Commenting on news and opinion websites and blogs

  

Hal Brown's Blog

This is a blog with my opinions on politics, psychology, and other subjects. My posts are sometimes serious and sometimes snarky. I'm a retired MSW clinical social worker/psychotherapist and mental health center director who was also a cranberry farmer. Scroll archives on bottom of page to see previous blog stories. There are new ones added almost every day, although if I don't have anything original to say I try not to say anything at all.

If you don't see the Disqus comment section on this page click here and scroll down.

A version of this that is readable is down the page

Please try out the new comment feature on my blog. If it doesn't open here click this link. Let me know what you think about any of the blog stories or the blog in general. 

Disqus is the best and most feature loaded commenting platform I have seen. You can upload images, links, and use some basic formatting like bold, italics, and put excerpts in quotes. 

From Wikipedia:

Disqus (/dɪsˈkʌs/) is an American blog comment hosting service for web sites and online communities that use a networked platform. The company's platform includes various features, such as social integration, social networking, user profiles, spam and moderation tools, analytics, email notifications, and mobile commenting. It was founded in 2007 by Daniel Ha and Jason Yan as a Y Combinator startup.

In 2011, Disqus ranked No. 2 in Quantcast's U.S. networks with 151 million monthly unique U.S. visits.^[2] Disqus was featured on CNN, The Daily Telegraph, and IGN, and about 750,000 blogs and web sites.^[3]

There's nothing on the Wikipedia page about where how the company came up with the name though it could be a version of disquisition which means a long or elaborate essay or discussion on a particular subject:

Of course if you comment on my blog or any other websites, please keep your comments respectful. I find it interesting that a fair number of people who pay to subscribe to The Washington Post and The New York Times express far-right sometimes paranoid MAGA opinions and often demonstrate so much ignorance. There are more posts like this on HUFFPOST but that is a free website. For some reason MAGA posts on Raw Story are few and far between. This may be because they are flagged by readers and quickly removed.

If you don't see the Disqus comment section click here and scroll down.

Addendum:

You can see the differences in the comments sections in the image above (click to enlarge):

You can see that The NY Times, Wash. Post, and HUFFPOST have internal comment sections. The Post offers some formatting, all you can post on The NY Times is text and links. NY Times reviews comments and send you and email when your comment is published. On HUFFPOST you can include formatting, an emoji, and an image as well as links. Raw Story uses Disqus as does its sister website AlterNet.

The New York Times and The Washington Post do not allow comments on all stories or opinion pieces. I haven't been able to figure how this determination is made although after they received some complaints about this in 2017 they responded as follows in this article:

Why didn’t The Times’s community desk allow comments on a Sept. 23 article about men who believe the push for gender equality in technology has gone too far?

The answer, I’m afraid, is rather dull: Our moderation resources are limited on weekends, which means fewer stories are opened for comment.

And given the volume of news over the weekend — including President Trump’s continued criticism of N.F.L. players who are protesting the United States criminal justice system, and the declining fortunes of the Republican health care bill — many worthy news items had to forgo comments.

One benefit of the collaboration between Salon and Raw Story is that the former doesn't allow comments on any stories but many of them  are republished on Raw Story where you are able to comment.

In 2015 the website of Neiman Lab published an article about what happened when seven major news websites stopped allowing comments (here).

Of course if anyone wants to comment on a story which is published on a website that doesn't allow comments they can express their opinion or reaction on social media websites. This is a far cry from being able to comment where people who read the article are most likely to read what one has to say.

Popular articles published in both the Times and Post can have 7,000 or more comments. If you want your comment to be seen and replied to the earlier you post the better. Your comment will generally lead to more replies if you post it on a less popular article.

Since I am now putting Disqus on my blog how about commenting and sharing whether you are a frequent, occasional, or infrequent commenter on websites and what your experience has been.

Addendum: Disqus was not without its share of controversy: 

Disqus facing $3M fine in Norway for tracking users without consent

Thanks for reading. The archives and tags are on the bottom. 

International readers, please tell me what brought you to this blog and what you thing of it in my new Disqus comment section.

 

Currently Russia is the primary international country from which readers follow my blog, followed by Germany, India, and the U.K. There have been times when hundreds of people logged on from China, Ukraine, and other countries.

Now that I have been able to put Diqus comments on my blog posts I'd like to hear from people in other countries about how they came across the blog and what they think of it.

From Wikipedia:

Disqus (/dɪsˈkʌs/) is an American blog comment hosting service for web sites and online communities that use a networked platform. The company's platform includes various features, such as social integration, social networking, user profiles, spam and moderation tools, analytics, email notifications, and mobile commenting. It was founded in 2007 by Daniel Ha and Jason Yan as a Y Combinator startup.

In 2011, Disqus ranked No. 2 in Quantcast's U.S. networks with 151 million monthly unique U.S. visits.^[2] Disqus was featured on CNN, The Daily Telegraph, and IGN, and about 750,000 blogs and web sites.^[3]

The comments section that Google Blogger, the platform I have used since 2012, never led to many comments. For one thing it is hard to see on the bottom of the page. It also has nothing but the ability to write text. In Disquis you can add images, links, and some basic formatting like bold, italics, and quotes.

If this works here you should be able to easily make comments.

Whether from the United States or another country please give it a try if only to let me know you're reading this.

If you don't see the Disqus comment section click here and scroll down.

Thanks,

Hal

Have a comment about any of the blog stories or the blog in general? Here's a new Disqus comment section...

 

Please try out the new comment feature. Let me know what you think about any of the blog stories or the blog in general.

Disqus is the best and most feature loaded commenting platform I have seen. You can upload images, links, and use some basic formatting like bold, italics, and put excerpts in quotes.

From Wikipedia:

Disqus (/dɪsˈkʌs/) is an American blog comment hosting service for web sites and online communities that use a networked platform. The company's platform includes various features, such as social integration, social networking, user profiles, spam and moderation tools, analytics, email notifications, and mobile commenting. It was founded in 2007 by Daniel Ha and Jason Yan as a Y Combinator startup.

In 2011, Disqus ranked No. 2 in Quantcast's U.S. networks with 151 million monthly unique U.S. visits.^[2] Disqus was featured on CNN, The Daily Telegraph, and IGN, and about 750,000 blogs and web sites.^[3]

Of course, please keep your comments respectful. 

Thanks,

Hal

If you don't see the Disqus comment section click here and scroll down.

Addendum:

You can see the differences in the comments sections in the image above (click to enlarge):

You can see that The NY Times, Wash. Post, and HUFFPOST have internal comment sections. The Post offers some formatting, all you can post on The NY Times is text and links. NY Times reviews comments and send you and email when your comment is published. On HUFFPOST you can include formatting, an emoji, and an image as well as links. Raw Story uses Disqus as does its sister website AlterNet.

One benefit of the collaboration between Salon and Raw Story is that the former doesn't allow comments on any stories but many of them  are republished on Raw Story where you are able to comment.

In 2015 the website of Neiman Lab published an article about what happened when seven major news websites stopped allowing comments (here).

Of course if anyone wants to comment of a story which is published on a website that doesn't allow comments they can express their opinion or reaction on social media websites. This is a far cry from being able to comment where people who read the article are most likely to read what one has to say.