NOTE TO READERS: I have no control over this, wordpress.com implemented it across the board. My advice until they fix it is to make sure you are running a modern updated browser, Such as Firefox. – Anthony
from the wordpress.com blog:
Post Comments Using Twitter and Facebook
Starting today, visitors to your blog can use their Facebook or Twitter account to leave comments. This saves everyone a few steps and gives visitors control over which identity they use. It’s a win for everyone.
See the new commenting screen below:
As an important touch, we let you stay logged in to multiple services. This means you can stay logged in to Facebook for convenience, but still leave a comment through Twitter or your WordPress.com account. Just click whichever identity you’d like to use, and the selected one will be associated with your comment when it is published. You’re in control of your identity, as you should be.
Depending on your theme, you may notice the comment area looks different than before to make room for these new features. We also intelligently choose to use a light or dark visual style for the comment box, depending on the theme you are currently using.
And since you know your readers well, you can now change the text above the comment box to be whatever you like. We recommend using the default we are applying to new blogs, “What are you thinking?”, as questions often encourage more comments, but you can change it to whatever you like by going to your dashboard, then Settings → Discussion.
We know you like comments and this will help you get even more. Stay tuned for better Twitter and Facebook integration features, coming soon.
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Useless to me.. I hate Facebook and Twitter.. and I will never use them again.. looks pretty I suppose though
Yeah? Well, the type font in this “Leave a Reply” box is at least two points smaller (even though it’s in a sans-serif font) than is the text in the body of the Web page on which it’s being presented. This makes it extremely difficult for me – an older guy with diabetic retinopathy – to enter comments in this space without suffering both eyestrain and typographical errors.
And – of course! – WordPress does not allow people posting such comments to edit their posts to correct such errors.
In addition, while the body of the Web page text is in single-space format, what appears in this “Leave a Reply” box is formatted in “space-and-a-half,” making it difficult to effect paragraph breaks. This, too, is a pain in the ass.
Not being much of a Facebook user, I’ve no appreciation of the other features of this change, but the above-mentioned defects are enough reason for me to object vigorously. Just what the hell reason do the WordPress people offer for these changes, anyway?
Though I defer to the greater wisdom of Anthony, I think that inviting Facebook and Twitter crowds to these forums changes their nature fundamentally and undermines serious discussion.
By the way, there is a glitch in the new screens. When I post a comment, the comment remains on my “Leave a Reply” screen.
Great. Can only help to spread WUWT around the social networks.
If it saves evergy, it will help heal the planet. I don’t use either facebook or twitter
I liked it better before . . .
Tyler Durden, Anthony is a reader of ZeroHedge? WUWT?
/sarc
Same with me – but after Weinergate, I am tempted to twitter – and may even set an account with the service! 😉
Just as a quick note for those that find fonts small, holding down the ctrl key and + key will zoom (make larger) the screen in IE and other browsers. (and ctrl – key will reduce font sizes). So, one, or two taps on the ctrl and + key should result in some easy reading.
The “page” menu also has a zoom option.
Anyway, adding social media to this could cause more “noise” in posts in what is already a busy board but then again this is a means to expand the message and discussions here and I think that is a good thing. The worst would be we simply discuss this among ourselves and not expand this community.
“And since you know your readers well, you can now change the text above the comment box to be whatever you like”
Anthony, I wonder if web links work. I could create a variant of my WUWT guide that just has the HTML hints and stuff and you could make the response header read “Leave a reply – Hints on HTML in replies.”
Great, now the CIA and Mi6 can track our every AGW denial word using one simple GUI!
Can’t resize the window, authors can’t subscribe to their own posts, the font is very tiny, and the 1.5 spacing is a pain. Sometimes the comment stays in the box after it is submitted.
These problems should be fixed. Why aren’t they, WordPress?
At 10:25 AM on 10 June, Albert Kallal suggests:
Mozilla Firefox has the same feature, and – hey, surprise! – I’ve already tried using it. Not good. When the browser window is “zoomed” to enlarge the print in the “Leave a Reply” box, it both reduces the number of lines visible in that box without scrolling and it converts the text in the body of the Web page to “scare headline” size.
