Blogger blog owners and viewers have been asking for the ability to post threaded comments, for many years. Today (slightly late for Christmas 2011), Blogger released it's first answer to that request - two level commenting.
This is not what I would call classic "threaded commenting", but it's a reasonable alternative.
If you want to reply to your readers, when they post comments on your blog, that ability is finally here.
You will need a blog with full feeds enabled, and using the embedded comment form. Since private blogs do not publish newsfeeds, this feature will not be available, on private blogs.
As described in the Buzz post, once the comment form and feed are selected, using the New GUI, there's no additional selection needed. Just surf to the blog of your choice, and look under any comment for a new "Reply" button or link.
You'll note that since this feature is provided as part of the embedded comment form, it's built into the standard post template. If your blog, maybe using a custom or third party blog template, lacks threaded commenting, you'll want to refresh the post template, to enable this feature.
Every "Reply" link, whether under an existing or new comment, or under any reply to a comment, when posted, becomes a reply to the original comment. It's quite simple - you have just 2 choices.
And, that's it.
Since two level comments are part of the embedded comment form, you're going to need to check your cookie filters - people using computers with overly restrictive filtering won't be able to use the embedded comment form, and they won't see the two level commenting option. Beyond that issue, two level comments should be simple to use.
Blogger now supports threaded commenting, which means that it is now much easier to differentiate between whether someone is making a general comment on the thread, or responding to another comment on the thread.
This is not what I would call classic "threaded commenting", but it's a reasonable alternative.If you want to reply to your readers, when they post comments on your blog, that ability is finally here.
You will need a blog with full feeds enabled, and using the embedded comment form. Since private blogs do not publish newsfeeds, this feature will not be available, on private blogs.
As described in the Buzz post, once the comment form and feed are selected, using the New GUI, there's no additional selection needed. Just surf to the blog of your choice, and look under any comment for a new "Reply" button or link.
You'll note that since this feature is provided as part of the embedded comment form, it's built into the standard post template. If your blog, maybe using a custom or third party blog template, lacks threaded commenting, you'll want to refresh the post template, to enable this feature.
Every "Reply" link, whether under an existing or new comment, or under any reply to a comment, when posted, becomes a reply to the original comment. It's quite simple - you have just 2 choices.
- You can post an original comment.
- You can post a reply, to any comment.
And, that's it.
Since two level comments are part of the embedded comment form, you're going to need to check your cookie filters - people using computers with overly restrictive filtering won't be able to use the embedded comment form, and they won't see the two level commenting option. Beyond that issue, two level comments should be simple to use.
Comments
If so, why would Blogger make such a decision?
It's part of the embedded comment form, which is built into the standard post template. If your blog using a third party blog template lacks the standard post template, you'll want to refresh your post template.
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/07/blogger-magic-update-post-template-to.html
The Buzz post specifically mentions the full feed requirement. That bothers me too - and when I'm awake I may explore that some. It appears to have been designed for use in the dynamic templates, though as tested it also works with the standard templates.
My guess is that it caused problems with dynamic template comments, with partial feed enabled. Does that make sense?
But.......... I do not have time to return to a post, once I have read it. So if the blog owner chooses to answer questions, right in the post comments, in which they were asked... It will do me no good.
I never return.
Oh I know, it can make for a fun bunch of threads... Again, who has the time to read through a fun bunch of comment threads?
Not I. Not any more...
Just my view....
You're not required to read the responses to your comments immediately - or at all. But if you comment, someone replies, and you reply without reading previous replies, you're just going to look like an idiot.
I guess it all boils down to - How much time do you have to participate?
I don't spend half the time that I could, replying to what gets said, so I guess I'm not a great example either.
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2011/06/cookie-filtering-and-commenting-ability.html
It's a pain - often I can't comment on embedded comments anyway - even if I change browsers back to IE from Chrome that I use everyday, the choice of name and URL don't appear.
Cheers Hilary
Many of my Readers, now can NOT comment in my blog.
This is no great improvement, for me. Or for the other bloggers, who can not comment, in many blogs they read.
"Auntie"
This is a typical beta product, in the history of Blogger. What's unfortunate is that they installed it without an ability to not opt-in.
Hopefully, they will learn from this experience, and never again deploy a new feature without at least providing an "opt-out" setting.
If you want to opt-out, try tweaking the post template on your blog.
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/01/two-level-comments-and-one-known-post.html