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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Done, popped email address in for the end results as well.
Survey done. I have a hard time editing my own work at the time of writing (mild dyslexia) but by getting away from the writing for a little as ten minutes I can become an excellent editor; IF I read EVERY word slowly. On the other hand, I can edit other peoples work pretty easily as, again, I have to read every word that’s written so I’ll catch their errors without too much trouble. So the “preview” feature would be much appreciated (as long as I would use it wisely!).
WordPress now accepts Bitcoin. I suggest that you set up a Bitcoin address for donations, which can the be passed on directly to pay WordPress. I’m sure I’m not the only Bitcoin freak amongst your readers.
If editing capability compromises security, not sure it’s a good idea. Fine for some sites, but this site is under alot more security pressure.
I don’t like ‘Likes’ – too distracting. Having said that I used to get well above average when I used to bother commenting at the Guardian. I think it’s because I kept poking holes in their climate change articles, asking inconvenient questions, presenting the past as comparison, presenting contradictory papers etc. Just shows you the number of sceptics out there, even in the left wing Guardian.
A ‘Preview’ would be nice – it would prevent lots of “Oooops! I meant…..” Why is it that I can’t easily see my typos when I’m typing, but shortly after hitting “Post Comment” my mistakes stick out like a sore thumb? Grrrrr.
I don’t think a preview screen is necessary. I always reread my text before posting, and I make mistakes anyway.
I couldn’t agree more. That’s what the ‘Preview’ function would be there for. Imagine the mayhem when people reply to something you said, then you change what you said! If someone want to clarify they should post another comment.
By the way, nested ‘Reply’ would be great. It keeps mini conversations together and saves time.
Done it. Previews are especially good to see if the formatting went well.
PSU-EMS-Alum says:
July 21, 2013 at 6:29 am
Just appoint PSU-EMS-Alum as web master and benefactor. Well, sweeten the deal with 10% of your stipend from big oil. 🙂
Jimbo says:
July 21, 2013 at 8:32 am
Absolutely not. (Anthony did try it once, utter disaster.)
I keep tabs for the active posts I’m following open and refresh them to see additions (which does lead to missing some comments that got hung up in moderation.)
Nested replies mean going back and skipping over previously read stuff. Feasible when a post get 20 comments or so, utter disaster for most of the posts here.
I would also like a poll question on the post and each comment: Like, OK, dislike with a default setting of OK. I think it would provide feedback to the participants and improve the discourse.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
I have used Asutype for years to help with my dyslexia, as far was hosting your own site, don’t, I had 5 servers co-located and spent most my free time updating and grooming them. We are now using Justhost with no downtime and unlimited bandwidth after trying Godaddy for a few years.
I didn’t know, must have been away for a while. Well, experience is the best teacher I suppose.
I like it as it is. Something puzzles me though. It seems to happen only on this site but for several weeks I have found that the font keeps flipping from one type to another and quite often back again! Please explain if anyone has any idea as to why this happens. Thank you.
@GeologyJim at 5:48 pm:
“Of course, posters could just re-read their own material before clicking on “submit” – – – – – and we’d all be saved from the scores of “oops, pardon my late-night typing” re-posts.
Is that asking too much of WUWT posters?”
Stuff it. I TRY to edit, and with the small window it doesn’t allow the full view. Especially when trying to insert images (which some people do with alacrity, but I fail every time). And leaving out a “>” can have real dire consequences but is easy to miss, even when proofreading.
So, basically, screw you. An improvement is an improvement, and better tools are better tools.
Done, its a very quick survey..
It would be helpful for a bad typist and worse proofreader like me to be able to edit after pposting.
See? I did it again “pposting”
Luther Wu says:
July 21, 2013 at 6:41 am
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!
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Actually, it’s always kind of funny to see a blog like this one where EVERY post has 1 negative ding and you know that some global warming bozo took the time to dislike every single post !!
Macro Contrarian (@JackHBarnes) says:
July 20, 2013 at 5:32 pm
I think 4liberty uses that and live versions are often not available.
DaveE.
Mike McMillan says:
July 20, 2013 at 7:19 pm
Especially when you’ve got nested blockquotes. That can be a real pain.
Yes I noticed the deliberate(?) misspelling.
DaveE.
PS.
I’ve occasionally signed myself as SaveE. Both are obviously picked up by spellcheck.
geologyjim says:
July 20, 2013 at 5:48 pm
Of course, posters could just re-read their own material before clicking on “submit”
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the problem is that humans are very poor at proof reading. our brains unscramble scrambled words and fill in missing words and do it so seamlessly that we are not aware the brain is doing this.
I’m not certain my coments improv wit editing but doing so makes me happier
Go with the wp.org instance on some type of modern elastic server cluster. People mentioned AWS but I have heard it is not well suited for a wp blog. Google has a new hosting service which I expect will be quite reliable. And even Bluehost offers a VPS, no peak throttle hosting option quite affordably.