Some of these features we’re going to hopefully roll out in the comings weeks and months, but for the moment we want to make sure the basic system works consistently without issues.

To that end: Please let us know if something isn’t working and please have patience if something breaks. You can email me if you see any issues: matt@theautopian.com.

This is gonna be great!

An Alternative Topshot

There was a lot of debate internally over whether or not the image of Steve Martin from The Jerk was too outdated of a reference. I don’t think it is, both because the film is a classic and because Steve Martin has persevered (he has a popular show on a streaming service right now). Just in case that didn’t land, here’s one inspired by the latest 100 gecs song (which is a total bop) [Editor’s Note: I have no idea what the hell Matt is talking about. I don’t know about “the Jerk” — which is, I assume, a film about the first derivative of acceleration — and I don’t know what a gec is, much less 100 of them. -DT]. 

New Comments Are Here

Photo Credits: 100 Gecs, NBC Universal

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193 thoughts on “The Autopian Is Rolling Out A New Commenting System (With Editing And Notifications) TOMORROW”

  1. Hey
    [spoiler title=”this is a nice upgrade!!!”] [/spoiler]

    Also:
    Editing works!As does formatting.I especially like that keyboard shortcuts work (Ctrl+B, etc.).

  3. Hmm the “little person and gear next to the comment counter on the articles” for the activity center should probably be with the floating message icon or in the top bar, not just the one at the top of the comments. It took me forever to find it.

  6. Ẕ̴̖̼̤̬̱̣͙̱̤̞̬̠̲̫̐̈́̌̿̈̔͘͝͝ä̴̰͕͎̫͚̺͇̭͈̦͔̣͍̭̜́̑̂̓̏̿͛̎̆͛̄̈́̀̈́̕ļ̷̨̧͇̩͍̦̪̥͎̞̝̓g̵̥̥͚͔̫̻̜͖̠̖̮̰̋ͅō̸͓̞̤̹̻̙̼̂͌̽̍,̸̨̢̢̨̡̫̖̭͈̞̲̟̤̱̟̽̎ͅ ̸̞͖͗̍̐c̷̫̫̊̈́̍̍͌̈̍̎̋̽̋̓̾̍͝ḣ̴̡̭͔͖͉͙̃̄̈́̍͊̂͂͐̾̉̄̍͂̍̓͝ě̷̲̲̼̬ͅc̵̯̗̅͛̋̏͛̒̎̊́͋͌̊́̀͗̆͠k̶̛̯̀͑̈́͛̈͒̈́͌̂̇̕ĭ̶̧̪͇͖͚̪̞̪̘̤̑͊͒̒̅͂͝͠n̴̡̹̥̤͔͖̬̞̹̝͖̖͈̰̍̍̈̽͊͆͆͘͜ĝ̴̢̺̗̰̗̘̃̾̿͗͛͊̕͘͝͝͝͠ ̸̧͓͇̦͍͚̗͕̬̰̗̫̓̈́͆̈́͜͜i̷̢̨̨͈̟̙̮̮̹͈̬̎̑͒̿͊̏͋͌ǹ̶͕͉̒.̶͚̼̬̖̞̽͂̆̈́̄̀́̚

  8. Anyone else not seeing all the comments when they load an article?

    An article with a lot of comments may show me only 3-4, an article with a few comments may show me nothing. Refreshing sometimes fixes, sometimes doesn’t.

      1. Chrome.

        Just now, I couldn’t see your reply, refreshed the page, which lost me my original comment as well, went to the direct link for my comment, still could not see your reply, refreshed that and finally got the reply to load.

        Earlier this morning, the first 5 comments on the Morning Dump would show as there (the page said 5 comments including mine) but I couldn’t see any comments.

        Very odd.

  11. Oooooooooh no. I’m getting “my comment has been approved” notifications via email now. How do I keep notifications on here (on the website), but disable getting them via email? My inbox would fill right up at my rate of parshposting.

