Comments???

[clotho2]

To the editors/owners of CyclingNews: When are you going to bring this site into the 21ST Century as far as commenting on your items?

While you run worthwhile items, to not afford the users the ability to instantly comment on them takes away from the impact of the item. The item becomes a one way conversation. Don't you want your readers to be able to instanly give feedback on what you run? Do you surmise that CN is better than the greatest online papers and periodicals in the country, the world?

I can't think of another online periodical that doesn't give readers the ability to comment at the bottom of the item. Not one! A minute ago I read an item and went down to comment then was again hit by the fact that CN doesn't respect the views of readers enough to publish them on the front page with the items. It then becomes your view and only your view.

I was told once that the reason for this was because it cluttered the page and made it look unprofessional. Take a look at any newspaper or site item. Thay all have room for comments. People love giving instant feedback rather than trying to find a place in some other forum to say what's on their mind.

It's time CyclingNews joined the real world and treated its readership like the assets we are. Until then I'll be happy posting in VeloNews where I can not only give instant feedback on the item, but to individual comments. Thought sharing CyclingNews, you ought'a trying it.

 

[usedtobefast]

To the editors/owners of CyclingNews: When are you going to bring this site into the 21ST Century as far as commenting on your items?

While you run worthwhile items, to not afford the users the ability to instantly comment on them takes away from the impact of the item. The item becomes a one way conversation. Don't you want your readers to be able to instanly give feedback on what you run? Do you surmise that CN is better than the greatest online papers and periodicals in the country, the world?

I can't think of another online periodical that doesn't give readers the ability to comment at the bottom of the item. Not one! A minute ago I read an item and went down to comment then was again hit by the fact that CN doesn't respect the views of readers enough to publish them on the front page with the items. It then becomes your view and only your view.

I was told once that the reason for this was because it cluttered the page and made it look unprofessional. Take a look at any newspaper or site item. Thay all have room for comments. People love giving instant feedback rather than trying to find a place in some other forum to say what's on their mind.

It's time CyclingNews joined the real world and treated its readership like the assets we are. Until then I'll be happy posting in VeloNews where I can not only give instant feedback on the item, but to individual comments. Thought sharing CyclingNews, you ought'a trying it.

i like the comments idea. on the page the article is on.

 

[ElChingon]

Its one way to kill the forum. Would be nice to keep them busy on two fronts though so we could get awa... I mean post with ease

 

[RedheadDane]

I've actually been wondering the same. Thought that was the reason we have to log in on the front page now...

As for killing the forum, naah... I don't think so. After all; we do talk about other stuff than the articles.
On the other hand; it'll be easier to point out mistakes. Instead of going to the Mistakes thread and provide a link to the article together with an explanation of the mistake we can just point out the mistake in the comment section.

 

[JA.Tri]

I've actually been wondering the same. Thought that was the reason we have to log in on the front page now...

As for killing the forum, naah... I don't think so. After all; we do talk about other stuff than the articles.
On the other hand; it'll be easier to point out mistakes. Instead of going to the Mistakes thread and provide a link to the article together with an explanation of the mistake we can just point out the mistake in the comment section.

+1 QA facilitated, errors and misunderstandings reduced. Make everybody's life (sorry admin/moderators ) easier.

 

[ElChingon]

+1 QA facilitated, errors and misunderstandings reduced. Make everybody's life (sorry admin/moderators ) easier.

I bet your glass is half full as well

 

[clotho2]

Mistakes??? What kind of mistakes are we taking about here? Mistakes that could get CN hauled into court, grammatical errors, what kind of mistakes?

I doubt that anyone would intentionally post something that would cause damages. and, one of the failings of man is that he is subject to errors. Whenever you read a comments sections where all the mistakes have been removed by eds, (without the help of a spell checker) it takes away from the human side of the comments. People come from all over on the net; from all classes and countries. To see a comment with a bit of an error is expected and lends authenticity to a piece.

Look, there is no reason the readers shouldn't be able to give an immediate response to a story simply by scrolling down to a comments section. The item about Riis today, I wanted to comment on it. However, instead of being able to just scroll down and comment, I'm forced to go looking for a topic on Riis. Admittedly there may be something following the item to link to comments, but I guess I missed it.

