The Reader Appreciation Project

The newest WordPress plugin to help with commenting and reader appreciation is that of WP Comment Remix.

Comment Remix enhances your admin comment section, and introduces several post features.

Post Features

Reply, Quote, and Tags

Comment Remix takes your existing comment section and adds the following options:

• A ‘Reply’ link
• A ‘Quote’ link
• Tags

Here’s a quick screen of those in action:

If you click on the reply link, you’ll see something like this in the comment box:

The benefits of the ‘Reply’ option is that the original comment is linked to if others want to read the original comment.

The only issue I’ve found with the ‘Reply’ and ‘Quote’ options is that they are still available if comments are disabled on a post.

On the tags feature, if you click a tag on a comment, only comments with that associated tag are displayed. I’ve been debating with myself how useful this is, since it appears that tags only show up for the particular post I’m on. Also, there is no easy way to edit tags. You’ll have to edit the comment in order to edit the tags for that comment.

Trackback Options

One nice option that Comment Remix has (in the admin panels) is removal of Trackbacks. You’ll find similar functionality in the Comment Sorter plugin I wrote.

In addition to the removal of Trackbacks, the admin has the ability to automatically move Trackbacks to the end of the comment section.

Sort Options

Admin can also specify how the comments are displayed. Comments can be sorted (ascending or descending) by the comment date, or by the commenter’s name.

Other Post Options

Additional post options are the admin’s ability to:

• Disable the ‘Reply/Quote’ links
• Add/Disable tags
• Customize all text displayed.
• Change the number of tags displayed.

Admin Options

The meat of the Comment Remix features come in the admin panel.

Comments Panel Actions

With an interface very similar to Absolute Comments, the plugin gives you the ability to edit, ignore (explained in a minute), reply, quote, and view all comments for a post.

One thing I’d like to see here is better styling of the links.

Reply/Quote Pop-Ups

When clicking on the Reply/Quote actions, you see a pop-up window, which allows you to add your comment and submit.

I’m not quite sure why the author didn’t go with the ‘Thickbox.js’ file, but the pop-up he uses works pretty well.

Once you hit ‘Save Reply’, the new comment will show up at the top of the Comments panel.

In Need of Reply

One absolutely fantastic feature is called the ‘In Need of Reply’ panel.

What this panel shows you is all of the comments that haven’t been replied to.

Once you reply to a comment in this panel, the comment disappears since it is no longer in need of reply.

One feature that is desperately missing here is a ‘Mark All as Replied’, although you can “ignore” comments on an individual basis.

Conclusion

Comment Remix is a very nice plugin that combines a lot of features I’ve seen in other plugins. It’s always nice to have it all in one place, and the admin options (not shown in this review) are quite extensive.

The star feature is the ‘In Need of Reply’ panel, which will help busy blog authors figure out which comments haven’t been replied to.

Comment Remix is still in its early stages, but it’s off to a great start.

As a side note, Comment Remix is also part of the WeblogToolsCollection plugin competition. If you have a moment, head over to the Comment Remix post, cast a vote, and give your say.

To help out the readers on this site who use the “@” symbol in their name when leaving comments, I’ve decided to experiment with a new WordPress plugin called KeywordLuv.

What it does is translates a comment like this:

Sue@TameBay

Into this:

Sue from TameBay

I pick on Sue simply because she leaves comments like that (nothing wrong with it in my opinion).

Theoretically, the plugin applies the correct weight to the keywords after the “@” symbol.

When the plugin is deactivated, everything is converted back to its “name@site” format.

There is a issue with Ajax Edit Comments, but only when editing the name portion, which hardly anybody does anyway.

Feel free to leave a comment below to try it. I’ll leave it installed for a week and see how it works out for you all.

Every blogger (in one form or another) has had to deal with his (or her) share of spam.

One of the greatest enablers of community is having comments enabled and allowing the reader to give feedback and add to the conversation.

However, since spam is a constant problem with comments, bloggers take measures to limit the amount of spam being received on blogs. Some bloggers use CAPTCHAs, and some use plugins such as Akismet or Bad Behavior.

The ongoing struggle with spam is why I stated that spam is a reader’s problem too. Their comment may be accidentally marked as spam, or the comment may be lost due to some ill-advised spam-blocking attempt.

So when I saw yet another anti-spam plugin for WordPress, I was extremely skeptical. Especially since this plugin works right out of the box with absolutely no configuration.

To illustrate the ease of installation, here are the install directions for WP-SpamFree:

Installation Instructions

1. After downloading, unzip file and upload the enclosed ‘wp-spamfree’ directory to your WordPress plugins directory: ‘/wp-content/plugins/’.
2. As always, activate the plugin on your WordPress plugins page.

You’re done! Sit back and see what it feels like to blog without comment spam!

And how have we managed here at the Reader Appreciation Project? The only spam we have received has been that annoying Trackback spam (only a few spam messages a day compared to hundreds). And readers don’t have to fill out a CAPTCHA and I don’t have to worry about them being blocked as with some other WordPress anti-spam tools.

I highly recommend downloading and installing WP-SpamFree. It’s a great and unobtrusive plugin to weed out almost all of your spam without imposing spam’s evil effects on your readers.

Have you ever experienced that warm feeling, when you are just to be introduced to somebody, and that person says “Yes, I know John, we’ve had the pleasure to get in touch some time ago.”?

It feels good to see that people remember you, doesn’t it? But what if you knew this is part of an automatic recognition process? Would it still be enjoyable to you?

