One of the most requested (or most complained about depending on your view) is the need for the ability to preview and/or edit comments. I have asked for this feature time and again of the operators of wordpress.com where WUWT is hosted, but they don’t allow this feature.
Since I cannot install plugins on blogs hosted at wordpress.com, I am unable to use one of the standard plugins that allow this feature.
But wordpress.com has asked for input from both blog operators and readers, so here is your chance to ask for this feature. Given that WUWT is almost always in the top 5 blogs on wordpress.com, your input will have weight.
See below for the link to the survey:
Follow this link:
The 2013 WordPress.com Survey: We Welcome Your Feedback!
Please note:
Question 26: What’s the most frustrating thing about WordPress.com?
…is the one to fill in with the lack of a preview/edit feature for comments.
Note also (h/t JohnWho)
It is question #36 if you answer the first question that you read blogs on WordPress.
Some people wonder why I don’t self-host WUWT such as Lucia does for her blog.
The reasons are simple.
- Traffic – running a single machine wouldn’t handle peak loads, Climategate and Climate Audit’s meltdown proved that.
- Maintenance – I have none, wordpress.com handles it all. No worrying about updates.
- Reliability – As you may have noted, self operated blogs like Lucia’s and Jo Nova’s go down from time to time, wordpress.com gives me 24/7 reliability, and the horsepower to ward off attacks from people that would surely like to see it taken offline.
So, please take a few moments and take the survey and ask for the comment preview/edit feature and/or features you want
Thanks for your consideration – Anthony
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Editing would be helpful, but for integrity’s sake it must be limited to a reasonable timeframe after the post is made. What we wouldn’t want is people having the ability to go into old posts and change what they said days or even weeks later. (“No, I didn’t say x the other day. Look at my post.”)
Probably a matter of minutes (15-30) would be adequate for most edits. Certainly no more than 24 hours.
I like composing comments in OneNote to use its spell and grammar checking tools. But I don’t have anything that will preview my attempts at HTML tags in WordPress format. If there was a stand-along preview program, that would be sufficient.
I’d settle for an ability to delete a comment within 10 minutes so that I can correct formatting errors and resubmit. That’s better than asking moderators to delete an erroneous that via another comment.
Blade @10:22 p.m.
Agreed that post numbers would be very helpful.
As long as posts are not deleted by the moderators, that is. Posts could be killed by a [snip], but the post — and its corresponding number — need to be left in the queue. I think this is largely consistent with what already happens here at WUWT; just want to highlight this point.
Anthony….for all the people who post here, and English is their mother tongue, you all ready have that option.
It is called PROOF READ before hitting the post button.
And yes, even then, some will slip by, but hey, we are all only human.
Anthony/mod….that should be question # 36
REPLY: See note in the body of the post – Anthony
Oh. An afterthought….I take it they do have some way to stop me editing any comment except my own? (PW?)
I love and use edit on other blogs to correct spelling, grammar, add second thoughts, and to iron out some incendiary comments. I wonder if NSA records copies of original comments, and if that affects analysis overall. The dossier NSA has on me is a couple inches thick and I’d like the ability to make some edit corrections in it.
I have a WordPress acount, from back when I ran a single-issue blog. If I submit a comment here, my email address triggers a login screen, along with a preview of the comment that is to be submitted. If I cancel the login, the comment is not submitted.
For the rest of us, I suggest opening a window with your favourite text editor, and composing your comment there. Then run a spelling/grammar checker. Once things are copacetic, copy+paste into the WUWT comment window.
“For some reason spotting errors is easier once the text had been reformatted.”
This is well known in proofreading. I make typos galore when writing comments – I type very fast – and don’t always spot them on a re-read. But I do spot them instantly as soon as they are re-formatted when posting. I’ve done a lot of professional editing and proof-reading and I’m eagle-eyed; I very rarely miss any mistake. For some reason I find it very hard to spot all my own mistakes ‘as typed’.
I agree the time window for editing should be very short – 5 mins would be adequate; otherwise some will adjust their ideas and not just their grammar and spelling
Preview: Yes.
Editing: No. If you say it you own it for all time.
No editing shows who has put some thought into their comments (and who hasn’t).
Well, that didn’t take long. Didn’t even have to tell WP how awesome they are – which, compared to *some* offerings I’ve seen, they certainly are. (Kudos, WP!)
I’m not convinced that we need to edit comments after posting them at all, security risk or not. That can be useful on a forum, but on a blog surely only the actual blogger needs to “update” the original post to clarify a point, we commenters can always post a corrected or explanatory comment a bit further down the page.