Again I will say, read any article online and you'll be afforded the opportunity to comment. Except here in CyclingNews. I love sites that are "User friendly." This one isn't!

 

[RedheadDane]

Oh... all sorts of mistakes: Whenever we see something that isn't quite right we go and friendly point it out.
Just a nitpickery bunch!

 

[Afrank]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/come-and-comment-on-cyclingnews-stories

 

[TheGame]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/come-and-comment-on-cyclingnews-stories

Took an absolute age to load and then when the box did appear it crashed my browser, then it wouldnt let me type in it, then it loaded, and crashed again, then loaded and wouldnt let me type anything, then it just sat there loading and loading and loading and never did anything.

then i gave up.. really not working well in Opera at all. Maybe I need to try Chrome

Takes a year to load up in Chrome as well. Slightly better in Firefox, fine in Internet Explorer. W3C finds 88 errors on the one page alone.

Not sure If its a great idea, going to take an awful lot of moderation, as it seems that posts are auto approved, whos going to moderate it?

 

[gregod]

when will CN stop screwing with the front page and start fixing the backlog of problems with the forum?

 

[Daniel Benson]

The game,

Can you ping me a message letting me know which operating system you use and the versions of firefox etc that you're on. We can try and replicate the issues then and test to see if there's room for improvement. Hopefully we can speed things up for you.

Moderation will be done by the editorial team, the fantastic mods, and myself. CN readers were asking for this on the site, as this thread shows and we've been wanting to implement comments for a while now. We hope it goes well but part of that responsibility is on the CN community too.

Thanks

Daniel

 

[TheGame]

Its working a bit faster today, it may just have been server issues last night or a bit of temporary sluggishness, but still a bit slow. Running Win 8, 6gb Ram, 2 ghz Dual Core, tested in all browsers.

This is a load time test done on the Sastre Article

The things slowing the page down

beacon.js
b.scorecardresearch.com/ < 2 seconds

picad_4802.js?r=2256282
cdn3.picadmedia.com/js/ 3+ seconds

i.match?p=b3&u=CPeSEyTW999CXnOx&
a.tribalfusion.com/ < 2 seconds

facebook api is about 2 seconds.

7 seconds is pretty slow

Comparable article on velonation 2.54 seconds
http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/1...012-pave-way-for-Argos-Shimano-pro-debut.aspx

Comparable article on velonews 4.6 seconds
http://velonews.competitor.com/2012...ky-shakeups-and-cycling-post-armstrong_266083

I think its just the sheer rate of requests making things a bit treaclelike. Think the devs maybe need to look at offsetting the additional weight of the facebook api with reduction of calls in other areas. A 7-10 second load time in this day and age is a bit slow.

I like the idea of the comments, its long overdue and it does increase social media output etc, But I pity the poor moderators and the extra work it will involve though,

 

[rata de sentina]

I hate the comments section, makes your eyes bleed reading it especially any doping story. Comments are OK for news sites which don't have an active forum. Best place for discussion is the forum which is moderated. The CN comments section is the place where intellectual pigmies who can't hack the forums can vent their spleen. Full of nutjobs and forum refugees.

Of course the comments will continue as CN follow sheeplike other online news sites, not withstanding that CN already has an active community discussing the news. CN would be better served linking to a relevant forum or thread.

Did tricksy colour add impact to my post - probably not.

 

[Daniel Benson]

Sorry for the slow response Game, the slowness is an issue on the page, 100 per cent agree. There's a lot of code in the site that slows load time down but we try and cut what we can/when we can. For example, some of the analytic tools were taken out at the end of last year.

Dan

 

[Daniel Benson]

Rata, i understand your last point, it simply wasn't something we could implement in the short development window we had. However, if you dont like the comments, you could just skin over them.They are low down the page after all.
D

 

[Christian]

I agree with Rata. The comments are awful. Most of them are way, way below the forum standard of quality.

It's not quite as bad but it reminds me of the youtube comment section. You only read it if you don't care about your sanity

 

[darwin553]

I agree with Rata. The comments are awful. Most of them are way, way below the forum standard of quality.

It's not quite as bad but it reminds me of the youtube comment section. You only read it if you don't care about your sanity

Yeah there comes a point where a website administrator should be able to 'disable comments' where all comments already made are wiped.

