We're thinking of redesigning this site and we want your help. We plan on making the site easier to navigate, so that a reader can more easily sort out the content-- right now it's a little like a firehose -- and generally more user friendly. As part of this project, we've been thinking about redesigning the comment section, too.
So we wonder if commenters have any ideas. What would help you to participate, share and engage? We know the comment section is vital to the life of this site and we want to see it continue to grow. We are open to all suggestions. Thanks.
I think that left hand side could be used as well – For me it would be brilliant place to position Kate’s and Seham’s news section.
I would also like to use comment section as library resource. If we, commenters, could tag comments so that those data rich comments could go into the “searchable section”, then whoever does the Mondoweiss search could include commenter’s library, news section and mondoweiss blog proper in its search, and come with really impressive information resource.
Finally, I would like a function that allows commenters to include pictures, rather than links to pictures, in comment section.
Excellent suggestion. Sometimes there are some very important and information rich discussions and posts. It is too bad when they disappear down into the thread history hole.
That and better threading .
Thank you.
I remember in the past asking if we could have more streamlined posting features.
Like, on a regular forum, you can bold/italicize/underline, quote, insert pictures, etc. with a click of a button. That stuff should be added since it’s so basic.
I like to second Cliff’s request.
That would make things user-friendly.
Thank you.
Those buttons on other sites are very handy. Whether those buttons can be added or not, it would be helpful to have a preview button for comments, so that we can check our spelling or html codes (or even cool down) before clicking post.
Hi Rusty,
You have editing after posting now. That’s effectively as preview. As for adding some buttons, we will look closely at doing that. Full WYSIWYG would slow commenting down a lot though. It would have to be a hybrid solution.
Thanks for your input!
I recommend that a limit be imposed on how many posts a reader can submit. Maybe one/day?
What? Why?
Oh, crap, did I just exceed my limit in asking you that?
Yes one comment a day for Witty.
This isn’t so much about comments, though it is related to Eva’s suggestion of tagging comments to go into a library resource. I like that library resource idea. There are common misconceptions and deliberate lies that are often told and retold about the I/P conflict, that we see in the MSM. It’d be good to have a library of refutations of some of these lies that would be easily accessible, maybe on the left side of the webpage. Some of the comments from the really knowledgeable people around here might serve (which was Eva’s suggestion). Or someone could be tapped to write the definitive refutation of this or that myth, or there could be a link to some outside source. (Jerome Slater, for example, wrote some good pieces about what led up to the Gaza War.)
One issue is when some of the threads become too lengthy at the very end of a comment thread block, that everyone wants to reply to. It’s difficult to understand who is replying to who. And if the commenter does not address the reply to another, it often loses the directed impact.
Not that this would work, but there should be a way to have a leash to connect the comments. It would show who the comment was directed towards. Like a switchboard, if you get what I mean. Or the comments could have a tag [A1] and the reply would reference the orginal comment [A1]; and it could be colored coded.
Or, simply, instead of all the replies within one comment’s column coming in successive order in a straight line, each reply gets attached to the actual comment that it is in reply to, and gets offset to the right a bit.
For example:
“Comment A.”
Any reply directly to this comment would line up underneath.
However, if someone replies to one of the reply comments, this would attach underneath that actual comment and slide to the right a bit.
In practice, you could have small threads expand within a given ‘comment column’ where the interactions between comment/reply are clearly delineated.
Hi Chu and Exile,
As far as I know that’s exactly how the threaded commenting works now. But there are only three or four levels to discourage going too far off topic.
It’s only rare, when a hot topic goes on for a long stretch. One comment may spark 10 replies and then there are replies beyond the three or four. That is sometimes hard to follow, but not a big deal.
I would consider replacing the current blog software with the vBulletin (or similar) sofware used by forum websites.
In a forum site, the admin or authorized person(s) create a thread. Anyone can then comment (post), and posts can easily be quoted (and formatted with “click-to-add” tags) for use in subsequent replies by others. Images can be added, or easily linked to.
Users can search the site by username or by keyword(s)), and can select to view a list of all the newest/latest posts or of all their own posts only
Users are provided with a control panel (CP) which they can use to set up a public profile, to contact each other via private messaging (PM), etc.
The configurability options available to the admin are quite extensive, too, and include everything from the length of the edit window for posts, to the options available to users in the CP, et cetera.
So, while I don’t how easy it would be for Mondoweiss to acquire, install, configure and manage a vBulletin-based site, the overall flexibility would be significantly greater than what is available here at this time.
Sorry eljay, but vBulletin is an awful and overwrought environment in comparison to the simplicity and clarity of Mondoweiss. Phil can correct me of course but Mondoweiss is a news site with an active community and not a forum. Phil and Adam have access to moderation tools which are very much like a forum already.
You already have a public profile with all your comment posts. You can edit your public profile yourself.
You are just missing the personal messages. But I’d hate to see much of the discussion go underground.
>> Sorry eljay, but vBulletin is an awful and overwrought environment in comparison to the simplicity and clarity of Mondoweiss.
vBulletin can be tailored to be as simple or as complicated as the admin(s) choose it to be. PMs can be disabled (or perhaps limited). It’s not the software that’s the problem, it’s the configuration. But, as I said, I’m not sure that it would work with a blog site and, maybe, it can’t.
