Poll : Mobilitysite Commenting - What do you want?
Posted by Chris Leckness on 01/31/08 in Mobilitysite Polls, Site Items
Underneath the Wordpress powered front end of Mobilitysite, is a forum community of 200,000+ members. This is a fairly active community that evolved from Aximsite and Mobilitysite (formerly iPaqHQ) members. That said, the current system is in place to keep the community aspect that I promote and believe is the backbone of the site in the loop.
What happens is that one of our writers makes a post. This post is placed into the Wordpress database and a plugin talks with the forum software and creates a post replicating the Wordpress post. Data is passed back and forth to allow the forum comments from those that choose to reply in the forums to the single post page of the Wordpress front end.
Like I said, this was put in place to allow the 200k forum members to comment without having to read the frontpage and find what they want to comment on.
The problem I am running into is that I have gotten emails in the past and one recently telling me that they don’t like this system and that it would be better for us to just enable normal blog-like commenting for the Mobilitysite posts. We allow normal blog commenting as well as the forum commenting, but maybe it’s too intimidating.
With this subject coming up again today, I thought I would solicit opinions on how to proceed. I feel like we are doing a great job on content and I want to make sure that the readers have the tools they want to make the site easier for them to read, comment, etc… I am including a poll with the post, so make sure to share your vote and I really would love to have any comments on the subject either in the blog or forum comments. Thanks!
Loading …To add a little info. If I were to eliminate forum commenting, I would still have the plugin make a post in the forums to alert the forum community. Please give me some feedback if you have a chance.
Written by Chris Leckness · Filed Under Mobilitysite Polls, Site Items
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To have both is a big mess. I’m having problems tracking the comments to news posted by me. I think that we need a system easier for both users and writers where everytime we post a news we are subscribed automatically to that post, in that way we can follow comments a lot easier and be more efficient.
IMHO
I’d rather have the forum posts show up on the blog.
Really, just so there is one stream of commenting, I guess that would be best.
Whatever is the simplest is always the best.
I am an older nongeek and have used this site for several years to try to keep up with the technology. It is difficult to do since it is moving so fast. I use the forums less these days because there is just so much info to try to absorb.
I agree that keeping track of one place where comments can be posted is easier than two places, and for me, the blog is the easiest since I keep track of the news through RSS and am not really active on the forums. I understand that the majority might do this the other way around though!
Ok, here is my take and my idea for the future and future growth.
I agree 100% with the confusion factor and would like to make it one or the other too. The reason both are in place is to make it possible for the 2 different types of users that visit.
What are the two types?
1. Forum Users… Current forum users and those that might join the forums to comment.
2. Blog Readers… These are folks that don’t even really use forums. They read rss readers and pop in to a website to comment when possible.
The regular blog readers are not going to take the time to register in forums just to be able to comment. Trust me. Some might, but for the most part they won’t.
Our Forum Faithful here tend to jump strait to the forums. No frontpage looks, etc… If the blog posts (news) doesn’t show up in their “new posts” search, they aren’t even going to know it’s there.
So, here is what I am leaning towards now. I can see many of our forum users also pop out and leave some regular blog style comments here and there, so it’s possible
So, what about I make the blog continue to make a post in the forums, but instead of replicating the post, just have a link to the permalink of the blog post. If you want to read because the subject interests you, hop up to that permalink and comment there.
This will give a heads up to the forum “new posts” folks as well as make it easier for “blog reader” types to discuss stories.
I know that the blog style comments are not searchable, archives, etc… but these comments typically won’t be the type that support a device, that *is* what the forums are good at.
Thoughts?
Test. I am working on trying a couple things.
Ok, lets test this new comment system.