 

[RedheadDane]

I generally like the comment-function, sometimes it's nice to be able to write a comment directly to an article, instead of having to find the appropriate thread to write the comment in.
However, sometimes the more "problematic comments" tend to generate long flame-wars, which you then are forced to scroll over in their full length. Maybe only display the initial comments, and then make a Show Replies option.
For all directly doping-related stories I'd suggest you completely turn the comment-option off, to keep in line with the 'we only talk doping in the clinic' rule.
Finally: Kill those spammers!
No... don't actually kill them.

 

[Daniel Benson]

I agree on the Spam side of things. We're trying to clear that up as best we can but it's pretty tough. All these aunts, step aunts, blind second aunts twice removed with shingles....with great offers to make $24034 in a mile-second are tiresome but when they pop up I do try and have them deleted. I only have one aunt. I think she's an optician and she never has any get rich quick schemes. Damn you, Julia!

Anyway, I also agree that some of the comments from the real world can be just as tiresome. People that jump in, make the same point they've made 500 times in other articles, will be banned. (If I spot them of course).

Dan

 

[Christian]

Thanks for your reply Mr. Benson

Not to aggravate the discussion, but only to illustrate why I brought this up, I decided to refer to the post that led me to air my grievances. At first I didn't want to (I vaguely remember a user going by the same name on the forum, might be wrong though).

This is good news. Euro teams and races are nothing but sponges of taxpayer money. Do you really think a country like Spain with all its economic problems should be paying millions of taxpayers' dollars to a doped-up cycling team?

And fortunately Alonso was smart enough to realize that there was no point in sinking any of his money into a team that will likely be doped to the gill anyway, like every other Spanish team. So much for "bringing aboard a sponsor."

I think the doping culture in Spain comes from their coward mentality that also has them believe that killing bulls is sport and a sign of masculinity.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/euskaltel-confirms-agreement-with-alonso-to-save-team-has-failed

No offense to the author but I think we can all agree that a post like this would not survive on the forum. Several things would be considered unacceptable on the forum: doping reference in response to an article that had nothing to do with it, generalization of every spanish team doping, borderline racism saying Spain has a "coward mentality".

Hoever I see now that there are 20 responses and 57 negative votes to this post, so maybe the comment section regulates itself. Still it is unfortunate that these comments are the ones that people actually see and read, I assume very few people take the time to read through the 20 responses

 

[Race Radio]

It is not just cyclingnews that has comments sections that are a mess

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutting-our-comments

 

[RedheadDane]

I agree on the Spam side of things. We're trying to clear that up as best we can but it's pretty tough. All these aunts, step aunts, blind second aunts twice removed with shingles....with great offers to make $24034 in a mile-second are tiresome but when they pop up I do try and have them deleted. I only have one aunt. I think she's an optician and she never has any get rich quick schemes. Damn you, Julia!

Anyway, I also agree that some of the comments from the real world can be just as tiresome. People that jump in, make the same point they've made 500 times in other articles, will be banned. (If I spot them of course).

Dan

You're forgetting old classmates' one-legged second aunts' cousins-twice-removed's third grade teachers' bosses' brothers!

 

[42x16ss]

Thanks for your reply Mr. Benson

Not to aggravate the discussion, but only to illustrate why I brought this up, I decided to refer to the post that led me to air my grievances. At first I didn't want to (I vaguely remember a user going by the same name on the forum, might be wrong though).



http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/euskaltel-confirms-agreement-with-alonso-to-save-team-has-failed

No offense to the author but I think we can all agree that a post like this would not survive on the forum. Several things would be considered unacceptable on the forum: doping reference in response to an article that had nothing to do with it, generalization of every spanish team doping, borderline racism saying Spain has a "coward mentality".

Hoever I see now that there are 20 responses and 57 negative votes to this post, so maybe the comment section regulates itself. Still it is unfortunate that these comments are the ones that people actually see and read, I assume very few people take the time to read through the 20 responses

Wow! He sounds like the type of person Wonderlance borrowed his material from! At least the comments section is keeping these people out of the main forum. Along with the die hard Skyborgs (Wrinklyvet).

 

[RedheadDane]

Okay, got a little problem.
Now I've two times written a comment where, almost instantly after I posted, it said it was posted Four minutes ago.
STOP STEALING MY TIME!