New Comment System BETA Rollout

[Manu]

Hey Everyone!

It's time for the first major site update of 2010. Are you excited?

Within the next 24-48 hours, if everything goes as planned, we are going to roll out a new version of the Story Comment system. The very first version will only appear on the last page of each story that has comments turned on. There are a lot more elements to this feature, but we want to roll them out slowly to make sure there aren't any major problems. (If there are problems, we can roll them back pretty quickly, so don't worry!)

The new update completely redesigns the commenting system and the bottom of the last page of each submission - the area below the voting element. I won't bother to explain it in detail because you'll get an idea pretty quickly of what has been changed once you've seen it on the site.

This is just the first step (or maybe even half-step) of long-planned dramatic improvements to the entire Lit feedback system. Most internet users these days are used to leaving comments on sites like YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. We think that the new Lit system will be far more appealing and easy to use for those users. Once we make the Lit feedback system easier to use and more appealing to readers, we are hopeful that will translate into more feedback and participation from those users.

Please keep an eye out and let me know here in this thread - or in a PM - if you have suggestions, if you find any bugs, if you love it, hate it, etc.

Thank you!

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Cool beans...way to go Manu, you da man!

 

[scouries]

A new comment system! EXCELLENT!!!!

http://fc00.deviantart.com/fs46/f/2009/182/2/e/New_Forum_Siggy__D_by_The_manu.png

Hey listen MANU , before we get too many “new system” comments I wonder if you could give us a list of the stories that have garnered the most comments under the “old system”. Like of ALL TIME.

I also have another little request of you seeing you’re here today. My girl [size=+2]Gabby [/size] has been happy to maintain the MOST COMMENTS list but I wonder if perhaps, during this major upgrade, you might consider taking over the job yourself?

An official, MANU RUN “Most Comments Received” list.

Another thing, you write: Once we make the Lit feedback system easier to use and more appealing to readers, we are hopeful that will translate into more feedback and participation from those users.

How much more feedback are you hoping for? 10%? 50%? 100%? Have you quantified it?

From my casual observations the new voting system seems to have upped the voting numbers by 30-50%. Is this an accurate reading of what happened or is it a wildly different number? Did the voting system changes achieve your goals?

How many comments did the average story on LITEROTICA receive under the old system? 2 or 3? How many are you hoping for? Have you set out targets for the various categories? I've always believed that it's important to clearly state one's goals when one is implimenting change.

I do hope your system is going to do away with those irritating double (or sometimes triple) comments that seem to pop up all the time.

And I hope it will allow the comments to be formatted into paragraphs etc. The old system produced some of the ugliest, long paragraphs in literary history.

Although I’ve done well under the old system I must say I’ll be looking forward to the changes,

Jim

Will it still be LITEROTICA’S #1 MOST COMMENTED ON STORY after the changes? Stay tuned…

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t82/sarahhh_023/1DADDYIWHISPERED.jpg

 

[scouries]

oh, and just in case all the old comments are inadvertantly erased in the changeover here's where my two top stories stand as of two minutes ago:

"Daddy?" I Whispered Stephanie seduces her handsome father.
4.52 21071 1633689 Incest/Taboo (English) 02/19/06 approved
Public Comments: 598 Moderate Public Comments
Voting Status
Yes No Public Comment Board: Yes No

"Ohhh...Mommy," I Groaned He deflowers sister, impregnates mom.
4.59 12005 2240128 Incest/Taboo (English) 12/17/06 approved
Public Comments: 325 Moderate Public Comments
Voting Status
Yes No Public Comment Board: Yes No

 

[Manu]

Working on this now, but it looks like the public rollout might be pushed back to Monday. I'll update you all again soon!

 

[Lisa Summers]

If it results in more comments from readers, that would be wonderful!

 

[Manu]

A few days later, but I'm happy to announce that the new comment system is rolling out today! You can already see it on some stories - for example, these:

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=460102&page=2
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=274468&page=3

Here is the new comment board for each story:
http://www.literotica.com/stories/storyfeedbackboard.php?id=274468

This is still in BETA mode, so please post/send your comments. Also, if you find any problems, please let me know.

I've already noticed one thing that doesn't seem to be working exactly as I expected - the number of comments showing under "Recent Comments" on the last page of the story. I am working on that now.

