Meta Allowed Here! AN Wants Your Feedback On Comment System

“Meta” — as in, “I never meta 9th inning I didn’t like.” Right now the A’s are incredible, but as we’re between incredibly improbable 9th inning comebacks (I’m assuming we’ll have another one on Sunday, although currently it’s pouring rain in Berkeley because of course that would happen on August 16th), let’s talk about the system that allows us to talk about the A’s...

On Tuesday I have a meeting scheduled to discuss AN’s commenting platform (Chorus) and the fact that Vox is transitioning to a new one (Coral) it has rolled out for its NFL sites. Vox wants to know my reaction (which I will try to offer through interpretive dance), and what commenting tools AN values.

Asking me what commenting tools I value is, on its face, funnier than any pun I can conjure up. My knowledge of commenting tools is generally limited to, “I type stuff and then I look for that ‘publish’ button because that seems to work well.”

But I know that commenting platforms and tools, Chorus and Coral and ones that may not even begin with ‘C’, are complex, varied, nuanced, and probably at least eight other really cool adjectives.

Am I, left alone with a Zoom link and a shot glass that just 5 minutes ago hosted a chocolate martini, the best ambassador to convey the wants and needs of AN’s commenting platform? The answer to that is similar to the answer to, “Should Trevor Gott try a high fastball to Mark Canha?” (Actually, the answer to that is, “Why yes — yes he should. Try it!”)

However, I am not alone. I have you, all of you, to lean on if you offer in the comments section to this very post, your thoughts on Chorus, Coral, what you most value in a commenting platform, and what you want Vox to know as they ponder the wisdom of moving AN from Chorus to Coral. You can be as tech-y as you want, because even if I don’t understand what you’re saying I can still recite it to someone who does.

And hey, at least the Voxians are asking for feedback before doing anything, which is laudable. Presumably they would not ask for feedback if they did not intend to use it to inform their ultimate decisions (I know, right now you’re saying, “Awww, they’re so cute when they’re young and naive!”), so I want to provide as much useful feedback as I can.

So please convey your thoughts and ideas, and the ‘why’ that accompanies the ‘what’, and I will be sure to incorporate community feedback into my Tuesday conversation. As far as I’m concerned, when it comes to commenting platform decisions it’s not even the 9th inning yet ... and that’s the only inning that really seems to matter these days!