Hey guys,

Teddy and I are starting to collect thoughts and ideas for the next edition of Nolan Fans, v3. Like our current v2, we'll be revamping the site on our anniversary, January 13th. Nolan Fans will be two years old this time around.



I was taking a look at our current commenting system and wondering how we can improve it. Over the past few months I've noticed a couple of things about our current setup:

1. You guys prefer chatting about front page articles here on the forums instead of in the front page comments. Example: Inception US Blu-ray briefcase: 37 comments, 92 forum posts

2. We have dual discussions. You can either talk about the subject in the frontpage comments or in the forums. Two separate discussions are going on at once. This is clearly not favorable.

So, we have a few options and I'll list the two that immediately come to mind:

1. Disqus. Many of you have probably heard of this. It's a global commenting system that is connected with every other site that uses also Disqus. /Film is one example. Once you're logged in on one site, you're logged in on every site that uses Disqus and you're free to comment everywhere. Nested comments are allowed and you're able to "like" other's comments.

2. Streamlined discussion. Mac Rumors does this pretty well. Click to go check out the comments any of their front page news articles. The link takes you to a thread on their forums about the article.


Let us know what you guys think by replying below. Any ideas are welcome.

I like the idea of streamlined discussion, I don't tend to pay much attention to comment sections. The Disqus thing doesn't really seem to change all that much.

I probably wouldn't use the comment section anymore with Disqus.

That's my say, for whatever its worth.

I wouldn't mind having Disqus since I have an account on there. Plus its fancy with that small icon.

I can't wait to see what you guys have in store for us with v3! I'm a big fan of Disqus, but you bring up a good point. You guys have built a great community here, and if you could implement a streamlined discussion system like Mac Rumors, I think that'd be really cool.

Of those 37 comments on the Inception US Blu-ray post, how many do you think are forum members? Casual fans might prefer Disqus, while your more loyal fanbase will just want to discuss the news in the forums. If a majority of those 37 commenters are forum members too, I think streamlined would be the way to go.

Disqus may help your SEO. I've seen Batman-News.com results on the 1st page of Google because of something someone said in the comments. This might not be as important to you though, since your forums are so well integrated with the main site, a visitor who lands on your forums from Google is likely to explore the front page too.

I think streamlined discussion is the right way to go.

I'm really starting to doubt the streamlined option now. There are some people that really don't like hanging out in the forums and prefer commenting directly on the front page articles. I don't know if we should either accommodate this or just force / encourage them to use the forums.

Also, the length of the comments in the forums versus the front page differ greatly. In our case, the forums are acting as a place for a more in-depth discussion. Front page comments are more useful for spontaneous and immediate reactions to news stories.

Just some more thoughts on this.

Would you be able to do both? Add Disqus for article comments, and have a link at the end of each post that goes to the forums for more in-depth discussion? That might not be the most elegant solution though...

I think Disqus would be a great place to start. That'll please the more "casual" readers. The hardcore fans know where to find the in-depth discussion, and your community will only continue to grow once The Dark Knight Rises news becomes more regular.

Streamlined discussion is best.

Alex, I find it particularly disturbing that problem #2 was so bad that it actually disappeared.

Thanks for all the input, guys!

Cilogy wrote:Alex, I find it particularly disturbing that problem #2 was so bad that it actually disappeared.

Haha. I must've goofed when I was trying to organize the issues. Fixed.

I personally like streamlined discussion, but I'd like to propose a tweak to that system.

1. I think it would be beneficial if the front page comments are still presented as front page comments. The content of the comments however are driven by a forum thread.
2. When a viewer posts a front page comment, it goes into the forum thread seamlessly.
3. When a forum poster posts, it also appears as a front page comment.
4. I surmise this would likely require some integration of access from the main site with the forums which I think are running two separate systems, Wordpress and what looks like a modified phpBB.

This would create a seamless squash of the discussion into a single discussion thread for the most part.

Cons, I can think of right now is that it's a heck of a lot of work, and lifting updates from Wordpress and phpBB could prove mighty tricky.