      1. I got the unsubscribe link for the comment one, but not for “your post has been approved.”

        I don’t mind the spam filter given that posts tend to get out of it relatively quickly, but I don’t need the email every time a post gets caught.

        1. The filtering for posts in need of approval is truly bad. Or perhaps anyone who posts several times within a certain window gets flagged?

          I still haven’t seen the little orange circle for notifications.

            1. Oh yeah, that’s not good. There is a “Bulk management via email” link – gonna try that.

              Here’s what you get:

              Please use this link to delete all your comments. Please note, that this action cannot be undone.

              Delete all my comments
              Please use this link to cancel all subscriptions for new comments. Please note, that this action cannot be undone.

              Delete all my subscriptions
              Please use this link to cancel all follows for new comments. Please note, that this action cannot be undone.

              Delete all my follows
              —

              Does “cancel all subscriptions for new comments” just mean I’ll get no more emails, or does it also mean I’ll get no notifications on the site itself?

              I have yet to see the little orange notification circle…

              1. These are all great questions. Looking into it. Going to see if:
                A. we can make email notifications OPTIN not OPTOUT
                B. If we can’t, I might just turn them off? If you get notifications here it seems redundant for most people.

                1. Does “Delete all my subscriptions” turn off ALL future notifications, both here on the site and the emails? That’s my concern.

                2. Ahhhhh—I think it’s only giving me the notifications via email, with just the option for notifications on here. I’d rather just not get emails, but yeah—notifications here in some form would be awesome.

  12. Just want to say thank you for listening to reader/member feedback and addressing these concerns. All of the mentioned features are nice, and the commenting system just generally feels much less clunky and more advanced than it was before. Also just got a notification that my merch shipped, looking forward to it! Keep doing what you’re doing.

    1. Looks like there’s a timeout on the edit button? Or is it a single-use thing? It’s now gone from the post above. (I’m fine with a timeout/use limit, FWIW—just noting how it works in practice.)

      Either way, muchas gracias for this getting rid of my linked screenname. Note to self: Link your own damn website if this functionality comes back, not the website that’s about to lay you off.

          1. Mostly just testing new comment system—but also in support of puffalump pics. I think the world needs random (positive) oddness to pull us out of our programmed routines. Yes, I grew up reading Bloom County and Farside- why do you ask?

            cool beans: shit just WORKS!
            —as does edit: WOOT!

  16. I feel like a moron asking this but how in the hell does one link this posting account to a gravatar? I can’t seem to find how to do that for some reason.

      1. I should have been more clear so I apologize. I have this account and I have a gravatar account. There does not seem to be any obvious way to link the two. I admittedly don’t use wordpress so it’s definitely my ignorance at work here.

          1. It’s actually really easy that’s only taken me over a month to figure out. Your email has to be matching or added to the gravatar site that you are using on this site. Once I added this email address and assigned a picture, it showed up here.

        1. Come back to this post. If that doesn’t work you can click the little bell. I’ve been getting email notifications of all posts, too.

          2. For the benefit of others (who don’t want their inboxes full of notification emails), is the only way to not get the emails (but keep the normal notifications) to use the Unsubscribe link in one of the emails you get?

            1. Yeah, I’m no longer getting notification emails.

              I’m still not seeing where the notifications show up here on the site, though (I’m on Firefox on Win10, fwiw). Only noticed your reply by coming back to this comment thread.

  18. This headline should have been, good news everyone! with Torch’s head superimposed on Professor Farnsworths body. Also lets see how this whole commenting system goes.

  22. Is anyone still having the issue I’ve always had where your profile/screen name (as per updated account settings after creating an account) is different to the “logged in as” name for comments purposes?

    This appears to be a user issue and not a comment system issue but I cannot for the life of me figure it out!

  24. Checking my comment history, if I click on an old comment it opens a whole new tab in my browser. Can that be changed somewhere? I’d rather keep it all in one tab.

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