|
First Issue -- no NOTIFICATIONS of followup comments:
I might be missing something obvious, but I have question about participating in the comments sections of the Town Square Forum.
How does one easily follow the comment threads over ensuing days regarding a topic of some interest?
I don't seem to find an easy way to find and view the followup comments (other people's replies) in the days AFTER I have read and perhaps left a comment (my own reply) to any particular story.
Each day, in the TOWNSQUARE section of the Danville Express, the editor's select several (3) topics to list. These are usually topics that have received some follow-on comments by people. So, to see these follow-on comments (and to keep up-to-date on such comments), one has to click on that topic and scroll to the last comments.
But only three topics are listed and there may be many more topics that received follow-on comments.
So, to really know about and read these follow-on comments, one has to go to the TOWN SQUARE FORUMS section of the online Danville Express (not to be confused with the TOWNSQUARE section of the emailed DE), scroll through all the topics looking for the ones that were of follow-up interest to me, and then click on each topic and scroll down to see if there are any new comments made by anyone.
Other "news" sites that I use have an optional CHECKBOX at the bottom of a reply that allows me to choose whether I want to receive an EMAIL NOTIFICATION that a reply comment has been sent to a particular topic, so that I can be appraised of on-going comments to a subject, even weeks or months after the subject was originally posted.
I don't see such a "notifications" option in the Danville Express (or am I missing it)?
Is there another easier way that people are achieving this result? (If so, please send those suggestions.)
Can DE add this "notifications" feature to their site?
Right now, someone can add some meaningful info or comment to a particular topic and it is hard to know that it was posted. Often it is never read or seen by the previously interested commentators, unless it is posted on the same day or is later "featured" in following days of TOWNSQUARE. So I think that a lot of commentary goes unseen and becomes quickly dead or dormant.
A SECOND ISSUE then arises -- having more than one posting regarding the same topic and breaking the chain of comments.
Sometimes a DE Editor will re-post the same topic (with a new or changed headline) and it starts off a new round of comments. However it does not contain or refer to the PREVIOUS ROUND OF COMMENTS, so many readers are coming into the middle of the commentary (often without any clue thereof). This should not be happening.
It's as if the Danville Express doesn't really care about any of these topics--that it is all about quick, flash-in-the-pan, entertaining people capture, and then quick release of them for the next's day of new capture. I'm feeling like a fish.
Some of these local topics are worth following through with more consistent approach than your current system is doing. I wish you would consider fixing this.
| 
View in an RSS Reader
E-mail this topic.
Print this topic.