Given also the fact that WordPress has changed the line formatting in the “Leave a Reply” box from single-space to space-and-a-half, this means that zooming in forces one even more constantly to scroll up and down and up and down and…oh, damn; where did I put my Dramamine?
In short, this sucks. I repeat my earlier question: Just what the hell reason do the WordPress people offer for these particular changes, anyway?
I’m not a teenager nor a twenty-something. I don’t do facebook. My friends I meet, I talk to, I can see, I can hear, I can even touch. Such an old-fashioned grumpy middle-aged man I am but I’m fine with it.
I find it slow/unresponsive and jittery and slow to take cursor focus and quick to loos cursor focus. Also the headings for name and email only appear when the cursor is Not in the field AND the field is blank.
Also if you move your insert point to beyond the text that you have already typed (in case you go back and make a correction) again it looses cursor focus. In order to append to existing text you need to hit the last half of the the last existing character bang on. All in all a poor interface implementation.
The previous interface was in my opnion superior in its simplicity and performance.
My computer is very fast, lots of ram, SSD, etc. so I suspect the problems are ‘at your end’.
I do not use any social networking sites.
I’ve noted ONE good thing about it. I can be logged in to wordpress (playing with my not-ready-for-release blog) while commenting here. Before when logged in, the comment box here would default to my other WP info (with blog link) rather than my usual handle (and not-revealed valid email address). Now with the “switch on the fly” options I can stay logged in.
(But while logged in, with a WP toolbar across the top of ANY WP-dot-com page, my computer has slowed to a crawl. Could just be “the user’s fault” though.)
However, I can now see it sure looks like it’s easier for trolls to abuse the site by switching log-ins, with four quick ways to look like four different posters. Plus the site requirement of a valid email address now looks blown away with the Twithead and Buttbook options, and the ease of making multiple accounts for those services seems an easy way to avoid a site ban. What does the moderating staff think of the change?
It’s a win for everyone.
If you like:
1) lots of clicking, uncertainty and waiting to activate the “text box”
2) lots of jittering when editing long text
3) lots of jumping when you hold down the CTRL key
4) the up & down arrow keys jumping back to the first two lines of your comments
5) memorising layouts to counter disappearing field titles as the field gets focus – crazy
6) seeing an error message with untitled input fields – crazy
7) not having even a simple WYSIWYG text editor
8) this social network nonsense
9) all your comments and messages tracked
10) the icons etc to jump upover your text as you type longer comments
Basically, only a moron or a computer company could call this change an advance…
So I can only assume you are plunging down market… shame.
I suggest you have at least two (or more) face book accounts married to your different e-mail accounts. Due to the proliferation of this sort of thing it is wise to have a verbose Face book site and a minimalist false Id. for privacy reasons when useing public forums. The verbose Face book site can be used for real social interaction of family and a half dozen close friends (maybe even use an alias for this id). When you wish to disapear the false Id simply delete or change your e-mail Id its married to.
I don’t like Twitter and I don’t like Face Book.
Face book is now in the news making face Recognition Software active to identify every person in a picture.
These “social media” are quickly eliminating the boundaries where public domain starts and privacy ends.
So, no thank you, I’m one of the few not using this feature.
Dear Anthony. What all the other GOM have said. In Spades.
It didn’t “just start today. I’ve been coping with it for two or three days, now.
I featureland; less is more.
This new comment system is not an advance in making complex
thoughts understandable across the many types of WUWT blog readers
and participants.
Will someone text in complicated messages using Facebook or, especially,
Twitter ?
I think not.
Wordpress.com is pandering to the lowest common denominator, and
taking sites like WUWT and Climate Audit along for the shift in website
philosophy.
Dear Anyhony and WordPress, yet another GOM who’s never going to use Twitter or Facebook. And struggles with the typeface. And … Etc., etc.
Yet oft-requested features like comment preview (I saw too late a “twp” for a “two” myself only minutes ago, missed it in the tiny type) still keep their distance. I routinely find the same sort of problems with other sites too – why do these improvements always seem to make things worse?
I refuse to accept that it’s just “Oh, it’s something you’re used to changing, You’ll get used to it.” – surely by chance you should at least get one or two really great changes that way, but … (Fades out, muttering in general irritation. It’s getting late.)
Great! Now I can be hounded by all my progressive AGW cult FB contacts!
Was philw1776 here