What Is the Ideal Comment Section?
With the upcoming re-design (details coming soon, I promise), I will have the opportunity to completely redo the comment section.
The slogan of this site is, “Where it’s all about the readers.” I’d like to keep true to that and have a comment section that is truly all about you, the reader.
As a reader, what is the ideal comment section?
Here are some things to consider if you are considering a response:
- How prominent is the author name?
- Are links no-follow’ed?
- How do you tell different authors apart with the same name?
- Are Gravatars or MyBlogLog Avatars displayed? How large?
- What comment plugins do you like?
- Editing comments?
- Should readers be set apart from authors?
- Should frequent commenters be shown different than new commenters?
- How are Trackbacks/Pingbacks displayed?
I will absolutely use the feedback used on this post to draft a comment section. If you respond with a post of your own rather than a comment, I will gladly link to it here.
As soon as my design mock-ups are complete, I will post them for you all to see.
Sue @ TameBay says...
How prominent is the author name? - should be above the comment.
Gimme edit or preview, I don’t mind which. My commenters also liked Alex King’s clickable smilies, and have requested a BBCode-clicky plugin.
Are links no-follow’ed? - personally I think yes.
How do you tell different authors apart with the same name? - could have URLs beside the names? If people don’t give you any information beyond “Mark”, then there isn’t much you can do: I don’t think posting IP addresses is an option
Are Gravatars or MyBlogLog Avatars displayed? How large? - yes please. What’s the default size, about 100 square? I like that (the larger size in MBL’s new widget)
What comment plugins do you like? - yours
Editing comments? - for a limited time. I don’t think people should have the opportunity to edit after others have responded.
Should readers be set apart from authors? - yes. It makes it easier for people reading long comment threads if they can see who the blog authors are. (or post author, that would work too)
Should frequent commenters be shown different than new commenters? - yes, but I’m not sure how. I’ve been wondering about “ranks” as in PHPBB; what do you think? I’m not particularly keen on those leaderboards of most frequent commenters because I think they encourage quantity at the expense of quality.
How are Trackbacks/Pingbacks displayed? - after all the comments, without the meaningless snippets of post (i.e. just linked titles)
You haven’t mentioned threaded comments. What’s the opinion on those?
Ronald Huereca says...
Thanks sue for your feedback. I’ll be working on a Photoshop version tonight.
I will try to do the URLs thing as well as having Gravatars and MyBlogLog avatars displayed. Max dimensions I believe for Gravatars are 80×80. The BBCode is a great idea and I will probably have smilies there also, but just not showing by default.
As far as ranking… yes, the last thing I wouldn’t want to happen is that one set of readers felt more power than the other. I’ll have to dwell on this some more.
Threaded comments? LOL. Tried it, but didn’t like the implementation of it. Too much control is lost on the blog author end, and readers end up getting spammed if the author is very proactive about replying to each reader.
Sam says...
Threaded comments is one of my favorite blog enhancements, ever. But the plugin I use (WP Thread Comments) has options regarding e-mailing the author of the parent comment upon reply, including an option for not e-mailing them, at all. The only problem I’ve found with threaded comments is that most commenters don’t use the “reply to” button, even when they’re obviously replying to a previous comment. I’m assuming it’s either a problem of visibility, or just one of commenting habit.
But I’m curious about the loss of control that you mentioned, Ronald, if anyone would care to fill me in on what I might be missing.
I also use a plugin that removes no-follow after someone has left a certain number of comments. It was initially installed as a way of flipping Google the bird, without creating a fertile environment for comment-spammers, but the readers who’ve managed to put up with me for an extended period deserve to get something out of it, and I’m not PHP-proficient enough to give them their own color-codes, or other distinctions. (I wish I were.) The plugin is essentially a two birds/one stone sort of thing.
Ronald Huereca says...
@Sam,
That’s good to know about the threaded comments e-mailing the author. I assume it’s a different plugin that the “Brian’s” plugin?
The control I mention is that of design. The emphasis I’d like to put in the comments is on the comment author, and as comments get threaded, the less emphasis I’m allowed to place. In other words, I have to clutter up the comments section, while I’d rather give the author as much room as possible design-wise.
I too like the plugin that removes no-follow.
Sam says...
@Ronald - Yes, it’s a different threaded-comments plugin. The one I use can be found here.
And thanks for clarifying the control issue!
Ronald Huereca says...
@Sue,
Here’s a sample comment mock-up (in B&W) I did based on your feedback. What do you think?
Joel says...
How prominent is the author name? I think that who the author is makes a big difference.
Are links no-follow’ed? That’s really not too important to me…it could be either way.
How do you tell different authors apart with the same name? URL. Gravatar. Simple.
Are Gravatars or MyBlogLog Avatars displayed? How large? Coolest thing ever. I have them on my blog at something like 65×65, but bigger works if it doesn’t take up too much space…
What comment plugins do you like? I use Akismet, Chunk URLS for WordPress, Gravatars2, No Self Pings, Show Top Commentators, and Subscribe To Comments. I would love the idea of threading, but my comments code is so twisted, that I simply haven’t had the time to sit down with a threading plugin and figure it out!
Editing comments? I like how you can do this. It’s a great plugin that I will definitely add when I get the time for the threading.
Should readers be set apart from authors? Yes, I like the distinction…
Should frequent commenters be shown different than new commenters? I guess it depends on how you propose to do this. I think it would be cool. For that matter, you could even have people pay you to highlight their comments. Haha.
How are Trackbacks/Pingbacks displayed? After the comments, in list format.
I have done a lot of these techniques on my blog, and I am really proud of the way my comment section turned out!
Ronald Huereca says...
Thanks Joel. That No Self Pings and Chunk URLs I haven’t seen before. I’ll have to try those out.
I’m going to try to give the readers here a full 940px for comments. Let’s see how it works out