The reason I suggested vBulletin is because of some of the things I find frustrating about this site’s software:
1. The inability to view all of the latest comments.
- Only the latest five are ever shown.
2. The fact that not all threads are updated with the latest information simultaneously.
- I very often select a brand new comment on one page, only to find that I go to that page and the comment isn’t displayed until I refresh the browser. You might say it’s a browser issue, but this is NEVER an issue on a vBulletin site when I select the latest comment for viewing.
3. The shortcomings of the site’s search engine.
- Search functionality isn’t nearly as useful as that of a vBulletin-based site.
4. The inability to privately let anyone who might be interested know who I am or how to contact me.
- This isn’t information I want to share publicly but, other than sharing it publicly, I don’t have an easy way of passing it along.
Maybe the current software can address these issues and it’s just a matter of configuration. If so, great. If not, well, it’s not a big enough deal to stop me from participating on this site.
I was just offering my 2¢… :-)
Hi Eljay,
This is much more useful feedback. Thanks.
1. Building a page with all the latest approved comments (going to 100 or 200) is not a problem at all. We’ll probably put that up next week.
2. I’m not sure what browser you are using but your browser is giving you a cached page. If we disable caching altogether, we seriously compromised performance, on the other hand we should be able to flip a switch somewhere to make sure that the browser looks for the latest cached page.
3. WordPress search is awful. We are considering building a major public WordPress search plugin that substantially upgrades search (currently upgrading search involves a lot of different and not entirely compatible search). Otherwise, one can switch the WordPress search for Google search. We’ll look at improving search.
4. I think PM’s would reduce the quality of the site by taking much of the discussion underground. Giving certain special interest groups the opportunity to form cabals to persecute online “enemies” is also a concern. On the other hand, PM’s to share email addresses with other members does make sense. Contributor is a very important issue to Phil and Adam so this will have to be handled with care but some kind of solution should be possible.
Thanks for the detailed and stimulating feedback!
Making the web work for you, Alec
PS. vBulletin or any other major forum software is very difficult to make minimalist and attractive. For forum software, we recommend and use either fluxbb (formerly PunBB) or bbPress.
>> Thanks for the detailed and stimulating feedback!
And thanks for taking the time to read through my comments and to provide your thoughts on them. Much appreciated. :-)
Leave it alone, its fine as it is.
Everytime I see one of these sections get “upgraded”, they just become more cumbersome to load. Some of us live rurally, and are still forced to use a dial-up connection. Our computers are slow enough as it is, without having to load all sorts of bells and whistles.
This comment section is actually very simple to navigate.
And the suggestion of limiting posting to one comment a day is sheer idiocy. Some of us want to DEBATE, not merely opine. What good is a comment if it is not subject to rebuttal?
I’m with you. Easy to navigate even for a tech bumblehead like myself.
Important piece up at Race for Iran. Go read former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden piece link provided at Race for Iran. Scheuer has his own site
Micheal Scheuer Non intervention.com
as another certified tech bumblehead, if mw gets too complicated, what’ll this mean for the barely tech savvy?
Thanks for the support POA. We have some very sophisticated tools available to Phil and Adam and the other moderators, but we work very hard to keep it simple for visitors and commenters.
I think what might help with the number of comments issue is a leash to prevent a certain commenter from commenting within the first ten comments. That way he might have to participate in dialogue instead of vandalising each post on which he comments first.
“I think what might help with the number of comments issue is a leash to prevent a certain commenter from commenting within the first ten comments. That way he might have to participate in dialogue instead of vandalising each post on which he comments first”
I dislike the “certain commenter” insinuation. I assume you’re talking about Witty? Fact is, whether you like the guy’s input or not, if he’s payin’ enough attention to get his comment up first, so what?
I don’t care for gnats either. But their buzzing isn’t so troublesome that it needs to be muzzled. After all, they don’t bite. It always amazes me when sites like this one always manage to come up with a rationale for muzzling a commentor or two, while still claiming the high seat of fairness. Either you’re going to allow EVERYONE’s opinion, or you are going to be rightfully accused of censoring unpopular opinions. Some of my own comments have been censored here, inexplicably, with no reason offered. Coming on the heels of the flap Phil had with Daily Kos, surely censoring anyone’s opinions seems more than a little hypocritical.
I certainly may like what, say, “cliff” says more than what “Witty” says. But Witty has no less right to say it, IF in fact you claim a fairly moderated site.
if he’s payin’ enough attention to get his comment up first, so what?
this isn’t a race poa, it’s very clear richard doesn’t usually read the links or sometimes even the entire post before he comments. that’s completely disrespectful.
why should the first commenter get more attention than the author of the post? it highjacks the threads. it’s not as if he doesn’t get to post endless reams of bullshit.
“this isn’t a race poa”
Sure it is. In Witty’s case, its a race to see who can be the first to make an ass of Himself.
You’re just pissed off because he always wins!
i’m not pissed. if it was important to me to end it i would lobby to have his first comments deleted which i don’t do because i know which battles are worth putting on my front burner. i’m content with whatever phil and adam think works best for the blog. it’s up to them.
