enConnected doesn’t exist to pump information into a vacuüm. We want to generate dialogue. We want to hear from you, you and yes, even you there in the bright red short sipping coffee at eight in the afternoon. We need to have conversation about how best to do that, I think.
In the early years, enConnected let users submit their email address to comment on our stories. Then we moved on to requiring users to create an enConnected Social account by clicking on a Facebook login button.
Forcing everyone to create an enConnected Social account worked out in a few ways. First, it boosted registration numbers. Second, it forced you guys to be accountable for what you said. In recent months though the conversation in our comments became non-existent. You may have noticed that enConnected Social — our social network and forum system remain missing after our last major update. We’re still working on bringing that back, but in the interim I think it’s time to experiment with opening up our comments.
This afternoon I pushed a switch and turned on commenting through a third-party service called Disqus. Disqus, is all about unifying commenting across multiple sites. Chances are that if you’ve left a comment on the internet at a point in time you’re registered for Disqus.
I don’t mind saying that I’m personally not a fan of third-party commenting services. However I respect the time you give us and I understand those who just don’t want to be bothered creating a new account. We’re going to try Disqus for a few weeks and reevaluate where we’re at later in the fall. Regardless of whether Disqus works out, you can look forward to enConnected Social making a return, but we may make some changes to it based on how this test works out.
Share your thoughts.
