Leaving comments on niche site hubs

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   GwennyOhposted 2 years ago

   There are a few people I'd like to leave comments for, but most times when I read an article it's on a niche site, and so far on each I've seen no place to add my comment. Given that there are often many other comments present, is it possible to circumvent this problem?

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      AliciaCposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      At the moment, you have to find the article in your HubPages feed and then comment on it there. Not all of the articles from my followers are in my feed, but I've found that I can sometimes discover some of them by reloading the feed or by looking at it on a different day. I also find articles from some people that I don't follow in my feed. Unfortunately, if you can't find the article that you like in your own feed, you won't be able to comment on it.

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         GwennyOhposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you, this helps a lot

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         bravewarriorposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         @ AliciaC: and doing so takes sooooo much time! It's very discouraging. Samantha keeps telling us that comments will be reinstated, but it can't be soon enough, in my opinion.

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            AliciaCposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, it can take time to find the articles that we want to comment on. I hope the ability to comment on the article itself is reinstated soon!

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         powers41posted 2 years agoin reply to this

         so how do I leave a comment in the discover hubpages??
         I'd like to comment but do not see how to?

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            AliciaCposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            Hi, Fran. You can't leave a comment on a Discover article, unless you can find the article in your feed.

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               powers41posted 2 years agoin reply to this

               Thank you for your prompt reply.  I wish they allowed comments.

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   GwennyOhposted 2 years ago

   Those comments are the backbone of our community... I too hope they fix this.

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      Marisa Writesposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      It's not as simple as fixing a problem.  All the niche sites, and Discovery, are on the Maven platform now.  The Maven platform does not support comments.
      
      Therefore to enable comments, they need to make a fundamental change to the Maven platform. They will have to assign programmers to reprogram the software.  That's a cost, and it also pulls programmers off other jobs.
      
      To Maven, comments are worthless, because they don't earn money - so they are no doubt asking, why should we spend money to enable comments?
      
      You can argue that comments are important for writer retention, and keeping good writers means better articles for Maven - and I'm sure Samantha is making that case to Maven. But as it's bound to be a low priority, I'm not convinced comments will return soon, which is why I'm wondering if the community needs to find a temporary alternative to keep communication alive in the interim.

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         Jodahposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Well, the more comments an article has the more ads they can jam in so they do make money out of them. I found nine ads throughout the comments on my latest hub and and 18 ads in total through the entire article. So in that case they should be making money from them.

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            Marisa Writesposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            It would be more correct to say they're jamming ads in there, in the HOPE they MIGHT make money from them. It's extremely unlikely that anyone is clicking on ads that far down the Hub so no, they're probably not making money from them. 
            
            It's another example of the divide between social and business Hubbing. A long, chatty, irrelevant Comments section can kill the earnings potential of a Hub stone dead. That has always been the case and was the subject of some heated debate in the forums in the old days.

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   Beth Eaglescliffeposted 2 years ago

   For what it's worth, I've been carrying out an (unscientific) experiment. When we first found out that comments were no longer possible, I deleted ALL comments from ALL my articles. I did this because the old dates still visible on old comments made it seem as though my articles were no longer fresh.
   
   So that was two months ago. My income has doubled in that time. About one third of this increase is from extra Amazon sales as we enter the festive period, the rest is due to increase in ad revenue. Of course, there's no way I can prove that deleting comments increases revenue, but it may be an indicator of why Maven is dragging its feet about enabling the comment function.

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      theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      That's interesting. I would find it easy to be ruthless on some articles, but would be reluctant on others where the comments section contains a lot of supplementary info. Maybe I should work through and incorporate a sort of Q&A in those?
      
      Argh!

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      lobobrandonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      This and your next post are interesting. Seems like this is something that I can do when I want to work but don't really want to do something that takes a lot of time.

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         theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Took me two hours for one article this morning. And all I was doing was weeding questions from the old Q&A and hiding all comments prior to the current year.

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            lobobrandonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            That would fall into my "takes a lot of time" category

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               Beth Eaglescliffeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

               No pain, no gain.

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                  lobobrandonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                  True, but no time right now

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      Marisa Writesposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      This is a valid point. Most internet gurus say comments do more harm than good, if they dilute the content of the article with irrelevant material, and Google hates that. Tha'ts why even some blogs don't allow comments these days.
      
      My personal view is that I allow comments, because relevant QUESTIONS allow me to reply with a relevant ANSWER and that enhances the information in the article.  But if anyone makes a general comment, I don't approve it.

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   Beth Eaglescliffeposted 2 years ago

   @theraggededge
   I made a new capsule within the article for each comment I thought would be of interest to my readers. Transferred the information and then deleted the original comment.

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      theraggededgeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, I was thinking along the same lines. I have one fairly technical article that might well benefit from an overhaul like that. The witchy ones could easily have most comments deleted without losing too much info.
      
      Thanks for the suggestion, Beth.

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      JerryFisherposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      Beth - I've taken your suggestion as a great one here thanks and decided the same - any worthwhile comment I'll rewrite into an existing post or new one and then delete all my comments. But I can't see how to delete the comments section - there's no trashcan for it. Do you know? Thanks

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         Beth Eaglescliffeposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         @JerryFisher
         
         Thanks for the vote of confidence.
         You can delete the old comments by going to 'author view' and then scroll to the bottom of the article WITHOUT going into edit mode.

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         lobobrandonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         In addition to what Beth said, you can also get rid of the entire comments capsule by editing the hub and choosing to hide comments. I did not check before typing, but this was an option not too long ago, I do not think it has been removed.

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            JerryFisherposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks Brandon to delete the entire capsule would be my preference but I can’t see where that’s possible. Might go back as a default with Hubpages. I guess they wanted interaction with authors and readers. But when you’ve got time to check to see if it has been changed or if there is some way of deleting that would be appreciated.

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   JerryFisherposted 2 years ago

   Cheers Beth!

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   Kenna McHughposted 2 years ago

   That sounds complicated.

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