Reader Response: New Commenting System

having a WordPress account makes me feel superior. But, on the other hand, before I had one, I always felt discouraged that I couldn’t say anything.
Just do it. We can still sign in with our WordPress accounts, right?

Not sure. I kind of like the barrier to commenting, although I understand your desire to eliminate that barrier and get more people engaged.

One of the nice things about commenting on TechLand is the comments are generally more reasoned and well thought out than on other sites where some nine year old got an alert and rushes off to spam everyone, never to return. That doesn’t seem to happen here, and I think it’s appreciated by your readers. The difference in quality between TechLand and its competitors is dramatically in your favor.

The more annoying side effect is the deletion of comments already up here, although the site is probably at a point in its development where it would withstand that backlash.

I’d be more interested in that “staircase” feature, where comments in response to other comments indent below the parent thread.

Either way, you guys have my support. But I prefer things the way they are now.

Do it!

As long as you can prevent spam, I’m all for it.

Echo is perhaps the most annoying commenting system I’ve come across. While the open access ideas behind it are neat, its the twitter integration that gets on my nerves the most. Take a look at any front page story on Time.com and you’ll see repetitive comment after comment. Every time someone tweets about the story, you see the same no-comment one line.
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If it weren’t for twitter integration it’d probably be a fine system.

I’m for it, Facebook Connect would be a cool feature.

Tell me again what the advantages are supposed to be?

This won’t be one of those idiot systems that lists things from newest to oldest, will it? People don’t actually read that way, you know.

The comments on the Nerd World site (by Church, dave etc) were what ‘caught’ me, as it were. I like Techland and want it to succeed but the thought of that community (for lack of a better word) disappearing really bothers me. But I have made in total two comments on this site and don’t think I’ve really earned a say.

To add – I agree with richardrussell, people don’t read from newest to oldest – it becomes frustrating to follow comments that way.
I don’t know Echo so… hope against that.

Hold up: like the rest of time? Like, no mobile support whatsoever? I quit commenting on other time sites 100% because I don’t use a computer. I can’t read ANY comments at tuned in or swampland etc and it’s stoneage. That’s not what you mean for this is it? Mute me all you want, no loss, but I’d be saddened, a lot, if I lost the ability to read any comments at all. I’m on an iPhone btw.

Echo does read newest to oldest.
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Also, the reason I can’t comment is because work now blocks the site for having “game” content…

I actually still prefer NerdWorld. ;) I finally bit the bullet and got a wordpress account so I could post.

To “echo” some of the sentiments already posted, if the open format just leads to spam and pointless drivel, then what’s the point?

I feel like posters here can connect to the writers because there aren’t 500 people arguing in the comment section.

I just made my WordPress account a month or so ago because I have literally visited Techland everyday for the past 6 months, if not through my Blackberry then on my computer. I feel like taking that step and making an account (and forgetting the password and going through the password retrieval process not once but three times) makes me seem more… important… like someone above mentioned. I don’t want my opinion to be bogged down and hard to find when literally everyone is allowed to post, I feel like I can easily communicate with you guys as writers and that I deserve that ease of communication after reading your articles on my Blackberry Tour TIME app for MONTHS.

Do what you want.. but if you make the change, just make sure this place isn’t spammed. I’m all about more people joining to bring about their points and opinions and help shape the debate or discussion into what have you, but it just seems like this never happens and places that used to be good discussion areas on the net are overloaded by 13 year olds and people wanting you to try their product “COMPLETELY FREE!!!!”

I guess you could say I’m against it. :\

Just thought I should weigh in and say that I’m for the change and have been lobbying for it. I love Techland but comments have always been thin on the ground here. We just haven’t grown a big community around the site like, say, the ones at io9 or Slashdot or [other successful site TK]. We have to try something else. It kills me to lose the old comments, but ultimately if the site doesn’t keep growing it’ll die anyway. And to grow it needs a community. A bigger community.

@Lev, you don’t have to share this information, but I’d ask how your overall page views stack up against the sites you’re citing? Comments will come with time; there are still plenty of enthusiasts out there who don’t know about TechLand. TL is a relative newcomer on the scene, and the range of the site seems to expand every week, making it harder to find niche readers.

I didn’t realize Echo allows for Twitter integration. Not to get negative, but if there is something I hate about the internet, it’s Twitter. It’s dumbing society down. I would definitely prefer it didn’t show up here. It would be sad to see relevant comments disappear, like it has on other “Tech” sites.

I guess the question is whether you prefer quantity to quality. If you do switch over to Echo, please at least consider doing something to keep Twitter from integrating “re-tweets” or whatever into everything.

Having never used Echo before I say go for it. Only then we’ll be able to judge and see if the alleged Twiter and Facebook integration is crap or not.

I created a WordPress account because of Techland. I agree with previous posters – right now, the comments are not spam and are worthy of reading. Just because people aren’t commenting doesn’t mean people aren’t reading. I know I don’t comment on every single Techland article I read. Just because everyone else is on Echo doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do.

I fail to see how more comments = a better community. Bigger? Sure.

If the goal of Techland is to simply accumulate #’s of posts, then Echo sounds like the way to go. Then it can be like the rest of CNN and TIME which are generally hate filled bile and endless bickering.

I look forward to the “First!” posts.

I hate to see all the old NerdWorld posts go away. There was some good stuff there, but I understand the desire to make it easier to comment.

However, to Lev’s comment: I used to be a regular commenter. Now I’m not. It doesn’t have anything to do with the WordPress account. Frankly, the Techworld content doesn’t grab me. (Sorry. I just don’t care about Apple or Star Wars that much and that seems to be what most posts are about these days.)

Not to sound like the grumpy old guy, but the change to Techland seems to have killed the goofy charm that made me want to post on Nerd World. Deleting all our old stuff does kind of seem like a slap in the face to all those who posted regurlarly back then.

“You guys aren’t commenting enough. So we’ll delete all your old comments. That should bring you back!”

Really?

I think you guys should go ahead and do it; I agree that you need more comments and support you doing what you have to do.
That said, I would hate to see the board getting slammed by trolls and whatnot. I don’t know what can be done about monitoring or filtering comments but something to keep things civil would be nice

I agree with Kemper. I signed up while it was still Nerd World and loved most of the content. Since it’s been Techland, the content has mostly been about tech rather than general geek content (which I seem to recall we were promised would remain, but with a lean towards tech). I’m not a big phone/gadget geek and so each new evolution of Android/Ipad etc doesn’t make me automatically click the link. In fact, my visits to the site have decreased since the focus shifted.

One of the main reasons I signed up in the first place was the posters around at the time and the jokes and conversations they had. I am not *massively* bothered about losing the old conversations (it’s not like I sit here looking them up and reading them over) but changing the posting system *just* to attract new visitors seems a bit, well, mean.

Having said that, I post at Io9 and the posting system there isn’t that bad. They do show original posts newest to oldest, but replies follow OPs so it doesn’t get confusing. And the quality of debate/conversation there is always pretty good. And they don’t get spammers/tweeters etc. If you go the Io9 model, I could live with that.

Lots of good points on both sides. There has to be a happy medium between the current high-signal but low-volume system and the echotwitterpocalypse. I’m so glad it’s not my job to figure out what it is.

Uh all the old comments went away the first time NerdWorld changed. I’m talking about the first year when Lev wrote on his own, when it was just Church, Rorsach, and Kemper commenting. This was pre-Wordpress.