>> In Witty’s case, its a race to see who can be the first to make an ass of Himself [and] he always wins!
“It’s funny because it’s true!” :-)
i totally agree eljay. lots of times i just scroll his coments but sometimes they are really funny. today someone said something about the haiku nature of one of his comments and i went back and read it, he was right! it was very haikuie. sometimes richard’s comments crack me up. very chauncy gardinier. sometimes i imagine there’s a computer program churning out stuff under the name of richard witty. whatever!
lol
Lame.
I post on content, and on the few posts that are of interest to me. I generally read the full content of the original post before posting my own, but DO consider the headline as of intentional editorial emphasis and so direct some attention to that.
I read links only if they appear to be material relative to the original post. If Phil, Adam, others, want the material in the links to be emphasized, they routinely quote what they think is important in them.
I post when I am available. I write, present lectures, consult with individuals and organizations for a living, and am frequently at home in front of a computer, and with the ability to keep multiple windows open, Mondoweiss is often open.
I post frequently because I frequently disagree with the conclusions and inferences of those that seem to be motivated by compassion and reason, and as I am as well, I share my different reasoning.
Richard Witty said, ‘This is a mild exaggeration for a man with 10,000+ comments
What is certainly true is that I will never ever comment on Israeli injustices. They are not “of interest to me.” You will never, for example, see me on one of Kate and Seham’s threads that carefully document Israel’s day-to-day criminal behavior in occupied Palestine. Never.’
No Witty what you do is read a headline and when you don’t like it, you endeavour to distract, conflate by posting incoherent, hypocritical garbage in thehope of luring people away from the dicussion. In that regard you have been successful – certainly in the past, but the reality is that you are a troll and should have been banned.
Seeting you to ignore is just as effective without curtailiong your freedom of speech.
You are arguing to rationalize that content should be censored.
Why?
On the contrary.
The ignore option is common on many blogs, Slate and The Nation being two examples. You would be free to post comments and those comments would be visible to the very few interested in what you have to say.
Think of it as akin to choosing what TV stations one wants to watch. What is undemocratic about that?
Ignore function would be great. The only person I think any of us would ignore is Witty anyway.
We don’t ignore the other Zionists.
I agree Cliff.
In fact, I imagine we’d only use it once (to block Witty) and never use it again. Maybe it should be labelled “ignore Witty” button.
Come ro think of it, maybe Phil should just ban him altogether and save Alex from having to code it.
Ha! Interesting idea, Alec ;)
i really like the search function alec. just used it to find some of mooser’s ziocaine comments. thanks!
;)
alec, I REALLY hope that you guys can limit Witty’s post count.
It is obvious for veterans of Mondoweiss that Richard Witty posts here out of some twisted pathology.
10,000+ posts of pure non-sense. Through the diligence of the anti-Zionists here, we’ve been able to cut him down to size and expose the various memes of his intellectual dishonesty.
It’s not fair that Phil allows this troll to run rampant simply because ‘trolls’ are apparently representative of ‘liberal’ Zionism.
Richard Silverstein has already limited Witty’s post count.
This would not be the first time he’s been censored for his prolific (DOCUMENTED) dishonesty.
All our posting histories are available for public view. None of this is a secret.
People here who laud freedom of speech should read the commenting rules.
It is not a matter of freedom of speech. If you have any doubt, consider eee – who is much more direct and blatant in his racism. Witty is more subtle and presents it in a civil matter.
In both cases, both are racists. eee has said things about Palestinian society and Arabs that Phil apparently thinks is acceptable to pass through moderation.
At the same time, we should also realize that a lot of this hatefulness gets through simple because it’s a tactically sound way of letting Zionists become their own worst enemies. I see a lot of new Mondoweiss commentators and they are all witness to the naked racism and double standards our Zionists express daily.
That’s all great, but why even have a comments guide-line? We don’t really enforce it, and that is kind of a staple of this website.
I remember back during the Gaza massacre, when we had some really sick Zionists mocking the dead children. Even then nothing was done. And if I can imagine the best case scenario, I think Phil might have allowed the posts to continue simply because people who didn’t comment but visited the site might be able to see for themselves what some Zionists are like. Also, I’m sure he was busy following the developments of the unfolding tragedy.
If this site is going to become more innovative and streamlined, do you really want some senile, pathological liar hijacking virtually every important discussion? Since as far back as I can remember, people actually put in tons of time to respond to Richard Witty carefully with sources.
You look through his commenting history and I’d say 99.9% of his comments lack any citations. Excellent people here like Danaa, Avi, Schumel, Hostage, etc. have all put in the time – using personal experience as Israelis or their indispensable encyclopedic knowledge or BOTH to rebut Witty’s garbage.
And if nothing happens regarding Witty. I think we could AT LEAST have a references section somewhere, with links to primary sources. Historical documents. UN resolutions. ETC.
I think that recommend links list is noisy and takes up too much space.
Wow!
My appreciation of you just shot up.
I had no idea you (or anyone) still used dial-up.
There is no way I’d be posting if I had dial-up.
i like the set up wrt comment column on the rt side over @ moon of alabama.
