Announcement

**miolchu** · 10 November 2012, 17:45

Re: Comment System Help

Originally posted by Alastair View Post

I'm trying out a possible comment system for the Electric Scotland site but need some help.

If you could go to http://www.electricscotland.com/test.htm you'll essentially find a blank page with the comment system on it. I need some of you to add a wee comment there so I can see if the moderation works ok.

Essentially I want to be able to moderate all comments so I can approve or delete. Problem is that when I try and test this the post goes up right away as I'm the admin for the system. I am hoping this system will email me to say there is a new comment and then I can either approve it or delete it but seems I'm unable to test this out myself. So if you could help would appreciate it.

Many thanks

Alastair

PS If this doesn't work out I've two more to try so will use this page as the test one until we get what we're after.

I went to the test page, but it would not allow me to add anything.

**Glesgalass** · 10 November 2012, 19:24

Re: Comment System Help

got a kind of thick, blue cursor but it wouldn't let me type anything.

Elda

**1938 Observer** · 10 November 2012, 19:42

Re: Comment System Help

Just a plain white screen with........................."This is a test page"

Gordon.

""

**FriedaKateM** · 10 November 2012, 21:49

Re: Comment System Help

All same as above...Joan

**Alastair** · 10 November 2012, 23:14

Re: Comment System Help

I was using Google Chrome to test it and then Ranald phoned me to say he couldn't see anything on the page but he was using IE 9 and when I used that I couldn't see anything either. So I have gone back to them to see if we can fix this problem.

I do have possibly 4 other programs to test so will try them as well until we can find a system that works well and hopefully out of them all we'll get one that will do the job.

Thanks for trying to test this for me... much appreciated.

Alastair

**sandyc** · 11 November 2012, 12:06

Re: Comment System Help

Just logged on using Google Chrome.
Had the ability to type a comment but could not Post it because I needed to create an account with Livefyre(?).
Sandy

**Alastair** · 11 November 2012, 21:03

Re: Comment System Help

You do need to create an account to post a message but you can also use a Facebook account to do that if you have one. The key to this is that by having an account you can get an email telling you if anyone had replied to your comment but without it that wouldn't be possible unless of course you logged back into the page to see if anyone else had commented.

I can allow Guests to post messages with this system but I'm personally convinced that all we'd get is either spam or totally useless messages. All the major newspapers only allow you to post if you register to have an account and I personally agree with this position.

Even in here we see many spam attacks from people that are still willing to create an account to spam us. That's also why I want to moderate all comments so I can either allow them or delete them before they become public. All of that is actually a lot of work for me personally but am prepared to do that to keep the comment system appropriate to the site and our content.

I mean look how many Blogs we ended up having and virtually all of them were spam. That's why I decided the only option I could take was to remove the Blog option from the community.

Alastair

**sandyc** · 12 November 2012, 11:09

Re: Comment System Help

I had not realised from the earlier posts that I needed to create an account.
I agree without the monitoring there will be lots of Spam...

Sandy

**Alastair** · 12 November 2012, 11:38

Re: Comment System Help

I didn't mention that you needed to create an account Sandy but as we'll be trying other comment systems they will all have the need to have an account. However I'm also trying to find systems that will allow you to use your Facebook or Twitter account to create an account with us.

I remember when we last tried a system a few years ago I got a ton of comments from children under the children stories part of the site. I kind of let some of them go through although they really didn't make much sense but hey... there are Kids after all <grin>

The only reason we didn't stick with that system was simply because there was no way to retain these comments and at that time we didn't know if the company would be around for very long. These days there are third party company that will allow you to take a backup of the comments to keep on your own server which is why I am looking at them again.

The system we favour and would like to use is configured in such a way that we can't get the email part of it to work and I have tech tickets out to see if they have fixed the problem.

Alastair

**Alastair** · 27 November 2012, 01:34

Re: Comment System Help

I'm now trying another system called Disqus. I have checked it out with both IE 9.0 and also Google Chrome and it works with both browsers.

It automatically recognised me when I test it out so can't yet figure out how it works with another user and so am asking again if you could check this out for me. As I understand it you likely need to sign up before you can comment but not certain of that.

Also it's been configured to moderate all comments so your post should not appear right away as I will need to moderate it before it will become public... or that is what should happen.

The page for testing is the same as before http://www.electricscotland.com/test.htm

So hopefully you can help by trying out the system and letting me know what you think.

Many thanks

Alastair

**1938 Observer** · 27 November 2012, 02:27

Re: Comment System Help

Alastair,

Tried it but not sure if it registered.

Gordon.

**Hugh** · 27 November 2012, 09:59

Re: Comment System Help

Tried it but it would not let me log in with my ES name and password.

Cheers,

Hugh

**Alastair** · 27 November 2012, 11:30

Re: Comment System Help

It wouldn't recognize that Hugh as it's on Electric Scotland and not the community. I believe you can login with a Twitter or Facebook account or just create a new user or indeed create an account with the same username and password you use for the Community.

The Community and the Comment system are two different programs intended for different audiences. Like at best we probably get no more than 500 or so people coming into the Community but we have at least 180,000 people visiting the ElectricScotland.com web site.

Alastair

Alastair

**Ranald** · 27 November 2012, 11:31

Re: Comment System Help

Hi Alastair

The login is not all that clear to use, and the message that your comment will have to be 'accepted' prior to it being on the board, is slow to show. This is so different to the old board, when the message shows immediatly..

As a result, I tried for a second time, and now see that both replies are shown.

I also thought that the login was not user friendly..... but then I'm an old duffer lol

Ranald