So this post is to address the changes in the comment system, because apparently everyone is confused and saying it needs things it now has. Before this change, the top complaints about the comment system were:

1) Not enough per page. In fact, we want them all on one page.

2) no way to jump to the comment when someone comments on my message! I got millions of comments and I cannot find the one it is talking about!

Both of these problems are more related than you might think. Jumping directly to a dynamic page system for a specific comment was a design challenge, as was printing as many comments as possible. After analyzing other high traffic sites and the user needs, this is what we came up with.

What has NOT changed?

The Box.

The box you type in. It's an Open Source add-on that we have barely modified, and have not modified in the past many months. If something quit working like your copy-paste or whatever, I promise you it is not because we changed something about that box. It certainly has nothing to do with the comment system directly.

What was that in reply to?

The way the comments nest with replies. The reply nesting is the same.

Yeah but I was the Spelling Bee Champion.

No we did not intentionally get rid of the spellcheck button, and it has since been restored.

What HAS changed?

Space, the final frontier.

Per the complaint #1, all comments a post receives are now shown on one page. This was part of the required redesign of how the comments looked. Some of your posts have 200+ comments on them, and the original design wasted a heap of pixel space on the screen for the sake of looks over function. We have maximized the space used so that the maximal number of comments can be fit on the screen at any given point.

Yes, we took out the user avatar - right back to saving screen space. But because everyone missed them they have been reinserted back in the same position they were in.

There's a LINK for that.

Per the complaint #2, now that comments are displayed on all one page, we can send you URLs in email and notifications that jump you right to specific comments. Someone commented on your post? There is a link for that. Someone replied to your comment? There is a link for that too.

When you comment on a post, your browser loads the page and zips straight to the comment you just made. In fact every time a comment is linked, the page will zip to that spot and highlight it in a fun colour to bring it to your attention.

And check this out, every comment has a little Link link to it. I am actually sort of surprised at how many people are unsure what this does. For grins I am going to right click it and click "Copy link" or "Copy link location" (depending on the browser) and paste it right here:

http://www.blogster.com/bobski/blogster-and-you-a-journal-update#comment-us74 

And if I wanted I could paste that in Instant Messenger or an Email and now whoever clicks that will open that post and jump straight to that comment. We are not the only site to have one of these... for example Google Maps has one so you can copy paste your current location view to someone for the longest time.

Now What?

No, we are not going back to the old one, as we lose the features that were the whole point in the update. However feel free to post your comments or suggestions to make the system better.

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