If you are going to have a left hand column, a darker one like that in its own area is certainly the way to go. Thanks for pointing it out Annie. I don’t hang out at Moon of Alabama but did spend a lot of time on Billmon.com in the day.
i think billmon had the same function on the right. yes i discovered the site (billmon) my first or second day on the net (sometime in 03 i think) and he and other posters there greatly impacted my political views. b is a fantastic blogger.
I LOVED billmon. He was one of the first and few sites I ever latched onto when I first had time to use the net a lot.
Really miss his writing style.
For mondo I would say if it isn’t broke don’t fix it.
Cluttered up sites detract attention from the main articles to me.
The way it is now it is easy for people to read and the articles stand out.
So did I.
During the 2006 Lebanon war, his reports and commentary were outstanding. While the media were pushing all the Israeli BS, he was reporting it with amazing accuracy and insight.
Do you have any idea what happened to him?
Left hand side. A section for easily dragged links to documents with provenance, with a brief description. Government Statements, UNSC resolutions, UN Charter,
We’d like to add a reference section. I don’t want to put it on the left hand side as we specifically keep the left clear to keep the focus on the post at hand and current content. But a second right hand column would be fine.
Excellent idea talknic.
I also think this would be very helpful. A reference side – only primary sources.
Issue: Commenting / Contributing on a NEW SUBJECT / Heading
Sometimes i wished to open a new subject – not (directly) related to already posted headings, and also being no “reply” to an earlier comment.
Admittedly, i have been unable to find out how this can be done using this “old” website-design.
Such a facility could probably improve transparency, and minimize the out-of-context contributions.
I think what you are suggesting Erasmus is either forums or a user contributed section. We could try to incorporate such a user generated new section. The technical side is quite manageable but the editorial overhead might be quite heavy on Phil and Adam.
Yes, a User Contributed Section, that seems to be a better term for what i had in mind.
I do see the potential of extra-editorial work … but there are also potential benefits.
Earlier i had tried to chip-in a new subject by using Phil’s / Adam’s ordinary email-address; however, that did not work.
There have been a couple of times when I posted something and then felt bad because I felt I said something in too harsh of a way (or said something I shouldn’t have said at all!). I wanted to apologize, but thought it’d look a little weird doing so in the comments section. How about giving the regular posters their own site (or sub-site–it would be a part of your site) on which we can elaborate on our views and comments? I know technically that might be very difficult, though. . . .
Hi HRK,
Your issue is a challenge for all political sites where conversation gets hot. It wouldn’t be a technical problem to create user controlled weblogs but it would generate a lot of moderation work for Adam and Phil.
I’ve have to say now that you can edit a comment after posting, just be more careful what you post. I’ve apologised publicly when I was very, very wrong once. It didn’t do me any harm.
Its fine as it is.
I’d like to have a button that does: hide every “RW” thread. Of course, through the Mooser-checker (already existing) I won’t miss interesting posts. “RW” should be an optional list, I’d like to include explicit Zionists too.
Also, commentors with over 10.000 posts could be eliminated from my screen. Even if they are friends (ahum) of Adam & Phil.
That could be easily achieved with an “ignore” option that gives you the option of ignoring posts from a specific user. They have that option on Slate.
That way, Witty dpesn’t have to be banned; in fact he could post another 10,000 comments and none if us would have to see them.
Its a uniquely anti-democratic feature.
The way to ignore my posts is simply to not read them, if you feel that you only believe that reading those that support your conclusions is democracy.
What’s undermocratic about choosing not to read them? We know you suport Israel fascism, but don;t demand it of this blog.
Shut up Witty. You already have a blog. The reason you leech of Phil’s blog is to get attention. Why should anyone be denied the right not to see your rubbish?
Stop projecting Witty.
I do desire to get attention. I believe that my arguments have great merit, and deserve attention.
The failure of the Palestinian solidarity movement to date, by malevolent violence, and now punitive “non-violence”, should be apparent to those that actually care about Palestinians as people.
Other approaches are necessary for any success. Mutual humanization for example.
Richard Witty said, ‘Here I go again, substituting my own wishes for the facts. BDS is in fact a steadily growing success, particularly among young people, including courageous young Jews; it is not the failure I make it out to be. Proof that BDS is succeeding is the intense, dishonest campaign waged against it, including the effort within Israel to criminalize advocating for it.
‘I’m not against BDS because it is not succeeding. I’m against it because it is — and one of its central tenets is that the 550,000 illegal Israeli settlers in Palestine are the major obstacle to peace.
‘I don’t see the illegal settlers as an obstacle. I am a right-wing Likudnik. I believe the settlers should stay right where they are — and the Palestinians must just humanize away until they accept that might makes right.’
Of course you do Witty, you’re marcisism is duly noted. You have had plenty of attention wasted on you and we’ve all come to the point where none of us (apart from your fellow right wing Zionists) are interested in sifting through your incoherent, hypocritcal, nonsensical diatribes.
So you see, I have determined that your arguments have no merit, and deserve no further attention. You’ve had more than 10,000opportunities to present argument with merit and you’ve squandered every one of them.
All forms of Palestinian solidarity movement to date, punitive or otherwise have been a failure Witty.
Mutual humanization in your mind means a rapist having his way with the victim and the victim thanking him for his trouble.
