There are plenty of commenting systems available on the web right now. You have comment systems such as Disqus, Livefyre, and you also have default comment systems from blogging platforms like WordPress and Blogger. In fact website owners can also choose to use Facebook as a platform for commenting, then there are also websites which uses a custom commenting system of their own making.
What does this mean for users? Well what this means is that users might have to sign up for various services just to leave a comment on a website. It could even deter users from commenting if they do not feel like signing up for a new service. Well perhaps in a bid to help unify the commenting system across the internet, Mozilla has partnered up with the likes of The New York Times and The Washington Post to help develop a new commenting system.
This new system will be given $3.9 million in funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. So what exactly will this new commenting system be like? Well it’s designed to be an open-source platform that will be made available to newrooms for free. However instead of merely being a bunch of textboxes, the aim is to create a system in which users can post more detailed comments that can contain photos, links, and other media.
According to Dan Sinker, the head of the Knight-Mozilla OpenNews Initiative, “The web offers all sorts of new and exciting ways of engaging with communities far beyond the ubiquitous — and often terrible — comments sections at the bottom of articles. With this collaboration, we’re bringing together top talent to build new tools for newsrooms to engage.” What do you guys think? Do we really need another commenting system out there?
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