Reading Comments

We’re making a big change to comment visibility and some smaller changes to how comments are sorted.

Visibility

By default, if you can see a post, you can see all of the comments. This also applies to posts the public can see. This means that if you comment on a public post, anyone can read your comments without being logged in, including your name. We figure this is only fair since the original author doesn’t have the benefit of anonymity.

But Why!?: There have been times the community has been impacted by controversial posts and then reacted beautifully with responses that show how awesome, thoughtful, and inclusive the UMBC community is. In these cases only the initial post makes its way to Google and the responses that show our better self don’t get seen by the public at large. This fixes that.

Don’t Freak Out: To address any concerns about comments getting out into the wild unknown, the author can set posts to be UMBC Only, so only people logged in with a UMBC account can see the post and comments. The comment box will be clearly labeled with who will be able to see any comments.

Rule of thumb: If someone can see the post, they can see the comments.

Private/Moderated Comments

Authors will have the option of choosing moderated or private comments for their posts. If these options are chosen, some comments may not be visible to you:

• “Private” comments are only visible between the post author and commenter.
• “Moderated” comments must be approved by the author before anyone can see them.

See the Managing Comments section below for more.

Sorting

Top level replies to a post will be sorted by popularity, by default. We may provide a toggle to sort by post date, but the feeling is that most people are casual readers and want to see the “best” comments first.

Threading

Threaded comments have become an important feature and will continue much as it does now, except replies will be sorted by popularity, just like initial comments.

Paws, Buries, and Rating

These will continue to work the same way, but we’re making things simpler. Every comment has a visible rating… Rating = (Paws - Buries). If a comment has a rating less than zero, it will be hidden by default.

Paws: Paws on comments will be public. This is to promote discovery of people/connections.

Buries: Buries will be private. This is to prevent negative energy in the universe.

Following Comments

If you’re really interested in a conversation. You will be able to follow the comments on a post. This will send you a notification whenever anyone posts a new comment or reply to a comment on a post. You can only follow all comments on a post, not individual comment threads.

Reply Notifications

You will receive a notification in myUMBC whenever someone replies to your comment. You will always get these via the site, but can choose if you want to receive them by email or text. This setting applies to all posts.

Following People

Not specific to comments, but you will be able to follow people in addition to groups in myUMBC 4. Whenever a person you’re following comments on a posts, you will see it in your daily activity feed. Following people is intended to promote discovery of content.

Leaving Comments

Now we’ll look at the details of leaving comments on posts.

Who Can Comment

There were some confusing rules for who could comment on a post, depending on if a post was posted to Community or not. We’re streamlining this down to the following rules as to when a person can comment on post.

• The post is visible to the commenter
• The post has allowed comments
• The commenter is logged in
• The commenter is not blocked due to account issues

That’s it.

Writing Comments

We’re streamlining the format for comments: plain text with media URL replacement. This means we’re no longer allowing HTML in comments. Instead, if you want to reference an image, video, or website, simply put the URL on a blank line and we’ll convert it into the actual image or a video player when we show your comment.

Managing Comments

Post authors will have some more options available for comments.

Post-Specific Settings

Authors will be able to choose one of four settings for comments on each post:

• Off: Comments cannot be added by anyone. Any existing comments will remain visible.
• On: Comments can be added by anyone.
• Moderated: Comments can be added by anyone, but will only be seen by the author of the post until the author approves the comment. Replies are disabled.
• Private: Comments can be added by anyone, but will only be seen by the author. Replies are visible only between the two parties.

The moderated and private settings may only be available to official university groups and their admins.

Moderated Comments: Moderated comments are meant to handle situations where the author wants to ensure that a post remains on topic or to prevent comments with duplicate content. Only the post author is able to reply to any comments that are approved. This provides a great way to facilitate a more structured Q&A.

When someone comments on a post with moderated comments, the author of the post will receive a notification that they need to approve the comment. Visiting a post will allow the author to see all pending comments and to approve or deny each comment. The commenter will receive a notification when their comment is approved or denied.

Private Comments: Private comments are meant to allow people to respond to a post without those comments being seen by anyone except the post author and the commenter. This provides a great way to create posts that solicit requests for comments, criticisms, or responses on sensitive topics.

Changing the Setting: If the settings for comments change, any comments that were in moderation or private will remain that way. Only new comments are affected by the new settings. Comments are never exposed further than the scope of their creation. Private comments will always stay private.

Posting as a Group

Admins of official university Groups will be able to post comments as that group. This allows comments to come from an “official” source instead of being tied to an individual staff member’s info. Details of this functionality are still being worked out.

Notifications

You will receive a notification in myUMBC whenever someone replies directly to your post or one of your comments. You will always get these via the site, but can choose if you want to receive them by email or text. This setting applies to all posts.

If you want notifications of all comments and replies, you should follow the post.

There is no way to stop receiving notifications from a post.