Let me tell you this story: a couple of months ago, I’ve discovered an interesting blog, Revellian.com, a mixture of poetry, philosophy, spooky stories and practical blogging advice which can easily get you addicted to it. After a while, I remembered about my discovery, and visited Revellian for the second time. And guess what? In the sidebar, there was a personal message for me: “Welcome back, Simonne…” and my MyBlogLog avatar.

Although I was sure that must be a plugin, I couldn’t stop myself from noticing the positive emotion triggered by that warm welcome. Suddenly, Bobby Revell’s blog became familiar, and made me subscribe and comment, because I felt like somehow I already belonged to that community.

For those of you who want to know the secret of making your blogs more familiar to your readers, find out that it is called The Welcome Plugin, and it can welcome your visitors by name, in these cases:

* If they’ve already left a comment they should keep a little cookie on their computer with their name/email/website. These information help determining the name and avatar (first MBL, if not found, gravatar, or the default image)
* If the visitor is a registered user: in the 99% of the cases this will happen for the admin only, if a WP installation has got only one user. Be sure to set the “email” and “website” fields of your profile, to ensure avatars are shown correctly.
* If they’re MBL users, and you too: only if you display the MyBlogLog graphical widget on your blog, the plugin with a script (you have to activate it below) can recognize MBL users and welcome them.

What do you think? Will your readers love you more, if you welcome them back to your blog?

Periodically I like to spotlight WordPress plugins here that help in reader appreciation. One such plugin is called Absolute Comments.

I’ve reviewed a similar plugin in the past called Better Comments Manager, but Absolute Comments doesn’t add an extra panel. You can access everything through the familiar Comments admin panel.

The Plugin In Use

From within the Comments sub-panel, I look at my recent comments. I see someone has responded to a recent post I wrote.

A sample comment

Seeing that the comment needs a reply, I hit the spiffy “Reply” button, which displays a reply box instantaneously. I type in my reply and hit “Reply to Comment.” If I had some threaded comments type plugin, I could have hit “Thread Reply” instead.

Me replying to a comment

Once I hit “Reply to Comment”, the new comment is moved to the top. It’s as easy as that.

My reply

Other Features Worth Mentioning

1. The plugin is highly customizable. If you are comfortable editing PHP code, you can change the width of the text editor, the reply prefill, and numerous other options.
2. Support for threaded comments
3. Ajax Edit Comments is compatible. Okay, so this isn’t an advertised feature, but you can reply to and edit comments all in one place.
4. Impressive localization. Numerous languages are already supported.
5. Reply-to in e-mail notifications. If you receive e-mail notifications on e-mails, a reply-to link is included.

Conclusion

I highly recommend Absolute Comments for every WordPress blog (versions 2.2 or higher) to make replying to comments in the admin panel a snap. And replying to comments is an excellent way to show reader appreciation.

I had the wonderful pleasure this weekend of converting my church website from static HTML pages into the awesome WordPress blogging platform.

One of the many tasks was making sure that I didn’t break people’s bookmarks. After browsing WordPress Extend, I came across a great WordPress plugin called WP Redirection.

You see, I was used to doing it the old and boring way: using.htaccess. However, this plugin actually made setting up redirects a breeze.

Installation

Installation was as simple as uploading the plugin file and hitting activate. It can’t get any more easier than that.

Read more…

One of the problems we’ve run into here on RA Project is notifying all of the project members when someone leaves a comment, no matter what the post.

Typically, the author who writes the post only receives the comment notification e-mail. However, there have been many instances where one of the authors doesn’t respond to a reader either because the e-mail wasn’t sent, or the e-mail was accidentally overlooked.

Bes and I realized this problem early on, but there wasn’t much we could do. We experimented with setting up an admin e-mail and have the e-mail forwarded on to both of us. This worked only sometimes.

This weekend I discovered a WordPress plugin called Comment Notifier. What comment notifier allows you to do is specify which e-mail addresses will receive an e-mail anytime somebody leaves a comment. This is a dream come true plugin for multi-author blogs where authors like to be kept in the loop. Read more…

There is a good WordPress plugin on the block now that will allow admin to respond to comments much easier than before. This plugin is called Better Comments Manager.

This WordPress plugin allows you to reply to a comment through the admin panel without actually having to go a post.

The Better Comments Manager Sub-Panel

The Better Comments Manager Sub-Panel

Once you have installed the plugin, go to the Comments panel and there you’ll find the Better Comments Manager sub-panel. There you can reply to comments, or even view all the comments for a particular post.

The only thing I don’t like about the plugin’s admin panel setup currently is that I have to go to the Comments panel, and then go to sub-panel. I think this plugin is good enough that it can have its own dedicated spot as a main admin panel.

The Reply Box

Better Comments Manager Reply Box

Once you have found a comment to reply to, simply click on the “Reply” button. Once “Reply” has been clicked, a box will show up that you can type your comment in. When you are finished, simply hit “Save Reply.”

The Loading Screen

Better Comments Manager Loading Screen

Better Comments Manager does all the replying via Ajax. No new screen is loaded, so everything is done very fast.

The New Comment

Better Comments Manager – New Comment Added

Better Comments Manager places the new comment on the top of the list. One annoying thing about this is that the plugin currently scrolls you to the new comment. I personally do not like this feature, so I went into the code and took it out.

Conclusion

Better Comments Manager is a great plugin and will save a lot of time. My wish is that the “auto-scrolling” is taken out and that the plugin is a main admin panel instead of a sub-panel.

Thank you for reading.

If you are a WordPress user, one of the small downsides of a self-hosted option is the downtime when upgrading your blog software or tweaking themes. Fortunately, there is a plugin that allows you to let your users know about downtimes. The plugin is called Maintenance Mode. Read more…