I voted for previews because you feel such a fool when your polished and hyper-intelligent comment appears on the page, only to find that the entire last half has become a link, or is unintentionally bolded, or whatever – and there’s nothing you can do about it. All I want is to see before I post that I have messed something up, giving me the opportunity to track down and correct any undetected errors in formatting or spelling. If the comment itself makes me look a pr@ur momisugly, so be it …
Janice Moore says:
July 20, 2013 at 6:39 pm
And, moreover, nitpickers should just go find a happy little nitpickers site and have a fun time nitpicking each other. WHO CARES? It is the substance of the post that matters. And 99.9% of the WUWT commenters would, I have no doubt, agree.
1. It’s “nit-pickers”.
2. You care, as does Bob from Stockport.
3. To be more accurate, it is actually 99.84928% of WUWT commenters who would agree.
Just sayin’.
Personally an edit feature doesn’t worry me. More than once my comment hasn’t been posted when created on site, if for example the connection drops. So if the reply I want to post is at all involved or involves links I create it on word pad or similar, spruce it up then merely copy and paste to wuwt.
if anything goes wrong it is easy to repeat the process.
tonyb
I always proofread, but… the text entry is a sans-serif font, and the final result is a serif font. To me it’s easier to spot errors in a serif font, so a preview of “how it will appear” is a good thing. Editing for a few minutes after would clear up those “hit send – OOPS” moments that we all have.
David, UK
I thought the dominant number when referring to climate related issues is 97%
My serious blunders are mostly over at surfacestations. Would that site be open to correction?
Using a text editor (of any kind) is nice when sitting in front of a computer but most of the time I’m using a smartphone. The “cut/copy & paste” have issues and spellchecking is a joke. Grammar checking, forget it. These phones are not as “smart” as the name suggest.
As several has pointed out, a preview function is sufficient help.
geran says:
July 20, 2013 at 6:26 pm
But, I want to be able to edit the comments of others….
: )
REPLY: Then become a moderator at Skeptical Science. – Anthony
————————
Thanks Anthony….LOL first thing in the morning.
Sad but true.
cn
anna v says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:49 pm
I tried Greasemonkey/CA Assistant for a little while. The two main gripes I had with it were slowness on big pages (e.g. Tips & Notes), and losing the contents of the text area when I did something dumb. I think that was accidentally clicking on a link and then going back to right page.
Underline is available, I don’t know why CA Assistant has trouble with it. WordPress doesn’t allow image inclusion except for people with the appropriate pivileges or things unlikely to change like YouTube links. I assume that’s part of the moderation checks – you could include a link to an appropriate image, then later change the image to be text supporting the Slayers or an unflattering image of Dr. Pachuri. (Yeah, yeah, cheap shot. I should know better.)
Também eu uso wordpress.com para o meu pequeno blog: http://sandcarioca.wordpress.com/
Sol e mudanças climáticas e para mim wordpress está otimo.
We’ve had preview on blogs before, and it’s very nice to see how it will actually look. Yes, it helps to find silly errors that detract form the point (see my point?), but it also gives the opportunity to adjust paragraph spacing, etc. which improves readability.
Preview, at least, would be nice.
Gerry
The problem with AWS for WUUT, as Philip Peake noted, is that Anthony would need to maintain the server instances himself … he wouldn’t just be running WordPress; he’d be running WordPress, Linux, Mysql, load balancers, backup processes, etc. This is time consuming and quite expensive relative to what his costs are now.
A more targeted solution would be running WordPress on Google AppEngine:
https://developers.google.com/appengine/articles/wordpress
This would let him run his own instance of WordPress, not have to worry about scalability or setting up the “hardware” (server instances, databases, etc), but give the reliability/resiliency he gets from WordPress.com.
Cost, based on:
– 2 million pageviews a month
– 200kb per page
– 50 db ops per page
– existing 50 GB database
– Average two front-end instances (*)
would be around $150-$200 per month and would scale automatically up and down as needed based on load.
* I haven’t run the PHP AppEngine yet, so I don’t know how many front-end instances would be needed to handle the WUWT load …. average of two is a WAG.
Even if it is $150 per month and assuming no current hosting cost, an $1800 increase in annual expenditures for relatively incremental additions to the site might not be a wise investment.
REPLY: Yes, but the other factor, my increased time to manage all this, is really the deal killer here. – Anthony
RockyRoad says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:33 pm
“And please, no “Likes”–this isn’t a popularity contest. Consensus is for beauty pageants.”
___________________
Indeed!
Occasionally I open a side window like MS Word. Then copy paste. It guarantees I do not lose the comment and other features. Typos, missing words, incomplete sentences, etc. detract and in some cases are targeted by some nitpicking. Even with a preview, one will still make errors. Human Factor number one.
I find that many of my posting errors were created after I hit the Submit button. Because they weren’t there before I hit the button. Funny how that happens.