Witty continunes:
“And I’m against it because I know that Israel is incapable of making peace, and that the 2 state solution is dead, and as such, I know that BDS will eventually begin to affect the average Israeli Jew and I cannot accept members of my own tribe (who are special and deserving of privelage) being inconveniened in any way. They fingersnails are so much more precious than Palestinian lives after all.
I would rather see all the Palestinians wiped off the map than see any Israeli remotely incovenienced. Thus, I advocate meaningless ideas like “mutual humanization”, so I can pretend to be in favor of peace.”
Have a cigar…with great appreciation.
You guys really feel comfortable about lying?
Hi Shingo!
After much reflection, I think it is time for an ignore button specific to each user. For years, we’ve been considering some kind of slashdot system where there are community thresholds and scoring per comment but it always ends up too complicated and easily gamed. Our goals with Mondoweiss is to keep the site simple, elegant, easy to use and very fast to load.
But the simplicity of a personal ignore button (used by thousands in this case) sounds like the perfect way to drown out the irrelevance.
For what it’s worth, I’ll be pressing that button the day of release. In fairness, I would not use this button only on the side of the oppressors. Many of their voices are worth hearing. On the other hand, there are a couple of true progressives whose comments I could live without almost as easily as that of MW’s most prolific commenter.
Thank you for your suggestion!
Shingo,
Years ago here, someone made a javascript that did exactly that. It stopped working when the website went to its penultimate format. Here is it is:
Maybe Alec will get a kick out of it.
Thanks Alec,
That would be great to see.
As you might have guessed, I can only anticipate unsing the ignore button once (to unclutter the comments of the polution emanating from MW’s most prolific commenter), but that alone would be of immense value.
It would be helpful when logged in to be able to see the new comments highlighted in diaries one has read previously. This makes it easier to follow on-going conversations in old diaries, even if one is not participating in them.
Rusty, that’s a great idea. I’m just not quite sure how to do it without sinking the server (we have to keep track of which comments 2000 active visitors have seen).
I’ll see if we can figure out how to do this. PunBB and flux forum software has this functionality (but only at post level).
Why do you have to give so much real estate to the blog roll? Why can’t you make that list a link, and increase the comment list?
That’s Phil and Adam’s call as they maintain the relationship with blogroll partners. Technically easily done: turn it into a dropdown menu. But people would not use it much.
yeah, what Eva, Cliff and Rusty said
I’m not very literate computer-wise (and otherwise:)). My only problem is with posting a comment to begin with. Say I read comments to posts all the way to the bottom and click on the “log-in to reply.” I’m then prompted for my login info. So far so good. But after I log in, it takes me back to the top of the page and I have to click again on “add one.” With Firefox, that doesn’t even work and I often drop the whole thing out of sheer frustration (I’m using Safari this minute).
Other than that, I wouldn’t change the appearance that I like very much. A searchable library that others have suggested is a great idea. My two cents…Thanks for all you do.
sensa, sometimes after i log in it directs me back to the page and it looks the same, with the same log in feature. i have to refresh the page and then i can reply.
Thanks annie. Refreshing doesn’t always work, I tried that.
sensa,
Remember one unique phrase in the post you want to reply to, or Command C a section. Then use Command-F, paste it or type it, hit return and you’re there.
Copying the date and time is an easy answer too.
That’s strange, sensa. I don’t have to log in any more, I am already logged in every time I open the computer; I thought that would be the same for everyone.
I really like what Cliff asked for at the beginning of this thread, I would make good use of those buttons.
As for the number and placing of posts, I think there is already plenty of scope for control of these. Richard’s penchant for being first can surely be dealt with by delaying such to, say, the 5th or later post, at least on occasion. One of mine was delayed for many hours. And if the moderator thinks someone has too many they can choose not to allow some through.
Great site, great comments and debate, great future.
I think there are only minor adjustments to be made. I’ve been reading MW from the days it was unmoderated and going to moderation was a very good step, as is the ability to have a searchable user page.
I like the simple and uncluttered page layouts. When I first started reading MW I found some of the longer threads a little hard to follow but not really any more. If i want to know which comment is being replied to now on a longer thread I just position my pointer over the comment and scroll up (two-finger scrolling on a mac laptop trackpad) until I come to the next outdented comment. Perhaps a ‘parent’ button on each post might be an easy way to achieve the same thing. This would work quite well if the parent was outdented a level, but I’m not sure if you have the ability to track the parent of a comment when the 4th level of indenting has been reached…?
I preferred when the recent comment list on the right had a 2 line preview of the comment, so you could put a user’s name at the beginning of your comment and there was a reasonable chance they would see it. 10 comments in that list rather than 5 would also be useful. A dedicated ‘recent comments’ page would be useful but at the same time I still prefer to have more detailed recent comments listed on each and every page in the right column.
As tedious as he is, I don’t agree with preventing RW from commenting in the first 10 or comments on each article. As someone else wrote above, he just rushes to make a fool of himself anyway. If he doesn’t understand what a terrible representative of zionism he is, then that’s his own (and Israel’s) bad luck.
Any limitations imposed on one user should be imposed on all users. Problematic users should be warned privately and booted by moderators if they continue to overstep the mark.
