The new commenting system over at Gawker media sites

Gizmodo, io9, Kotaku, Jezabel, and of course, Gawker itself... recently changed their commenting system. And dear god does it suck. Anyone else hate it as much as I do?

• The one comment at a time thing? It sucks.

• How the hell do you clear notifications? I got some replies, and now EVERY time I hit the site, I get notified of those same four replies. There used to be a way to "clear notifications"... now they just sit there forever. It's annoying as fuck.

• It's horrible. Are they trying to kill their business?

• I've tried logging in with a "Burner" account over there all day. Every time, it says "Logged in!" and then returns me to the page... not logged in. So it's just an endless cycle of logging in unsuccessfully. I've created half a dozen new burner accounts, none of which I can use, becasue it won't let me log in. Even though it claims I logged in fine. I've never seen a worse system. Ever.

• Terrible, terrible. But almost as bad as Datalounge which is about 10 years behind the times

• Datalounge is a million times better. At least you can set the number of posts per page to 999 and see everything at once with no paging...

• I used to visit Gawker because I enjoyed the comments there, but no fucking way am I spending hours scrolling through comments one at a time, so I've stopped going there. I have no idea how someone decided that new system was a good idea; it seems like the equivalent of a website attempting to commit suicide.

• Are they getting paid every time you click on a comment? Is that the reason for doing it?

• Not that I can tell... there's no ads that change with each click. I'm just pissed off that they threw my long-standing (and starred) account away, and now I can't even log in with their fucking "burner" accounts on this laptop for some reason. It's like they're trying their damnest to PREVENT people from commenting.

• The comments used to be the best part. Now you can't see anything, and it's so arduous to try and read all the replies to an active post that I usually just give up. Worst. Design. Ever.

• Someone made an add on that returns the commenting system to the old one. You have to have Google Chrome to run it but it fixes the commenting on all the Gawker sites. After you install it, you just click on Classic View above the comments. All the good commenters are gone though. I think the new system is to generate more ad revenue. Here's the patch:

  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ebpikpglbmpefffekgcdhogkpihphjja

• [quote] I used to visit Gawker because I enjoyed the comments there, but no fucking way am I spending hours scrolling through comments one at a time, so I've stopped going there. You know what? You're not missing a thing. It's mostly shit anyway. Stuff that they found from other websites and news sources. They have a bunch of shitty writers too. All the good writers left

• The only writer I like there right now is Caity Weaver and she's only on nights. I skip everything that Neetzan posts. Gawker used to be an essential part of my day and now it's mostly stuff I've already seen elsewhere. A lot of their writers and Jezebel's writers went to Buzzfeed. Newell is at Wonkette.

• I like Weaver and Max Read. The commenting system is literally the worst I've ever seen in the history of the Internet.

• Denton has been talking the system up to potential advertisers as a great way to interact with commenters since no one actually clicks on ads. Since no one can figure out the commenting system, I don't know how that's helping anybody. I agree: worst commenting system ever. It actually has me wishing the Hot Pockets troll would come back.

• I'm not sure which are worse: RIch Juzwiak's unreadable reviews and recaps or his unreadable posts about being gay, which alternate between Emily Gouldesque backdoor bragging about his unimpressive sex life and pronouncements on "queerness!" that betray a sophomore at the Montclair State University GLBT rainbow resource centre's view of the world.

• I'm more a Gizmodo/io9 guy ... used to love going there. But dear god. The new system is horrible. So beyond horrible.

• It was bad enough when they messed with the layout a couple of years ago. Everyone hated that and I only used to view it through .uk or .ca for the classic view. But even then I found the comments odd to read - I could never tell which was the oldest and having to open each lot of replies was a pain. And now this? Keerist. It really is like website suicide.

• I heart you so hard, r16. Juzwiak is a talent- and personality-free writer who somehow convinced himself he's a thinker of sorts.

• We should all fill up their comment system with comments about how much their new comment system FUCKING SUCKS.