So, please check the pages, post some comments, and send feedback if you find problems or have suggestions! I may not be able to reply to everyone right away (because I'm working on this as fast as I can), but I will read all of your messages.

Thanks!

 

[sadangel]

I like the look of it. Hope it will be simpler to use than the old system, which it already looks like it will be.

 

[CrimsonMaiden]

That's neat looking. I like it!

 

[jeanvaljean23]

quite impressive liked it....

 

[YoursSINSerely]

I tried to leave a comment this morning. It didn't work. I'll try again later.

It's working, now. Looks good. A lot easier to use than the last one. Thanks Manu!

 

[Manu]

I tried to leave a comment this morning. It didn't work. I'll try again later.

Thanks for letting me know you had a problem. Can you explain what happened when you tried to post a comment and what the error message you saw was, if any?

There was one other bug that a few people reported, and I think it's fixed now. In some specific browsers, when loading the last page of a story, the new comments system was causing the page to scroll down to the bottom automatically. This was not supposed to happen, and I'm pretty sure it should be fixed in all browsers now.

Thank you to everyone sending feedback and please keep it coming!

 

[YoursSINSerely]

Thanks for letting me know you had a problem. Can you explain what happened when you tried to post a comment and what the error message you saw was, if any?

There was one other bug that a few people reported, and I think it's fixed now. In some specific browsers, when loading the last page of a story, the new comments system was causing the page to scroll down to the bottom automatically. This was not supposed to happen, and I'm pretty sure it should be fixed in all browsers now.

Thank you to everyone sending feedback and please keep it coming!

It kept telling me to enter the security code. I wasn't using the capital letters, so I went back and used the caps. It still didn't work. You might have been working on the system at the very moment I was entering. I went back and tried again and it went through. I think that part is worked out. Thanks for checking. Barb

 

[Manu]

Thanks for the additional info, YoursSINSerely. If you (or anyone else) has additional problems with the security code, please let me know. If you are logged in, I don't think you should be seeing the security code anyways. Let me double check on that - it could be a bug or something we were working on while you were posting.

 

[scouries]

EXCELLANT FIRST STEP!

It looks like you got rid of the double voting system which is good.

I tested it quickly and it appears to allow paragraph breaks which is a huge improvement. Hopefully this will put an end to those 1500 word paragraphs from offended Loving Wives cuckolds...

Visually not much change. And it's still bloody complicated to actually post a comment. There's a lot of clicking to do. At least the "location" thing is gone which is good.

I tried to include BOLD AND UNDERLINED and italics for emphasis but unfortunately that didn't work. I'd like to see the ability to use them implemented.

Then when I went to PREVIEW it a second time it didn't take the security code. Either with CAPS or without. This was at 11:02 am. I tried again a few minutes later (I had to start from scratch) and it worked.

How many "Recent Comments" wiil show up at the end of a story?

Will old stories (pre the CHANGE) eventually also incorporate the new system?

jrs esq.

 

[Manu]

I was discussing the new Comment System with a Lit author just now and the author asked a very good question. She said, and I paraphrase, "Why the %#$& did you remove the voting element from the comment form?" Actually, she was very nice, but it sounds more exciting this way!

When she asked about the voting, I realized that I hadn't explained that part of the update yet. So, here's the answer:

Yes, the voting element is no longer part of the comment form. That is intentional, and we've been thinking about it for a long time. Basically it's a change in our thinking about what the Story Comments system is or should be. In the past, we thought of it as a place for readers to REVIEW a story. Now, we are thinking of it more as a place for readers to DISCUSS a story. Reviews are generally static one-time things. Discussions are ongoing and dynamic. To encourage more discussion, we felt that separating the voting and comments was necessary.

Since the original comment system was created, the voting system has been greatly improved. You can now, as you all know, vote on a story easily with one click and without leaving the page. The voting element lives above the comment form. As a result, we don't think that this change will have any negative effect on the number of votes that stories are getting. But we do think that the new comment system will eventually lead to a big increase in the number of comments being left on stories.

This is just the first "baby step" rollout of the new comment system. The next version will have more bells and whistles. I don't want to spoil the surprise just yet (and I'm still not sure what order things will be rolled out in), but there are big improvements coming to the entire comment system. Threaded comments and special highlighting of the comments/replies left by the author of each story are just two of the improvements you can look forward to in the near future.