The ability to insert a picture would be useful, but only if your site could downsample large pictures for inline pics so they didn’t eat up too much bandwidth – with a click-to-view high res option that would pop up.
Hmm – that reminds me, do you know about the ‘hoist’ option in outliners? You might consider something like that to help users follow long threads. Example: A hoist button on each comment would give you the ability to see that comment’s parent and any subsequent replies, with ALL other comments filtered out – and it could be done as a pop-up like high res images. If you didn’t implement it correctly it would be overly complicated and add limited usability. The key feature would have to be the ability to filter out comments not directly related to the particular comment you click the hoist button on.
Lastly – what happened to the “report comment” button? I only rarely used it. Was it removed from lack of use, or abuse – or neither?
I preferred when the recent comment list on the right had a 2 line preview of the comment, so you could put a user’s name at the beginning of your comment and there was a reasonable chance they would see it.
i agree!
Hi Sumud and Annie,
Recent comments in the advanced form died due to server load. I don’t like the current primitive recent comments at all. We will be adding back much better recent comments, including a long page of all recent comments. The sidebar will be back better than ever, as I’ve come up with some ideas to keep it 100% up to date and not effect caching (SSI for the technically inclined: a technology which went out of date 5 years ago, but is just right for this particular problem).
alec ~ if you read my comment I’ve edited it with another suggestion. I do LOVE the edit function, thought it might be 15 minutes instead of 10.
Hi Sumud,
Photo upload/insertion is a real security issue, but we’ll sort it out in the next round of updates.
Adding outliner-type features is a deep rabbit hold into which to venture (i.e. we’ll spend more time fiddling with that than anything else). I’ll look at coming up with something deadly simple.
The after the 10th comment limit on a certain commenter is not intended to stop him/her from “contributing” but rather to have to participate in dialogue rather than jump in early to post “incoherent, hypocritical garbage in the hope of luring people away from the discussion”.
Curiously, the report comment button produced very few complaints from supporters of Palestinian rights (including about RW or eee for example) and nothing but spurious complaints from hardcore Zionists. Basically the site is pretty tightly moderated by Phil, Adam and the moderating team so there isn’t much to complain about anymore.
Hi Sumud and Annie!
I’m pleased to report Recent Comment are back and with a vengeance.
On the right sidebar, you have the last 10 comments arranged by article and with an excerpt. If you click Recent Comments above the 10 you will be taken to the last 100 recent comments.
You can also navigate directly to the Last 100 Comments from the top menu tabs (next to Archive). This second location is experimental but the link from the Recent Comments in the sidebar is permanent.
Enjoy!
Happy Labour Day!
Making the web work for you, Alec
PS. We should and will add an RSS feed for that Recent Comments page.
better already. thanks.
>> If you click Recent Comments above the 10 you will be taken to the last 100 recent comments.
Sweet! :-)
I would like links to open up a new window, rather than transfer this window to the linked site.
That I can open them now and read them later, without having to use the back button to find where I was on MW.
It’s a bit impolite to force open links in new windows. You can always hold down command and click on a new link and the link will open in a new tab (Apple Safari) or shift click (for IE I think) and the link will open in a new tab. If enough people want external links to open in new windows, this is an easy change.
Thanks for the suggestion RoHa!
I saw eljay commented on this “1. The inability to view all of the latest comments.”
Earlier today i read all the 120 comments on one page and now there is 152 comments.
And i want to read the new comments. But they are not very easy to find.
Suggestion:
Is it possible to add a function where you can choose to have the latest comments have a different background color? For all comments added after the time/date you choose or maybe you could choose this for the number of new comments you want to find?
Keeping track of what comments each user has seen is very technically challenging (while keeping server load low and the site fast). On the other hand, it’s a great idea. We’ll look closely at this.
Please add an RSS feed for all comments and comments on a post and replies to a profile.
Hi richb,
We’ll be creating a fresh comments page with at least 100 comments on it. We will add an RSS feed to that page with the RSS feed subscribe button on that page.
RSS feed for new comments to a post can and will be added.
An RSS feed for all replies to you is a very interesting notion. We’ll look at that too. That’s a bit more work.
Thanks for your detailed and specific suggestions!
Phil and Adam.
This is a serious site for generally serious people…I’d like it to stay that way.
I wonder if having easier posting features might attract more of the nonsensical people from HuffPo?
Even the pro-israel types here, are generally intelligent if not rational (sorry LLI, you are neither and we don’t need more of you).
So, I have only one suggestion: Whatever changes are made, should not attract idiots.
Alec, this is off-topic and about the gold fund-raising stars.
I’ve been off-line awhile and come back to find very few gold stars around mw.
Some folks have lost their stars; annie I believe had one, now it’s gone.
What was the final decision about applying the stars? Were (are) donors allowed to opt out of the star system? Even after they got one?
Thanks.
Hi patm,
Donors are allowed to opt out of a star. Who had a star and who doesn’t have one now I have no idea.
Honestly, I like to be able to see if someone has contributed. Not having a star doesn’t score a penalty for me, but having one does encourage me to pay a bit more attention to that commenter. A star makes me think of a person of action and their convictions who is prepared to actively contribute to creating a better world.