• Rich was really cute in the Pot Psychology videos from a few years ago, but I don't find most of the topics he writes about to be of any interest whatsoever.

• R20, clearly you haven't read Gawker comments at all for the last few years. People complain about the redesigned site/comments constantly.

• Apparently not enough. Of course, now, it's nearly impossible to tell. I mean, how would you?

• When Richard Lawson left (and that Deadspin douche took over as editor), it really started going downhill. Nearly all the other great writers are now gone, too. Lawson's RHONY recaps were what got me watching the show itself.

• The commenting system needs to be thrown out along with Jesus Diaz. Every time they make a change it gets worse. The old system where you could just read what the comments were was the best. Then the bullshit star system for people to think they were somehow above it all along with the ..only read starred comments option. Now, 1 comment at a time. It's completely unusable now.

• I don't visit there much any more.

• The number of comments over there is WAY down. There's nothing of interest to read. I have no idea why they decided to ruin their own site.

• Between the exodus of writers and the commentariat, Gawker is a waste. But my question-- what to take its place? Where did the commenters go?

• The only interesting things to read on their site were the comments and now it's too much of a hassle. If they can't even be bothered to hire "writers" who can spell or fact check, why do they think anyone would bother to read their "articles"?

• I was a commenter until the Deadspin Douche (shoutout, R29) took over...he banhammered me because I dared point out that one of his puerile articles SUCKED. That site jumped the shark SO HARD when Richard Lawson left...and all the good writers followed...now the site is totally geared toward asshole 18-35 year old stupid men...ugh. I used to check gawker literally ten times a day and spend hours reading stuff but I haven't even gone to the site in forever.

  Not%20an%20asshole%2018-35%20year%20old%20stupid%20man

• oops I meant shoutout R24, sorry

  R30

• I used to love Gawker and visit it daily too, but gradually started going less and less after the awful redesign. It seems like that's when all the good commenters left in drones anyway.

• It's quite common that new things turn stale and commercial real quick. Where's the new fresh blog journal happenin'?

• I still peruse iO9 and Gizmodo ... I've dropped off of Gawker and Lifehacker ... I used to comment a lot (starred even). Now I don't bother. I barely read the comments. If it's a really interesting article, I might skim a few of the 'top level' comments, but it's such a pain to follow the threads that I don't bother.

• Oh my God, somehow they made it even worse

• It's impossible to read through now and glean a coherent conversation. I can't stand the new system. However, I've discovered if you browse Gawker on your phone, the old comment system is in tact.

• Holy shit, R35... you posted exactly what I was going to, word for word. Dear god, I can't believe they could make something worse than the worst system on the internet that they already had...

• My god, I had no idea what you guys were talking about until I tried to read the comments for a Deadspin article on that football player who write the letter in support of gay marriage. What is this fuckery?? I can't believe the comments are scattered on the page like Tweets and are not displayed in a linear fashion. And I have to click on each reply to read? Who the fuck is going to click that much? I kept trying to find the button that would let me display all comments/replies on one page but haven't found it. Does it exist? Sent from my iPhone 5

• -------------------------- "I've tried logging in with a "Burner" account over there all day. Every time, it says "Logged in!" and then returns me to the page... not logged in. So it's just an endless cycle of logging in unsuccessfully. I've created half a dozen new burner accounts, none of which I can use, becasue it won't let me log in. Even though it claims I logged in fine. I've never seen a worse system. Ever." ------------------------- I've had exactly the same experience and the Gawker tech folks cannot solve it! I'm able to log in, it even shows me my User Name, but it every time I try to post a comment, it asks again for my Burner log-in, claims it worked, but it never posts the comment. What's the point? I don't belong to Facebook or that Tweet thing, and don't want to pass along any Google info, so my brilliance is never seen by the masses.

  robby

• Tech people get paid a lot of money to come up with these "enhancements". Change for the sake of change is always good in their world.

• The site is worse than ever.

• They still have great articles. Never cared to post comments in the first place.