Article commenting is here!

[James]

Article comments are finally here! Read the announcement (and make a comment!) here: https://animatedviews.com/2020/whats-yo ... e-comments

I'll fess up and say I was probably the biggest hold up to this getting done sooner. Long story short, I worried that adding comments would ruin the forum! How? Firstly, we lose the community aspect of the forum. Comments are littered throughout the site instead of one location. So you may never get to know other readers. And secondly, comments discourage long term conversations. As soon as an article slides down or off the front page no one will talk there anymore. And if someone does randomly find the page a year later and makes a comment, no one will see it to respond.

But, as you well know, the forum isn't a hotbed of conversation right now! So we decided to give comments a try -- but with a spin on the idea to allay some of my concerns. We're going to try combining the forum and the comments sections!

Here's how it works. When we have an article we want to allow users to comment on, we will create a thread for that article in the forum. Then on the article page we will activate the comments code. If you're on the forum, you can go to the thread and talk as normal. If you're on the article page, there will be a place to make a comment. Anything posted in either place appears both at the end of the article and in the forum thread!

This means there is no splitting of users. Forum users and commenters are all talking together. And if someone ever comments on a year old article, it will show up as a new post in that thread on the forum where it will be highlighted and seen immediately.

This was a complicated bit of code. So please let us know of any issues you encounter.

Hopefully this new feature will help grow the community we've built here togehter!

[ibrmacf]

Whoo, comments!

[Daniel]

Hey stranger, long time!

[ibrmacf]

Hey stranger, long time!

Hey, yeah it's been a while since I've posted on the forums, but I do check this site every single day first thing when I go on the Internet !

[James]

Whoo, comments!

Congrats, ibrmacf -- you made the first public comment on AV!

[Julian Carter]

I like this! It prompted me to log into my long dormant account and *gasp* marvel at the ancient avatar and username.

[Daniel]

Hi Julian, nice to see you again.

[James]

That's great Julian! We were hoping making commenting easier might bring back some people. And I don't think I've changed my avatar in a decade!

[ibrmacf]

Whoo, comments!

Congrats, ibrmacf -- you made the first public comment on AV!

Thanks!