A star also reminds me of how those who were once hounded and rounded up into ghettos, now hound and push others into ghettos. I proudly wear a star in solidarity of all who were persecuted: those who were persecuted for their ethnicity and/or faith in the 1940′s and those who are persecuted for their ethnicity and/or faith in the 1970′s to 2010′s.
Thanks Alec.
I’m going to keep my yellowy gold star.
I posted a comment today. (August 27, 2011 at 8:32 am)
In most of europe that would be:
27 August 2011 (dd/mm/yyyy) at 14:32 (24-hour clock)
Could not the time and date show the local time and date and format?
(8:32 would be correct if i was in New York)
It would require everyone setting a timezone. Probably not a problem we will solve this round. But something to keep in mind. We’ll probably stay on NY time in honour of Phil.
in honour of Phil?
You choose your time zone and location in your os.
Then the timezone is set.
That’s somewhat true. But even if we grab timezone from the visitor’s computer, it would really mess up caching. We don’t want to mess up caching (much slower site!). We might be able to jig something together with javascript but it would increase the load on your browser (not good for mobile or lower powered computers).
If you know of a nice light function to do this let me know.
Should be possible for logged in users (as far as I remember we aren’t cached now, although we’d like logged in users to see cache too).
You’ll screw up a lot more things if you have individual timing. I suggest adding EST after the AM or PM so we can tell, or even better (-6 GMT) …nyc?… after the AM or PM or however they write Zulu time.
i don’t mind being on NY time. I’m in Australia and if it’s 3AM in NY that’s handy for me to know because then I can be fairly sure the moderators will be catching some zzz’s, so I needn’t check back until later in the day for new comments.
Why not create a “Mondoweiss forum”? Where people regularly posting comments here could engage, ask questions, meet each other. I understand it could be a lot of moderating… Aren’t there any ways to create such a forum? Maybe outside the site. A Yahoo discussion group maybe?
Good idea.
I’d look forward to that. It could be a place to compile information at least, and could supplement posting here.
Lots of good suggestions above. My 2 cents relates to the beauty and simplicity of the site: I love the color scheme -black, blue, and white is easy on the eyes. Compared to all manner of other sites, Mondo’s screen is not cluttered with windows, tabs, pop-ups, rainbow spectrums of color and other such things that turn web pages into an index of nonsense. From a visual point of view Mondo is easy to use and easy to look at. My hope is that this doesn’t change.
Phil and Adam: Thanks for all the great work that you do! Stay cute! Don’t change! We love you!
Hi dbroncos,
Thanks for your input! I agree.
But don’t worry. If anything, any aesthetic changes will be to even more minimalism. Keeping Mondoweiss easy to read and easy to use is our number one priority.
Like Eva and Ellen I’d love to have the ability to highlight certain comments that add unusual value, and/or provide excellent references. Over the time I’ve been reading and commenting on this blog I’ve seen quite a few comments that were superb, but didn’t always get the chance to bookmark them in time.
One possibility is to add a feature next to comments that’d allow highlighting them as exceptional. I don’t mean just a simple like/not like button as in many comment sections as these will not quite serve the function I have in mind. There are many posts I like but sometimes it’s just because it’s funny or provocative. That’s different than highlighting a comment to be selected as, eg, “best of Show” or something. I have in mind some of the commentary provided by the likes of Hostage, Shmuel, Blankfort, Samel and quite a few others who periodically provide material I think would be useful to all, not just appeal to me personally.
Do you think it’d be possible to add a ‘highlight’ button next to comments and when the number gets to say, a threshold of some number (eg, 10-20), the comments becomes part of an archived set? On the LHS, could a feature such as ‘recommended” posts that will be periodically refreshed (once a week?) and have a link to a menu listing them all.
I know that if an archive is to be built that would take time, maybe some of us would be willing to help in rescuing come comments from obscurity. I know I am happy to share my own little collection (in no way complete) and may be willing to offer help in sorting through some of the past great comments sections, organizing them into bins with headlines.
What do you think?
Very easily gamed, but otherwise selected comments is a very good idea.
The problem is that it’s pretty high maintenance to get highlighted comments working properly and keeping it working properly. It’s not set and forget.
But it is a great idea. Thank you for the very detailed explanation of how you’d like it to work Danaa. I’ve added highlighted comments to our wishlist.
I second Danaa’s suggestion. Great idea!
Danaa and Alec,
When Hostage first started supplying his amazing links to source material, I got inspired, PDF’d the messages alone, and downloaded his linked material.
I should have know better. The PDF was nearly 4,000 pages. I said, just one more, and I lost everything. Crashed. Well I didn’t lose everything. I had maybe 100 messages off the blog, but I lost all the linked in stuff, plus my bookmarks operating as a TOC.
I also lost my enthusiasm for doing it.
The great thing about PDF is that it has search, global search within a long doc (meaning you see a list of all instances of whatever you’re searching for with its context) that you can click on to get there, and you can specify a folder of PDF that you can search. I have no idea if this is within the Reader. It is within the full program.
