Comments on: Making comments more accessible http://ben.dechrau.com/2008/10/17/making-comments-more-accessible Programmer, Property Tycoon, Media Mogul Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:18:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Ben Balbo http://ben.dechrau.com/2008/10/17/making-comments-more-accessible/comment-page-1#comment-34307 Ben Balbo Sun, 19 Oct 2008 08:34:32 +0000 http://benbalbo.com/?p=238#comment-34307 Hi! Definitely not mandatory. I didn't mean to imply that Russ thought they should all be there. He just shared findings that I thought were interesting and my OCD kicked in of its own accord ;-) I like the idea of previews - I'll look into WP plugins when I get the time. Definitely a good idea. I'll be keeping the avatars though - it can add a little life to the comments section. Perhaps I can disable avatars for those that don't have one instead of showing the the silhouetted anonymous person, which is very useless. Thanks for stopping by! BB Hi!

Definitely not mandatory. I didn’t mean to imply that Russ thought they should all be there. He just shared findings that I thought were interesting and my OCD kicked in of its own accord ;-)

I like the idea of previews – I’ll look into WP plugins when I get the time. Definitely a good idea.

I’ll be keeping the avatars though – it can add a little life to the comments section. Perhaps I can disable avatars for those that don’t have one instead of showing the the silhouetted anonymous person, which is very useless.

Thanks for stopping by!
BB

]]> By: pfctdayelise http://ben.dechrau.com/2008/10/17/making-comments-more-accessible/comment-page-1#comment-34285 pfctdayelise Sat, 18 Oct 2008 05:59:02 +0000 http://benbalbo.com/?p=238#comment-34285 hm... just because he identifies an element of a comment doesn't mean he's saying it's mandatory does it? IMO the avatar is pretty useless, but there seems to be certain circles where it is the norm. Comment numbers are useful, and if you get the same people coming back to respond multiple times then they are more or less vital. On The Age blogs I've seen people reference previous comments by timestamp. it's not pretty! there are other elements that he missed. like... preview options: - no preview - optional preview - forced preview Wordpress by default seems to not even offer preview. WTF. That is especially bad when you are not sure if links will work automagically, you have to provide HTML (or maybe it will be stripped out?), or some other markup syntax. My blog engine, Textpattern (http://textpattern.com/), has forced preview, which the devs claim cuts back on spam and is good for commenters even if they don't like it. I suspect it leads to a few lost comments, as the preview is in-place and after hitting preview it is easy to forget you also have to hit submit, as everything already looks complete. in conclusion: less avatars, more preview. hm… just because he identifies an element of a comment doesn’t mean he’s saying it’s mandatory does it? IMO the avatar is pretty useless, but there seems to be certain circles where it is the norm.

Comment numbers are useful, and if you get the same people coming back to respond multiple times then they are more or less vital. On The Age blogs I’ve seen people reference previous comments by timestamp. it’s not pretty!

there are other elements that he missed. like… preview options:
- no preview
- optional preview
- forced preview

Wordpress by default seems to not even offer preview. WTF. That is especially bad when you are not sure if links will work automagically, you have to provide HTML (or maybe it will be stripped out?), or some other markup syntax.

My blog engine, Textpattern (http://textpattern.com/), has forced preview, which the devs claim cuts back on spam and is good for commenters even if they don’t like it. I suspect it leads to a few lost comments, as the preview is in-place and after hitting preview it is easy to forget you also have to hit submit, as everything already looks complete.

in conclusion: less avatars, more preview.

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