Housekeeping: We’re updating our commenting system
Dear CyclingTips readers,
As you’ll have noticed we launched our new website over the holidays and we hope you’re getting used to it and enjoying the content we’re hosting here. We’re at the tail end of ironing out the wrinkles, but we’re nearly there and can then start building new features.
One of the things we value most here at CyclingTips is our vibrant, intelligent and often ‘passionate’ comments sections we’ve had the good fortune of attracting over the years. It adds a whole other dimension to our content, and also keeps us honest. You, the audience, has far more to add to our articles than any single one of our journalists and it’s not only deeply valuable to us, but also our entire community.
But we still want to do better and improve the commenting experience here and protect this space for respectful and productive discussion for you.
Our new commenting system (called Coral) is designed to be a more civil, discussion-centred commenting platform, built around best practices of privacy and community design. Unlike many other comment platforms, Coral does not contain any marketing-based trackers or ads. This means it does not track you across the web, sell your browsing data, or target ads at you.
You won’t see many immediate differences on the surface, but here are some of the features you’ll be able to use:
> “Respect” a comment, rather than upvoting or downvoting a comment. We want to encourage respect amongst our community and upvoting comments even through you might not agree. Disagreeing is fine – disrespecting is not.
> Choose to “ignore” other commenters. This means their comments will no longer be visible to you; however, it does not inform them or ban them from the site. (Only our moderation team can ban people, which we will quickly do if someone is frequently or deliberately violating our guidelines)
> Report a comment and explain to moderators why you believe a comment violated our community guidelines.
> View comments chronologically, or by most respected or replied-to comments.
> See when comments are “featured” at the top of the comment stream.
> For us, it makes it easier to for our journalists and contributors to know when a comment has been made in their articles and for them to engage with you on a particular topic.
We’re testing how the platform works, and we need your help.
Join the discussion by logging in to CyclingTips. If you’re one of the thousands who already have a CyclingTips login, no need to do much extra except choose a username (via the pop-up prompt when you first leave a comment) and you can continue to use your current login to comment.
Questions for you:
> How do you like the experience of our new commenting system? How could we improve it?
> How do you like the experience of reading the comments below? Any suggestions for improvements?
> Are there features or functions you’d like to see that aren’t available here?
We’ve still got work to do, but your feedback will help us to know which parts are most important to you.
As always, keep it civil, keep it intelligent and keep it fun. Please refer to our commenting policy here.
Thank you,
Wade Wallace, Founder
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