A guide to new commenting features on our website
The commenting system on Spokesman.com isn’t much different than when we launched this version of our website four years ago. We’ve added a few small features here and there, but The Spokesman-Review development team is small, and we have a lot of projects vying for our time. As long as comments kept working, our development priorities have been elsewhere.
But toward the end of last year, we started considering how we might improve the commenting experience here. We want to raise the level of discussion, and the first way we’re going to approach that is by giving all our commenters a much more powerful tool. This afternoon we’ll be switching our comment threads over to a system called Disqus.
It’s one of the best commenting systems on the web right now, in use at large sites like CNN and NPR. We like it because it gives people far more control over the way they engage in discussions, and it provides some awesome features that we’d never have time to develop on our own. Here’s an overview of the change:
First, what stays the same
You can continue commenting on Spokesman.com under the same username, with the same login you’ve always used. We’ve integrated Disqus with our site accounts, so if you’re logged in here, you’re automatically logged in for commenting, too. We’ve also transferred over all the comments ever left on Spokesman.com — yep, more than half a million of them — so your old posts won’t disappear. (There might be a few hours’ worth of comments missing when we first flip the switch to Disqus, but we’ll pick those up, too.) You’ll also find that features you’re used to, such as flagging inappropriate comments or using HTML tags in your posts, are still around. You don’t have to take advantage of any new features from Disqus. If you don’t, you won’t notice much difference beyond the comment box below stories getting a little shinier.What’s new
The list of new features is pretty long, and if you want to dig in, there’s a great guide here. I’ll highlight a few things we think commenters will really like:- Disqus lets you reply directly to another comment, and your new post will nest right below it in that comment thread. This makes it a lot easier to follow (or hide) individual conversations, and is a feature that many readers have wanted for some time. You can even @mention other readers in your comments.
- Readers have also asked for an editing function, so they can fix mistakes in their own comments. This is built into Disqus.
- One more thing our readers have wanted: the ability to “like” other comments. That’s built in, too.
- If you click the “Discussion” tab above any comment thread, you can sort posts in a few ways, starting with the traditional “newest first” and “oldest first.” You can also sort by “best,” which pulls the posts with the most upvotes to the top. Our comment threads will remember your preference here, so choose whatever you like.
- The “Community” tab above every comment thread gives you an overview of discussions across this entire website, so you can see what’s getting talked about.
- At the bottom of every comment thread, you can subscribe to alerts so you won’t miss any new posts on that page. Or you can “star” a comment thread to get the best comments from it added to an email digest.
- If you click on another commenter’s name, you’ll see all their recent comments. If you like what they have to say, hit the “Follow” button and their posts will show up in your “My Disqus” tab.
- Your Disqus profile gives you a dashboard for keeping track of the conversations you’re involved in. It also provides some powerful notification tools, so you can add email alerts for conversations that you care about.
- If you want, you can add other social-media profiles to your commenting account, which makes it easy to share posts with your Facebook and Twitter friends.