New QJ.NET Feature: New Comment System!
Here at QJ we’ve always wanted to make sure everyone has the chance to speak their mind and share their opinion – that’s what a community is all about! But if you’re a regular here, undoubtedly you’ve been a bit frustrated with out comments (or our commenters) from time to time. That’s natural, but it’s even more unbearable when you can’t do anything about it. But times are a changin’!
Today we’ve unveiled a whole new comment system designed to give the community control of how comments are displayed! So how’s it work? Check out the image below and I’ll walk you through it!
Aside from the slick look, you’ll notice that comments are threaded now. You can add a “parent level” comment just by adding a comment the old fashioned way, nothing has changed there. But in the bottom corner of each parent comment you’ll see a “Reply” link. Clicking that will open up a comment entry box, and your reply will show up below the parent comment. This will make it much easier to keep related discussions grouped together. You can also choose to “Hide Replies” for any parent comment.
See the little smiley faces? They are your new best friends! See a post you like? Click the smiling face! Want to give a “1st!” commenter the boot? Click the frowning face! But what’s the point? If you’ve chosen to have comments sorted by “highest rated” than the parent comments with the most stars will be at the top of the comment list, and the lowest rated comments will be bumped to the bottom. Take that, annoying commenters!
If you want the comments to sort like you’re used to, just choose “Sort by last added” and they’ll display chronologically. But you can still get rid of annoying commenters by setting your filter! By choosing a star ranking from the drop down box, it will “hide” all comments that don’t have a high enough rating for your tastes. But you can still view any hidden comments by clicking the yellow arrow on the left side of the status bar.
So there you have it – power to the people! We hope that this new comment system will not only let everyone out there to take control of what they want to see, but will also encourage a positive posting atmosphere. We love hearing your thoughts, but sometimes its best to think before you type! There are bound to be a few bugs or issues, so if you see anything misbehaving or have an idea on how to improve the new comment system even further, drop us a line.
Also, for those of you who have signed up for our free Newsletter / Alert System, you’ll find that you now have the ability to change your email address for your account. You can find that option in the Newsletter Settings screen!
Update: If you are having problems using the comments, try clearing you browser’s cache and clearing out any QJ-related cookies. This should fix things up.
Also, there appears to be a glitch with the star ranking – so the number of stars showing may not be accurate and may go up or down when they shouldn’t. This will be fixed as quickly as possible – but the sorting of the comments is accurate based on positive/negative votes, it’s the graphical display of the stars that is incorrect.
And a few criticisms have already arisen, and we agree. You can expect the following fixes soon:
- Not allowed to vote for your own comment
- Text will be sharpened and darkened for easier reading
- Sorting chronologically will put oldest messages first, newest messages last
- If you have not filled all fields, you won’t lose all the text you’ve typed
- Comments will start at a 2.5 or 3 star rating
Thanks for you patience as we work out the kinks – consider it a beta!
Here at QJ we’ve always wanted to make sure everyone has the chance to speak their mind and share their opinion – that’s what a community is all about! But if you’re a regular here, undoubtedly you’ve been a bit frustrated with out comments (or our commenters) from time to time. That’s natural, but it’s even more unbearable when you can’t do anything about it. But times are a changin’!
Today we’ve unveiled a whole new comment system designed to give the community control of how comments are displayed! So how’s it work? Check out the image below and I’ll walk you through it!
Aside from the slick look, you’ll notice that comments are threaded now. You can add a “parent level” comment just by adding a comment the old fashioned way, nothing has changed there. But in the bottom corner of each parent comment you’ll see a “Reply” link. Clicking that will open up a comment entry box, and your reply will show up below the parent comment. This will make it much easier to keep related discussions grouped together. You can also choose to “Hide Replies” for any parent comment.
See the little smiley faces? They are your new best friends! See a post you like? Click the smiling face! Want to give a “1st!” commenter the boot? Click the frowning face! But what’s the point? If you’ve chosen to have comments sorted by “highest rated” than the parent comments with the most stars will be at the top of the comment list, and the lowest rated comments will be bumped to the bottom. Take that, annoying commenters!
If you want the comments to sort like you’re used to, just choose “Sort by last added” and they’ll display chronologically. But you can still get rid of annoying commenters by setting your filter! By choosing a star ranking from the drop down box, it will “hide” all comments that don’t have a high enough rating for your tastes. But you can still view any hidden comments by clicking the yellow arrow on the left side of the status bar.
So there you have it – power to the people! We hope that this new comment system will not only let everyone out there to take control of what they want to see, but will also encourage a positive posting atmosphere. We love hearing your thoughts, but sometimes its best to think before you type! There are bound to be a few bugs or issues, so if you see anything misbehaving or have an idea on how to improve the new comment system even further, drop us a line.
Also, for those of you who have signed up for our free Newsletter / Alert System, you’ll find that you now have the ability to change your email address for your account. You can find that option in the Newsletter Settings screen!
Update: If you are having problems using the comments, try clearing you browser’s cache and clearing out any QJ-related cookies. This should fix things up.
Also, there appears to be a glitch with the star ranking – so the number of stars showing may not be accurate and may go up or down when they shouldn’t. This will be fixed as quickly as possible – but the sorting of the comments is accurate based on positive/negative votes, it’s the graphical display of the stars that is incorrect.
And a few criticisms have already arisen, and we agree. You can expect the following fixes soon:
- Not allowed to vote for your own comment
- Text will be sharpened and darkened for easier reading
- Sorting chronologically will put oldest messages first, newest messages last
- If you have not filled all fields, you won’t lose all the text you’ve typed
- Comments will start at a 2.5 or 3 star rating
Thanks for you patience as we work out the kinks – consider it a beta!
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