Any tips to make commenting more user-friendly?
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Hey there,
So far my readers have complained that it’s too difficult to know how to comment. Most of them are not regular blog-readers so they don’t know you can click on the blog post title or the little balloon to leave a comment, they just assume that commenting is not available for non-wordpress users. Besides changing my theme, is there a way to make comment- leaving more user friendly? If not, is there a particular them with a more obvious comment button that anyone can recommend? Thanks so much for any help!
-sally
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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If you’re going to continue to use that theme, it’s probably a good idea to set up a new user ID and add a filler comment now and again. Truly, it’s not very well designed for commenting. If you “stuff” the comment box from time to time it’ll help clue people in, but otherwise you might just copy/paste something like:
To Comment, Click on the Title of the Post in each post.
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I’m piggyback onto this thread with Wolfsoup instead of starting my own– the “Leave a comment” link at the end of a post (on the front page) can be hard to find.
Is there a better way to highlight the “Leave a comment” link at the end of a post?
I’m using the Twenty Ten theme at The-Military-Guide.com. In the Settings > Reading control I’ve set the front page of my blog (“The blog” tab) to show the latest three posts. As a reader scrolls down the first post on that front page, the “Leave a comment” link is quietly tucked into a bunch of other details after the “Sharing” buttons. There’s a block of gray text stating the category of the post, its tags, and then “Leave a comment”. For example, the text block for a brand-new post (before any comments) on the front page will be:
Posted in Military charity | Tagged book, charitable gift fund, Fidelity, Military charity, military retirement, MilSOAP.org, postaweek2011, royalties, royalty | Leave a commentMy blog has been up for three months without a lot of comments, so I’ve been experimenting with ways to encourage more of them. One idea was to add the HTML for a “Contact” form at the end of each post. (It was a 4 Jan “Recently Updated” suggestion.) I thought that would encourage shy readers to send me their comments privately instead of publicly, but instead it seems to have the effect of confusing all the commenters into filling out the “Contact” box instead of posting a public comment. So maybe I’m not going to include “Contact” HTML with every post any more.
When a post is read separately from the front page (by clicking on the post’s title) then it’s pretty easy to find the “Leave a reply” box at the bottom of the post. But that reply box doesn’t show up in a post when the post is on the blog’s front page.
I don’t care about seeing comments on the front page– I just want to make it easier for commenters to find the link!
Once someone has figured out how to post a comment, then it’s pretty straightforward for subsequent readers to chime in afterward. It’s just that first “Leave a comment” link that’s hard to find, and only on the front page.
I’m hoping not to edit any CSS, but is there any other way to make the “Leave a comment” link stand out more clearly, for example in a bigger & bolder font? I’ve looked through all the “Settings” options and cruised the rest of the blog controls. A different user ID shill would work as long as I never, ever engaged with any other commenters while in that ID. Or perhaps a text box on the side of the blog labeled “COMMENTS:” with a short explanation of how to find the link? Any better ideas?
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You can’t change the way the link is displayed without the CSS upgrade and some editing. Your best bet, actually, is to change themes.
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Thanks, I’ll bite. What’s the feature of a theme that would let me tinker with the way the “Leave a comment” text is displayed? What feature would I filter the themes by? What themes of that nature would you recommend?
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What’s the feature of a theme that would let me tinker with the way the “Leave a comment” text is displayed?
There is no such feature on any wordpress.COM themes. Front pages are for “showcasing” posts only. Every post has it’s own page and the comments box does not appear in the front page. It displays when the reader clicks through to the full page on which a post is displayed.
raincoaster said:
You can’t change the way the link is displayed without the CSS upgrade and some editing.
It’s my opinion that the best way to handele this concern is to place a text widget at thge top of the sidebar with similar words to this in it:
Please click the post titles to leave your comments on posts appearing on the front page of this blog.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/text-widget/
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Yep, that seems to be the best way– so far. I think having to make do with a text widget is a great indicator of a future feature that WordPress hasn’t implemented yet.
A big component of the Facebook experience is being able to skim some text and immediately make a comment on it. It’d be extremely gratifying (and popular) if all of those Facebook-trained readers could find a similar experience on my blog.
Imagine if the word “Comment” on the front page (currently buried in the text at the end of the post) was in a bigger font or bolded. Imagine if part of the “Share this” line included a button titled “Comment”… or if we had a “Comment” widget to place a “Comment” button anywhere above, below, or in a post.
But I guess I’ll let the WordPress coding experts take it from here while I make do with a text widget!
Wolfsoup, you’re the one who started the thread, so if you think this topic is “resolved” then so do I. Thanks.
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@themilitaryguide
I have been blogging for 6 years now and I have been here for 4 years. There are millions of wordpress.com blogs and readers leave millions of comments on them every day. :)It’s my personal opinion that this is not an issue. It’s your personal opinion that it is. The good news is that you can send your feedback to Staff directly by using this link > http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/
Best wishes for happy blogging. :)
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I agree that the word “Comment” would be more useful than just listing the number of comments. Some themes have that, some don’t.
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