In which the blog goes all interactive

Aug 15th, 2008

by Dan.

A little bit of housekeeping today. I wondered if you could give me your oppinion on a couple of things:

Question 1

You may have noticed that I’ve started using a new comment plugin over the past few days (thanks go to Lee who pointed me in it’s direction). In theory it should work a little like a web forum, so you’ll be able to respond directly to individual comments rather than have your reply all the way down at the bottom where it’s context might not be immediately apparent. It should also email you whenever anyone replies to your comment (although I’m not sure if it is actually doing this. Has anyone had an email from the blog recently?).

To be honest I’m not sure I like it or not. Hopefully it will encourage more of a conversation in the comments section, and it also makes responding to comments slightly easier for me. However as Oli has pointed out to me it’s not particularly easy to spot when a new comment has been left as it’s no longer just added to the bottom.

What do you think? Should I keep it or lose it?

Question 2

I’ve started getting some strange spam recently. Strange in the fact that the person leaving it has obviously read the post that they are commenting on. You can see examples of this here and here, and there are more elsewhere in the archives.

I don’t know whether to delete these or not. I’m sure that they are just left by some sweat shop worker in Asia, but they are on topic and, hey, a comment is a comment.

Is anyone else getting these, and if so what are you doing with them? Are they less morally reprehensible than conventional spam or more so?

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My name's Dan and I live near Huddersfield in the North of England. I’m a 34 years old part time stay at home dad. For three days a week I'm also a community mental health nurse but you won’t find me blogging about that here. I’m married to Kerry and we have two children - Amy (6) and Evan (3). I keep chickens, grow veg, and take the occasional long walk. If you want to know how other's describe me then take a look here. If you haven't been here before feel free to say hello in the comments.

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All 11 Dr Whos unite for a special. It's just a pity that it's a 15 minute Children in need thing rather than a proper 2 hour extended episode.

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Congratulations to Xbox4NappyRash. Now he has to think of something else to write about.

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15 Comments on “In which the blog goes all interactive”

#1 Xbox4NappyRash
on Aug 15th, 2008 at 10:02 am

1 – I much prefer the reply on the original comment, makes for easier reading. Especially where you were replying to 20 comments in one shot.

I wish Blogger would pull their finger out with something like this.

It only really works though I guess if you select the ‘follow up comments by email’ box, which I always do.

It seems to work btw, as I had a lovely reply mail in my box last night wherein you mentioned ‘greasing his knackers’ again.

Bliss.

2 – Seems harmless enough for now, I’ve a few commenters who aren’t spam but are less comprehensible.

Xbox4NappyRashs last blog post..The seventh sense

Dan Reply:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:55 am
You can also reply to replies too

Dan Reply:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:56 am
like this

Rattling the Kettle Reply:
August 15th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
You mean, like this?

Rattling the Kettles last blog post..Kitchen Help

#2 Rol
on Aug 15th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

I suspect you’re more likely to get those kind of spam-comments on wordpress because you have that fancy ‘Rol’s Last Post’ plug-in thingy. Us common blogger users don’t have that luxury, so you can’t get a free ad on our blogs quite as easily.

Rols last blog post..My Life In Music Part 2

#3 Avitable
on Aug 15th, 2008 at 1:32 pm

I got a couple of replies, but I couldn’t tell who they were replies to.

Avitables last blog post..Blech

#4 Xbox4NappyRash
on Aug 15th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

I just assumed all the replies were to me, and me alone!

Xbox4NappyRashs last blog post..The seventh sense

Ed (zoesdad) Reply:
August 15th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
So If I hit this reply button, I’m replying to XBox, which is apparently the proper way to reply to all comments.

#5 Ed (zoesdad)
on Aug 15th, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Or I can reply here (down at the bottom) and my comment is left at the end of the line–not directly in response to XBox where all comments should be directed.

Ed (zoesdad)s last blog post..ATTICA, ATTICA, ATTICA!

#6 SingleParentDad
on Aug 15th, 2008 at 3:52 pm

What he said ^

SingleParentDads last blog post..Me, And Him, Time

#7 Penelope
on Aug 15th, 2008 at 5:32 pm

I’m so confused, which doesn’t really help you much, does it. Sorry. Is it wine o’clock yet?

Penelopes last blog post..It’s oh so quiet…shhhhhhh!

#8 Kevin Spencer
on Aug 15th, 2008 at 6:53 pm

I think because the comments still appear directly underneath the one you’re replying to instead of being nested a little over to the right is a little confusing. I see they’re a different colour but still kind of hard to immediately tell who’s replying to what. Maybe it just doesn’t display correctly in Firefox?

Is there a limit on how many levels deep you can reply? The only reason I ask is that I don’t appear to be able to reply to the comment left by ‘Rattling The Kettle’. Which in itself is a reply to your reply of your reply. Or something.

Kevin Spencers last blog post..Eating Like An Olympian

#9 Whit
on Aug 15th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

That spam must really be on target because I couldn’t find it.

Do you need car insurance? We offer the lowest monthly payments because we only cover the important things: iPods. Visit our site today.

Whits last blog post..With a Little Help from My Friends

#10 Lee
on Aug 16th, 2008 at 8:57 am

I get quite a few of those spam messages, I let them through generally the first time around but I mark them so that new comments won’t be automatically approved and if they start doubling messages up I delete them straight off and block them.

At present it doesn’t seem to be a huge problem, I’ll be a hard ass in the future no doubt but for now I don’t think I get enough attention for it to be a big problem.

A note about that comments plugin, if you have more than one window open and ajax enabled it the replies go astray (at least in my experience).

Apart from that I’ve really liked it for selfish reasons :)

#11 Dan
on Aug 16th, 2008 at 9:39 am

I think I’m going to abandon the plugin for now. I think it does make things a little confusing.

In which the blog goes all interactive

Question 1

Question 2

15 Comments on “In which the blog goes all interactive”

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