idea on 'comment control panel'

rainforest1155

Here are my brainstormed thoughts on how to make comments more useful and easier to overview. I've also added a poll in order to get an general opinion of my idea without the need for posting anything, even though comments and further ideas are very appreciated. This is also for people who ask themselves why should I bother - I never get many comments!

At the moment comments are not nearly as powerful as they could be. It's hard to keep track of where you posted one and if there's been an answear or another thought this picture, what you choose to comment on for whatever reason.
The one getting comments is a little better off. At least in keep track of the newest comments - if you check them every day. If you can't check it daily, it gets quite messy as you have to load a page where *every* comment ever made on your pages is shown.
Okay, there are the comment notifications (I know they're redundent through the comment listing on the page - but as stated this also has it's limitations), but they're still not saying anything more than you got a comment and give you a direct link (which isn't self-explanatory at all). Trying to keep track of what link you already click can be very tricky - especially when you've got a dozen of those mails.

That brings me to a main issue. These technical limitations are one of the reasons there aren't that many comments in the first place. Can you imagine dgrin with the need to go to a specific userprofile in order to see if the user responded to your answear on his questions? Who in heaven you even got there to see his question? Therefore forums are centralized like dgrin is.

That is somehow what I'm proposing for a 'comment control panel'. It's like a forum where you can view your comments and the comments of others in a grouped way. A example tree structure could look like this:

1. my galleries (10 comments)
   1. Dog gallery (3 comments - 1 new after your last comment)
   2. Andy gallery (7 comments - 3 new after your last comment)
2. Moonriverphotography (3 comments in galleries where you participated)
   
   1. NYC bums (3 comments - 1 new after your last comment)
3. Mike's galleries (....)
   
   1. ...
4. ...

Then you could click on the galleries and it would take you directly to the discussion. This way you could more easily keep track of things and this would result in a bigger appeal of the feature in my point of view.



I know that there are some technical difficulties in realizing this feature, i.e. deceiding which comments are new etc. I'm just brainstorming and would like to know what you thing about this.

Would this help to get more people to use comments? I say yes! It could create a bigger sense of community like dgrin or flickr directly in smugmug, which I don't feel so much at the moment.

I never can remember when I browse galleries where I've been and not knowing where I left a comment is a big downer for me, because I really would like to check back and see what others thought. Therefore I often find myself skipping the part of leaving the comment in the first place.

Please don't move this thread as it's intended to gather some ideas on how to improve comments. I'll make an additionally post in the feature-request thread pointing to this thread.


Thanks for stating your opinion,
Sebastian

PS: I voted for the 'Good, but needs tweaking' as I think one man alone can't have the perfect solution for everyone. :wink

Andy

rainforest1155 wrote:

Thanks for stating your opinion,
Sebastian

Thanks for taking the time to make this suggestion, Sebastian...

mercphoto

rainforest1155 wrote:

This is also for people who ask themselves why should I bother - I never get many comments!

I've actually learned the hard way to simply not allow commenting on my galleries any longer. I was having a hard time with the motocross crowd (children) posting inapproriate comments on the motocross galleries. My problem isn't with keeping up with comments and such, but rather censoring them. I finally gave up entirely.

Mike Lane

mercphoto wrote:

I've actually learned the hard way to simply not allow commenting on my galleries any longer. I was having a hard time with the motocross crowd (children) posting inapproriate comments on the motocross galleries. My problem isn't with keeping up with comments and such, but rather censoring them. I finally gave up entirely.

You know, you could turn on comment moderation

I think it would be beneficial to have a setting that would allow a user to require all commentors to register too. Maybe it wouldn't do much, but it may do a little bit.

rainforest1155

mercphoto wrote:

I've actually learned the hard way to simply not allow commenting on my galleries any longer. I was having a hard time with the motocross crowd (children) posting inapproriate comments on the motocross galleries. My problem isn't with keeping up with comments and such, but rather censoring them. I finally gave up entirely.

Like Mike said - give the comments approval feature a try!

For the rest: come on - 3 voters on ~40 views is not good enough. Let's do another round!

Sebastian

rainforest1155

The results so far speak for themselves...4 out of 5 voters (the 5th was mine to get the thing going) are positive about the idea!
Now we just need a statement from our favorite and always 'busy in order to please us even more' support team!


Thanks,
Sebastian

Andy

rainforest1155 wrote:

The results so far speak for themselves...4 out of 5 voters (the 5th was mine to get the thing going) are positive about the idea!
Now we just need a statement from our favorite and always 'busy in order to please us even more' support team!


Thanks,
Sebastian

Sebastian,
Thanks again for bringing this up again. We read everything here on dgrin, I assure you! Thanks also for putting the link in the suggestions thread, that was also very helpful. Having great customers like you who bring ideas to the table is so cool!

Things happen rather fast at Smugmug...Onethumb has also stated here on dgrin that we usually don't comment publicly on stuff that's in development - or features that we'll add, and if, or when they may become available... this is a public forum after all

rainforest1155

andy wrote:

Things happen rather fast at Smugmug...Onethumb has also stated here on dgrin that we usually don't comment publicly on stuff that's in development - or features that we'll add, and if, or when they may become available... this is a public forum after all

Thanks Andy for the explanation. I know that you can't give out detailed release schedules or what-so-ever. It's just nice when someone from the team adds a little comment on if this is gonna happen someday or maybe never. Like JT sometimes does - then I'm satisfied and don't have to bump the thread all over every 2 weeks.
Usually I end up sending a mail and then get the short answear I was looking for.

Sebastian

PS: Andy, did you now officially join the team? Saw the question somewhere else, but I haven't seen the answear and I don't know where it was.

sayntbrigid

I would love to be easily to find OTHER peoples photos that I have commented on as well........I sometimes am not able to remember where the photo is that I asked a question about........to see if the photographer left me a response......or what other smuggers thought about the photo.......I feel certain there are many fellow smuggers out there wondering why I didnt get back to them at their photo.......the reason is because I leave many comments a day at many peoples photos..and cant remember what photo is in who's gallery........ It would be nice to have a "Photos of other Smuggers I have Commented on" button

..........and I hope you will not forget about the ability to have our customization on ALL our galleries Andy.......even the community related ones. I really feel that its important to be able to control wether my galleries have customization or not..........without having to decide on "my customization" or "my favorite smug communities"

I understand there are some glitch problems with that request.....which I first thought was a Bug.........but........I hope you will not just put it on the back burner. There might be somebody out there that has a simple solution............ya never know..........so PLEASE keep it in mind .....or I shall cry D