What's this? A new commenting system on Massively? Is this real life? [Updated]
We've augmented the post-post punditry on the Joystiq network with a new conversation platform called Livefyre. You'll see it at the bottom of this post and every news story, review and feature following it. There are a couple of major differences between this new vector for your opinions, and the ancient, rickety thing we optimistically called a commenting system:
It's not the worst thing ever!
It allows for real-time updates and lets you create and follow nested conversations.
You can sign in with any one of six different social network accounts, including Twitter, Facebook and Gmail (just click "Sign in" at the top left of the Livefyre window to get started).
You can blast your wittiest comments back out to your friends on Twitter and Facebook, even if they don't read Massively.
Feel free to flag comments for being off-topic or inappropriate. You can be more granular with your grievances now, as opposed to the generic "report" function we had before. This will make it much easier for us to ban the true trolls!
On-screen bubbles notify you when a new comment has been made above or below the point you're currently reading.
By clicking on "Settings" on the upper-right corner of the Livefyre window, you can adjust your personal information and when you'd like to receive email notifications (if any).
If you've been a reader for a very long time, you may be irked to learn that we are not importing your old comments into Livefyre. Rather than delay the upgrade in order to preserve so much content of questionable relevance, we opted to start everything anew.
Provided you're already part of the supported social networks, signing in will be a cinch, and we hope the reduced anonymity will make for friendlier conversation. (Protip: Choose a unique handle and/or a clean Twitter account if you don't wish your posts here to link to your real personae.) We'll be ironing out some bugs too, so let us know if you see anything weird and upsetting throughout the night.
With your help, we'll get this new comment system up and running little by little, and you won't even need to deal with the word "Unverified" anywhere.
Update 4/5/2012 (morning)
We wanted to try to address some of the comments so far!
Joystiq, WoW Insider, and Massively are all getting this comment system. It's not something Massively chose, and it's not really something we have much control over beyond basic administrative things that will come later.
Contrary to what some of the commenters seem to believe, you do not have to divulge your real name to us. You have a choice of six different logins (and a seventh, a Livefyre-specific login system, is being worked on, we're told), and you choose your own display name with each of them. Those of you who don't like Facebook can use AIM or OpenID or any of the others. You could also create a brand-new Gmail or Twitter account to further protect your anonymity.
Avatars are still wonky for some of the logins (AIM seems to be one culprit). Readers have chimed in with advice like updating your avatar in the system you chose, emptying your cache, or using a tool like Gravatar. It is a problem we know about as it's affecting us too, and we're passing it along.
We know some of you consider an edit button high-priority, but edited threads can lead to confusion and he-said/she-said problems, not to mention folks un-editing posts we've already edited for conduct violations. Instead, you can now just delete your post and repost it. (Better yet, make sure you're saying what you mean to say when you hit go!)
The reporting features with this system are much more robust, so you won't see unpopular comments voted down and rendered unreadable by clever scripters. If you hover over the timestamp in a post, you can choose to report and flag a comment as spam, off-topic, offensive, and so on.
We've had some complaints about issues with Opera, which we will also pass along to tech support. If you're having trouble with the system and can't post at all (and you're sure it's not just a script-blocker or other browser issue), you can contact us through our tip box.
This is a brand-new system to us too, and we haven't had a whole lot of time to test it out and figure out what works, so please, help us out with constructive feedback. We appreciate it!
Update 4/5/2012 (afternoon)
Are you getting too many emails about likes and responses to your posts? You can fix that yourself. Hover over your name above the comment box, then pick edit profile. It should look like the picture below. Select "never" to control when and how often notifications are sent to you.
