Smooth Move coComments

Dear coComments,

I leave a LOT of comments. Outside of my charm and good looks, of which I have none, comments are probably my favorite means of promoting my various sites and blogs.

However, keeping track of all of those comments is a huge pain. I don’t want to leave a comment on a site only to have some troll take a snipe at me unscathed. No, I want to return and bring down upon him the wrath of a nuclear flamewar using language that would make the Angry Video Game Nerd blush with shame.

Actually, I’m just usually just saying thank you for the help, but it was nice to pretend I’m some kind of comment warrior.

Anyway, as I was saying, keeping track of those comments is a major pain. So many sites, so little time. In that quest though, your service is, or at least was, a complete Godsend. It was like a little inbox for all of my comments. It was great and it beat getting an email from every comment follow up I got.

However, your “V2″ of the comment system shares a lot in common with the famous V-2 Rocket, a tactical failure that never should have left the launchpad. You’ve taken what was one of my favorite Web services and squandered that goodwill, sending me, and others like me, running to the competition.

But since I’m such a nice guy, I’ll give you my thoughts on it and a second chance, but first, I want these issues fixed.

What I Wanted

When I first read about coComment V2, I was actually very excited. It looked slick in your video and seemed to address some of my pet peeves about the first system.

For one, I was excited you were making it easier to actually comment on the original blog. Your old system tried to internalize everything and made it hard to get to the original site. I was in love with the sidebar idea and the new extension looked slick, though perhaps a bit intrusive.

Second, though I didn’t see much use for it, I thought that the ability to leave comments on pages without a comment form was cool. Sure, it would have been just for other coComments users to see, but it would have been pretty neat.

Finally, the groups feature was going to be incredible. I was looking forward to starting my own, private, group and getting my friends to submit their conversations. We could have been like a gang, patrolling the commentosphere and doing absolutely nothing productive.

It was going to be great, it was going to be awesome. But then, but then the rollout came and it all went to Hell.

Rollout and Backlash

If we want to be technical about it, the rollout actually came twice. The first rollout, on July 31st, was such a klusterfuck that it had to be halted and undone. Of course some people, like myself, had already upgraded their coComment Firefox extension, thus putting us in a pretty bad bind for a few days.

The second one, on August 2nd, didn’t go much better. However, there would be no rollback this time and you seem pretty dedicated to the new V2 system. While I’m glad to see a Web company stick to their guns, it’d be wise to at least make sure you’re not firing blanks.

Your system is almost entirely unusable. It seems that the blogging world is universal about this, V2 is a disaster. When all-around-nice-guy and Mozilla Community Coordinator is calling you out on this, you know things are bad.

However, it can be fixed. You’re just going to have to buck up, take this one on the chin and get your hands dirty (along with any other appropriate cliches). You messed up and fixing it is going to take some serious work. But, if you’re willing to listen, I’m going to give you my thoughts on what needs to happen.

The Five-Step Recovery Program

If you want to get coComments back on the right track, here’s my five-step program to success (or at least mediocrity):

1. FIx the Bugs: None of the items work consistently. The bookmarklet, the extension, the sidebar, none of it. Half of the time I can’t post comments, when I can, much of the time, the comment doesn’t make it into my inbox and, when it does actually get posted, I don’t see updates. The system is totally broken. Too broken for me to even isolate things that don’t work right.
2. Rethink Usability: I know there are a lot of new features to V2, but the usability of it, quite frankly, stinks. All I want is a list of comments I need to follow up on. That’s it. But getting that list requires more than a few clicks and, even then, which comments are new isn’t easily evident. Compare your current system to either Commentful or V1 and you’ll see what I mean.
3. Speed: coComment, before the upgrade, was slick. Now it feels as if it is on life support. Even the home page loads slowly. This is not acceptable, especially since coComment loads up elements on every single page you load if you use the Firefox extension. If you have to back off on features to make this happen, I think your users will be behind you, probably blowing their horn all the while.
4. The Blacklist: Ok, I admit, I don’t have much use for this but it seems to me that every damn post about this problem wants a blacklist. I say give it to them. How hard can it be? You can even be funny with it and call it the noComment List. Get it? noComment. Tough crowd tonight. (Note: They seem to have added a basic blacklist, still, I propose it be called noComment.)
5. Repair Relations: You’re doing a lot of great commenting and such (I’m taking bets on whether or not you’ll comment here) but you need to take some material steps to repair broken relationships. My advice is offer a rollback to anyone severely aggrieved. Yes, I know the challenges in running two systems. But it is a lot easier than running from a torch-carrying mob. Trust me, I have experience here.

If you can do those things, coComment will probably be back in (John) black in short order. However, in the meantime, users such as myself have been jumping ship like the rats we are. Me, I switched to Commentful. I love its quiet, simple interface and easy to understand layout. It’s great stuff. But I would really love to use the horsepower of coComment. I hope that I’ll be able to take you back.

A Two-Week Challenge

So here’s the deal coComments. You have two weeks. I am going to use Commentful for the next fourteen days and then I’ll load up Firefox, install your extension again and give you a fresh chance. I even have this marked down on my iCal (because I’m a dork).

If you’ve made serious progress. I’ll embrace you once again and let you gobble up all of my comment goodness (that sounded wrong). If not, then it is goodbye for good.

Now please note that I’m not saying everything has to be fixed by then. Just that progress has to be made. I know that you’re working on it, but this will test your effectiveness like nothing else.

That’s two weeks coComment, you up for it?

I hope so.

Bottom Line

In the end, I sympathize with you coComment. I really do. I’m not trying to bash you (though I definitely poke fun) and I don’t want to be just another dog on the rabbit. I know how hard a major upgrade like this is and I realize that Murphy’s law is a real bitch at times.

Furthermore, I do love your service and I want to see it shine. But if I can’t use it, I can’t use it and, well, we both suffer. You don’t get me as a most wonderful and gracious user and I don’t get your power and cute little ghosts.

We are in a rough patch in our relationship but I will take you back coComment, I am easy like that. Just say your sorry, promise me you’ll change and buy me some flowers. I’ll be there for you.

Of course, that mentality probably explains a lot about my love life.

Comments

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  The nom de plume is John Black. I'm a New Orleans man who doesn't let a little bad weather get him down. I make my letters open because it is cheaper than postage and I make my opinions strong because I'm bad at lying.

  This is my blog where I write about what is right and what is wrong in the world, as I see it. If you disagree, leave a comment or send me an email. If you agree with me, you should probably double check your logic.