Late last year, we released an early version of comments on our beta site, with the aim of getting a basic platform for people to read and comment on our new site. The team have been improving other areas of the site in the meantime.
It’s now time to re-focus on the commenting experience on the beta site. Over the next few weeks, the team will be working on the commenting platform. We know that there are features which you expect to see, and we plan on addressing a lot of those requests.
Comments are open on this article, and we’d be happy to discuss the changes to the commenting platform on beta and take on any commenting feedback that you have. We’ll also be updating this article with the changes that we’re making on comments and what we’re working on next. If you want to feed back more broadly about the beta, please use our feedback link.
You can expect smaller changes to be delivered more rapidly over the next few weeks. Keep an eye on the “Coming soon” section to see what we’ll be building next.
Here’s what we’ve done so far:
18 November 2013
- Early version of comments released on our beta site
- Basic reply
- Works on mobile, tablet and desktop presentation widths
21 May 2014
- Comment pagination on article pages
- Early version of activity pages, showing your comments grouped by article in chronological order
29 May 2014
- “Report” is now beta friendly (it was using our old platform up to this date, and opened in a new window).
- Activity pages now show profile information (About me, interests, location, weblink)
30 May 2014
- Activity pages: Dates permalinked to the original comment on the activity page
- Activity pages linked from the username dropdown (“Comment activity”)
- Replies have a darker font to aid readability (based on user feedback)
2 June 2014
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Font in the comment box now matches the comments on tablet and desktop widths (it was an older version, it’s now up to date). Mobile remains the same (based on user feedback)
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Pagination controls now clearer (based on user feedback)
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Paragraph spacing increased (based on user feedback)
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Blockquotes now displayed on Activity/comment history pages (based on user feedback)
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Some non-Javascript fixes
4 June 2014
- Bug fix for replies button not showing on page 2+. (Thanks to MakeMPsOwnUp for spotting this bug)
- Re-instated ‘show more’ for the initial load. Pagination appears after the click
5 June 2014
- Replies to your comments on activity/comment history page
- Reworked profile page to make it more usable and structured
11 June 2014
- Permalinks work on replies on activity/comment history pages
- Replies now have standard sized avatars on wider viewports.
- Top level replies have larger avatars to aid visibility
- Formatting buttons on desktop browsers
- Design updates to activity/comment pages
- Featured comments on activity/comment history pages
13 June 2014
- Formatting options now on desktop widths
17 June 2014
- View unthreaded - flat chronological view of all comment activity
19 June 2014
- Preview
- Formatting available on tablet
25 June 2014
- Basic pagination on profile pages
- Pagination on unthreaded view
26 June 2014
- Added the ability to navigate to first and last pages in discussions
Coming soon (days)
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Search (on activity/comment history page)
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Clearer preview