Opening the Door to Comments!

Opening the Door to Comments!

When this site launched, it did not include any facility for user comments. I didn’t want to bother moderating comments, and had enough work just assembling content. But now, almost two years into publishing TheVinylPress, I’m willing to experiment a bit, so some articles will now include a comments feature. If you want to post a comment, you will have to register. (Registration and login links are at the bottom of the page in the “black bar”).  Initial comments may be put into a queue until you are validated as a user. And, at least for now, we are not permitting links to other materials in the comments, but that may change.  We’ll see how this evolves.

I have gotten some very insightful comments to articles posted on TheVinylPress Facebook page; I considered using Facebook as a comments platform here, but decided, for now, to try it this way.  (Some readers may not be Facebook users, so that was a factor too). 

If you had previously subscribed to TheVinylPress.com (by having entered an email address in the box at the bottom of the page to get email updates of new content), you must still register to post comments. The existing “subscribe” for updates box is “passive” and does not give you the ability to comment. Readers who never subscribed to get email updates of new content will not only be able to make comments but also will get updates on new content once they register.  So, if you haven’t subscribed already by entering your email in the window at the bottom of the page, I recommend that you register, instead of just subscribing by email, to get full functionality. We may need to work out some kinks in this– for example, I don’t want existing subscribers who now register to comment to receive two alerts every time a new article posts–so bear with me a little. 

Comments have been enabled for this update if you want to test the comments function. (There will be a contact point for comments “support” in the FAQ).  We will do our best to iron out any wrinkles as we go–TheVinylPress relies on outside IT support for the site so expect that any major problems can get sorted once we get underway. We will be adding an FAQ for comments settings as well, to simplify the experience. For example, you may not want to receive an email alert each time another user posts a new comment to an article on which you commented. There is a way to toggle that–it will be addressed in the FAQ.  (Here is a link to the FAQ which is located at the bottom of the site page). Also, once you register, you  will receive an email to activate– it may go to your spam box, so check that before you conclude that you didn’t receive the validation email for registration. 

Finally, apologies to those of you who received a “test” notification a few weeks ago–the IT folks were experimenting with different settings and a “test” post was published inadvertently. 

Thanks for supporting TheVinylPress.

Bill Hart

December 1, 2016