Monday, March 29, 2010

New Comment System: Help Us Help You!

It may be that the long nightmare of bizarre comment behavior is nearing an end!

We are testing a new system, Disqus, that has many advantages—features, security, ease of use, CUSTOMER SUPPORT—over our current system, JS-Kit/Echo.

Before I move us to the new system, however, I would really value your input—and help.

Please visit our test blog, 2 Test TM-Free, look around, kick the tires, and give us your input in the comments below.

Things you can help with:

  • Browser test: Let me know if the page and comments load well in your browser, especially Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera—and mobile browsers for the iPhone and other mobile devices.
  • Layout/Design: I've made a few tweaks to the design, trying to improve readability: modified colors, font sizes, etc. Are there good changes? Bad ones? Any further suggestions?
  • Comment test: Please try posting a comment or two. Did it post correctly? Was it easy to use?

I look forward to your input—good, bad, or indifferent—in the comments below.

Thanks for your help!

J.


10 comments:

Bjarne said...

The present one works quite ok

Kate said...

The system we were using worked fine for me. With this new system, when I click on the comments section, even if 18 are listed for the article, I am only able to access the last two. The scrolling arrow seems to have disappeared, so I am not able to scroll down to read the other comments. So I tried saving all of the comments in a file on my desktop, but no matter what application I chose to "read and display" the comments, they were all in cyber language, complete with codes and symbols. This system does not seem to work on my MacIntosh.

deborah said...

At least I can post..

Laurie said...

Kate - there is no scroll bar on the"comments" window on my computer either (2001 iMac).  But I found I can scroll up and down by using the "up" and "down" arrows.

John - I think it's really important that the new system prevents hackers from changing the essays, or messing with other people's comments.  If this new system does that, then I'm willing to live with it.
     Having said that, I must admit that I am having multiple problems with this new system:  When I click on "comments", it goes to another page that is identical, and I have to click on "comments" again.  That second click brings me into the comments section.  There, I find an irritating "comments" window, similar to Kate's, except that instead of only showing the last 2 comments, it only shows the first two comments.  To get down the page to the recent comments, I have to "hand-scroll" (via up and down arrows) to bottom of comments window.  It won't jump up and down over paragraphs, it just goes slowly, line by line down the comments.  Then, if I wish to enlarge the typeface (by pressing Apple + E, then Apple + the plus sign, the window backs up to the beginning of the comments, and I have to scroll down all over again.    It's a thin window, by the way, and one wrong move and it disappears off the screen and I have to hunt for it. 
     Oh, I just discovered another two problems.  When I tried to post this comments, I couldn't locate the "post" button.  Then I almost lost my comment, and when I finally found it, it had shrunk to tiny size.  I am now once again looking for the "post" button, which was always there when I was reading comments.

Laurie said...

John - I found another problem with this new system.  In the "recent comments" section, on the far right column of the home page, the recent comments are mixed with a little gibberish. 

Laurie said...

John, now I'm trying out the new system on my work computer.  It's about 2007, IBM-compatible.  Most of the problems I had (see above 2 comments) are not problems on this computer.  The only thing that seems to malfunction is in the "recent comments" section, where the quotation marks are written out as "quote" instead of as ".   That's not too bad! 

Tanemon said...

Posts requested.  I'll make a topic recommendation for open discussion in this post.

In the past week or so - due to the encouraging fact that we had Fred Travis's attention over at MUM - it occurred to me that a good focussed discussion might be evoked by the question: "Has TM produced human excellence?"  In his early talks and writings for Westerners (such as the Science of Being and Art of Living), MMY stressed that excellence would be an outcome of TM.  The fullfillment of psychology, the fulfillment of sociology, the discovery of the wealth within, the support of Almighty Nature etc.  The implication, or explicit message, was always that these should produce people of great fulfillment, wisdom, finesse, and accomplishment.

I realize there would be very many ideas and/or measures of excellence - academic achievements, artistic recognition, innovation and invention, notable social leadership, among many others.  Maybe we could share our observations about how this has worked out for committed TMers.  And it could be of interest to the folks over at MUM.

Tanemon said...

Posts requested.  I'll make a topic recommendation for open discussion in this post.

In the past week or so - due to the encouraging fact that we had Fred Travis's attention over at MUM - it occurred to me that a good focussed discussion might be evoked by the question: "Has TM produced human excellence?"  In his early talks and writings for Westerners (such as the Science of Being and Art of Living), MMY stressed that excellence would be an outcome of TM.  The fullfillment of psychology, the fulfillment of sociology, the discovery of the wealth within, the support of Almighty Nature etc.  The implication, or explicit message, was always that these should produce people of great fulfillment, wisdom, finesse, and accomplishment.

I realize there would be very many ideas and/or measures of excellence - academic achievements, artistic recognition, innovation and invention, notable social leadership, among many others.  Maybe we could share our observations about how this has worked out for committed TMers.  And it could be of interest to the folks over at MUM.

Tanemon said...

Posts requested.  I'll make a topic recommendation for open discussion in this post.

In the past week or so - due to the encouraging fact that we had Fred Travis's attention over at MUM - it occurred to me that a good focussed discussion might be evoked by the question: "Has TM produced human excellence?"  In his early talks and writings for Westerners (such as the Science of Being and Art of Living), MMY stressed that excellence would be an outcome of TM.  The fullfillment of psychology, the fulfillment of sociology, the discovery of the wealth within, the support of Almighty Nature etc.  The implication, or explicit message, was always that these should produce people of great fulfillment, wisdom, finesse, and accomplishment.

I realize there would be very many ideas and/or measures of excellence - academic achievements, artistic recognition, innovation and invention, notable social leadership, among many others.  Maybe we could share our observations about how this has worked out for committed TMers.  And it could be of interest to the folks over at MUM.

Tanemon said...

My poste, above, was only tupposed to appear once.  LOL !! I hit the "Post" button once.  Sorry.

Could it be that my posts repeat because I'm using a MacBook and attendant Mac/Firefox software?

Post a Comment