Enjoy Our New Comments Section

Posted on May 23, 2012

Photo by Tambako the Jaguar (CC-BY)

Dear commenters,

Someone once said to me, “Internet commenting is an experiment that has been tried and failed.” I don’t agree. The ability of readers to respond directly to articles and share their own insights and ideas is a profound advantage of this medium over any other. The trick is to keep a minority of jerks and an army of spammers from wrecking the conversation.

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section with the hope of providing the atmosphere necessary for a more thoughtful discourse.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via email or in a thread.

Unfortunately, after spending a lot of time and resources in search of an alternative, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It’s a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we reached out to our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and determined that Disqus was the platform for us.

We’ve also decided to keep our old comments in place. Everything you have contributed to the site will remain intact for future generations, and you can continue the discussion using the new system.

Of course, any change can be difficult, and we invite you to share your concerns by using our feedback form.

Personally, I’m excited for Truthdig to have a modern, top of the line commenting system that will enable an even richer conversation. Speaking of which, here are our comment guidelines for review.

Thanks as always for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.

Cheers,

Peter Scheer
Managing Editor
Truthdig

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