Newswise Blog

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Newswise Commenting Update

We recently asked Newswise members for feedback about opening up comments on Newswise articles, and we were pleased to see a healthy level of responses.  Input from our members has been invaluable as we determine the best way to proceed with this new feature, and Newswise wishes to express our appreciation for the collaborative relationship we have with our member institutions. 

The feedback has been mostly positive, with many members expressing an interest in the benefits commenting may bring to all Newswise members.  In spite of most members embracing the idea in theory, some member institutions also had completely understandable, legitimate concerns, and due to policy and protocol at their organization, requested to turn off commenting on their news releases. 

Newswise had anticipated these concerns, and we were prepared to respond with the option to disable commenting when necessary.  Newswise members will now have the option to enable or disable commenting on each article, or for all news releases from their institution.  We feel confident that this should meet the needs of all Newswise members who choose, for whatever reason, to disable commenting on their articles.  If you would like to disable commenting as the default for your institution, or if you have any questions, please contact us at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Another common request was to have email notifications sent alerting our members whenever comments are made on their news releases.  We were encouraged by the request for this feature and the interest our members have in monitoring and responding to comments.  Because we are working with third-party technology, it is still not clear if we will be able to enable email notification of commenting automatically, but we agree that it would be worthwhile and we are continuing to investigate the possibility.  In the meantime, users can make a comment on a news release, and, in that process, they may subscribe to receive notices of future comments.  We hope to determine the feasibility of automatic email notifications soon. 

Our current target for deploying this new commenting feature is by the end of July.  If you have any feedback, comments, questions, or concerns, please let us know.  Again, we appreciate the collaborative process of our relationship with Newswise members, and we thank you for your participation and support.