Near the start of the year, the software that we previously used to enable readers to vote on other readers’ comments broke – and the world was sad. It had given us all good service, but was old, creaking and finally gave up the ghost.
We know how popular the feature was because, 1) you told us (then and subsequently), 2) you’d all cast nearly one million votes!
The right solution
Since then we’ve spent many man hours – Well over a full working week in fact (45+ hours) – trying to find the right solution. We’ve dealt with companies all over the world, testing their products, negotiating with them, in an attempt to provide everything that we want for you.
We now feel that we’ve got to a solid tool and, after testing, it’s now live. (As with all new systems, there might be the odd thing that pops up needing attention – in that case, please do get in touch and let us know the detail.)
We quietly released the update last night (Sunday) and very pleasingly, there have already been well over 100 votes cast.
If you value Trustworthy, independently-owned
media on the Isle of Wight, you can help.
It’s not just voting that been enabled.
New: Ordering comments
Oldest – The current default order. Oldest first, so you can see all of the comments left as they appeared.
Newest – Will be useful if you’re returning to a discussion and wanted to just catch up with the latest comments.
Most voted – A good way of judging a wider public opinion of what people have been saying.
Enhanced: Receive updates
This has two levels:
1) If you’re keen to keep an eye to see how a discussion develops, just select ‘New follow-up comments’.
2) If you’ve left a comment and want to see what people respond to you, you can opt to have emails sent to you when select ‘New replies to my comment/s are left’.
Creating an account has the great advantage of you not needing to re-enter your contact details when you want to receive updates.
There’s more we can do
There’s lots more that we can offer, we just need to know that you’d like them.
If we hear from you that you like further improvements, we’ll put time and money into providing you with new features over the coming months.
In the meantime – Enjoy the Voting!
Update 29 November 2017 –
Up and down votes now shown separately
Well dear reader, we’ve another update for you.
Last night we turned on the ability to separately show the numbers of up and the down votes.
It’s something that has been requested for a long time, but until now achieving it was too involved. Glad we can bring this to you now.