Danaa, I’m assuming that since you’re a scientist you are on Windows. Most of you are, I find. I’m on a Mac and I discovered that the SAVE function in Safari produces a .webarchive, which is static (Unix) save of the entire page, and is a great format, fast and easy. I’ve been saving for months now. It’s so much easier than PDFing, which I do for work all day long. I have no idea, because I haven’t checked, if I can concatenate all those files, then either PDF it or html it. No idea. But I’m sure there’s a way.
Whoops, getting off topic here. I think what is really important is getting a repository of source documents, and numbered, so we can refer to them like Mooser’s 1, 2, 3, 4 you-too-suck. We keep repeating the same sources to newbies (and oldies), and Alec, we have better sources here than the NYT. Hostage’s historical data is priceless, because he knew enough to know this stuff existed! The Avalon Project at the Lillian Goldman Library at Yale has a nice, simple, html index. Nothing fancy. Just long titles, and access to the docs.
THIS is what your need another fund-raiser for: the assistant who is going to do this. ;-)
Anyway, just some thots.
I’m glad to hear you’re committed to keeping the site easy on the eyes. Thanks alec!
Guess what MRW, I am one of those Mac-loving scientists (quite a few of us out there). often had to use two laptops one PC and one MacBook and – what can I tell you – Steve Jobs really was a genius – in more ways than one (it’s sad though the way they started eulogizing him already and he’s still alive…). There was no comparison about how much more reliable and easy to use was the Mac vs the Dell I had to schlap around.
And yes, I’ve been using the Safari save feature for quite some time as another back-up and a way to save my extensive list of bookmarks. Very useful and beats having to use the cloud which I don’t trust anyways (our not so friendly governments surely have access to it all, and if they don’t yet, they will).
Appreciate all the good advise and the many good words you’ve been spreading, even if I can’t always respond promptly. Sorry to hear about the PDF crash, but I, for one am appreciative of the many links you have saved and the references you provide. Wish I was half as organized as you seem to be but i do have an excuse: to me organizing anything (even dust particles) feels like work, and the minute it feels like work I start thinking in $/hour. It’s a handicap, what can I say (that’s why my book is not finished yet…no, it’s not The Little Red Book of Excuses – that one was always going to be the second one!).
Alec, I agree with MRW about the next fund raiser. Make it for a part-time librarian/archivist and you’ll be raking it in. In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble surely finding volunteers to help out…..for mere peanuts…..
The commenter profile has a search button. Typing in the name of a commenter does not produce any results. Why on earth else is it even there? It seems obvious to me that that should be its function!
Hi John,
That search button lets you search that commenters comments. Very useful actually. Normally when you are looking for a commenter is when you are reading posts and want to check on other comments by that person.
I have recently become a fan of reddit.com. I love their feature that allows one to upvote or downvote comment and comment threads. The most relevant, interesting, funny or informative comments bubble up to the top. I know that reddit is open source, but it may be lots of work to make something like that work with wordpress.
High five to all the BILLMON fans here.
i read some of your comment history and just out of curiosity i googled ‘hug a jew’. an eccentric video on youtube popped up. check out TSA training:jihad elimination worker.
The woman spoke so normally, I forgot it was a joke…and was waiting for a real blooper.
For some reason, I’m reminded of Borat’s youtube song…throw a Jew down the well. It sure seems like he walked into a real redneck bar, to me.
link to youtube.com
1. I’d like to see “hasbara control”. In other words, when someone (like eee and guiltyfeast, etc. ) posts repeated, blatant scripted hasbara propaganda (Hamas, noun-verb, Iran, noun-verb, Palestinian violence, noun-verb and the “eternal victim” noun-verb) we should have a way of clicking a hasbara spam button. These people merely repeat propaganda on every thread to prejudice the thread with their repetitive narrative. However, Zionism is fair game since the Occupation and oppression of Palestinians is Zionism based and exposing its injustice is essential to ending it.
2. I’d like to see the most recent comments at the top of the thread and the older ones below in reverse time succession, opposite to what we have now.
3. Maybe more effective comment update would be helpful. I refresh page. I guess it’s the same principle.
4. It would be helpful not to have to go to “home” page to get ALL the day’s blog articles, but to see them , listed on the page we’re commenting on. If there are too many in one day, then listing at least 5.
5. I definitely don’t want to see gimmicky stuff like they have on HP – badges/favorites etc. I like the seriousness and simplicity of this site as opposed to the HP circus that attracts hasbara riff-raff.
6. I’d like to be able to put quotes in italics and highlight stuff with a frame or bold or underline without resorting to caps. Could you put in features for the “technical dummies” like myself or a how-to technical page we can easily access on the side bar and/or an information page on new features?
7. I want to be able to click a link without having to click back to MW because sometimes I forget it’s not a new page and lose MW and have to open MW and reinsert my password.
8. I don’t like my computer to store passwords but I do like to go to a site and not have to insert my password each time.
4. It would be helpful not to have to go to “home” page to get ALL the day’s blog articles, but to see them , listed on the page we’re commenting on. If there are too many in one day, then listing at least 5.
kalethea, scroll up this page and on the right you will see this section. it is on every page not just the home page.
I strongly support point 5!
Am I the only one having trouble finding —on the ‘manage subscriptions’ page—the title of the thread I wish to subscribe to?
Is there some way to put the name of the desired thread at the top of this page?