During all of the upgrades, we will closely monitor the number of comments & votes to make sure that the changes don't negatively affect either. If we see any dramatic decreases in votes or comments, we'll adjust course. But, in the long run, we are pretty confident authors should see a big increase in story comments once all of the planned features are rolled out.

Thanks for your patience and for all of the feedback and suggestions. All of the changes we're making are based on user feedback, suggestions, and even complaints!

 

[foldedpaper]

This looks so much better than the slightly confusing system that preceded it - thank you. Although I'm only a recent addition to your authoring stable, I really value the site, so any improvements are always welcome.

My only other challenge is trying to track my posts in the forum - it could well be me being a bit dumb, but I find it hard to track where I've been - is there a solution to this or is it a constructive suggestion. I don't want to waste anyone's time if it is simple user error!

 

[JamesSD]

I for one look forward to telling trolls who leave comments they are retarded rather than just deleting them.

 

[rgraham666]

Checked it out. I quite like it.

I like that voting is now a separate process from commenting as well.

 

[EldridgeinOO]

Good : No more "votes" tied into the comments system. That was a stupid system and the only thing it ever did was allow trolls to spam your stories with continuous 1 votes. (or 00 in the comments.)

Bad : You're displaying the comments oldest first. This stinks. When I click on comments, I want to see the NEWEST comments. I don't want to have to scroll through two pages to find if anything new has been posted.

Similarly, when you go to your Submissions - Recent Activity link, and click on the "Read Full Comment" link, it just dumps you right at the start of the comments page, and thus you don't see the comment you were wanting to see in the first place.

Easy fix : Show comments newest first, not oldest first.

Other than that it seems okay. I'm not fond of the whole "every comments in its own little square" thing, but that's personal. It just clutters up a page needlessly.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Good : No more "votes" tied into the comments system. That was a stupid system and the only thing it ever did was allow trolls to spam your stories with continuous 1 votes. (or 00 in the comments.)

Bad : You're displaying the comments oldest first. This stinks. When I click on comments, I want to see the NEWEST comments. I don't want to have to scroll through two pages to find if anything new has been posted.

Similarly, when you go to your Submissions - Recent Activity link, and click on the "Read Full Comment" link, it just dumps you right at the start of the comments page, and thus you don't see the comment you were wanting to see in the first place.

Easy fix : Show comments newest first, not oldest first.

Other than that it seems okay. I'm not fond of the whole "every comments in its own little square" thing, but that's personal. It just clutters up a page needlessly.

All good suggestions...

and this is the internet there are an infinite amount of pages available for use so why not use as many as you can?

 

[PacoFear]

Good : No more "votes" tied into the comments system. That was a stupid system and the only thing it ever did was allow trolls to spam your stories with continuous 1 votes. (or 00 in the comments.)

Bad : You're displaying the comments oldest first. This stinks. When I click on comments, I want to see the NEWEST comments. I don't want to have to scroll through two pages to find if anything new has been posted.

Similarly, when you go to your Submissions - Recent Activity link, and click on the "Read Full Comment" link, it just dumps you right at the start of the comments page, and thus you don't see the comment you were wanting to see in the first place.

Easy fix : Show comments newest first, not oldest first.

Other than that it seems okay. I'm not fond of the whole "every comments in its own little square" thing, but that's personal. It just clutters up a page needlessly.

I'm with Eldridge on this one, Manu. Displaying the more recent comments first was a better arrangement. It promoted exchanges between commenters. Sometimes that's the best part.

 

[3113]

Agree that newest comment should go first on back to oldest, especially if you want this to be a discussion.

And I LOVE this new look! I think it's fantastic! It makes it so easy for someone to read comments, leave them or send feedback. I'm also glad you got rid of the ranking with the comments as usually people just ended up with that 50% thermometer because they forgot about adjusting it before hitting the "send" button

It looks great--like the word-balloon look as if people are talking--and, best of all, it's going to give us writers (well, me at least!) what we want most. Comments. Rankings are all well and good, but feedback and comments are much better. This makes it easy and inviting to leave a comment.

Thank you Manu! You done good

 

[sophia jane]

I'm confused. The comments, that I've seen anyway, are newest to oldest.

 

[Esperanza_Hidalgo]

I though it much more user friendly. Good move.

May your day and life be peaceful,

Esperanza