If you’ve made a comment here recently, you’ve probably noticed a couple of new plugins.
Live Comment Preview does exactly what the name implies – it gives a live preview as you type your comment. Most of us find it much easier to spot a mistake when a comment goes live than when we’re typing in the comment box. With Live Comment Preview, you can preview your comment as you type it.
But if you still make an error – and don’t we all from time to time? – there’s WP Ajax Edit Comments. This plugin allows the commenter to edit a comment for a designated amount of time. I’m using the default setting of 15 minutes, which is enough time to see the error as soon as it’s posted – when I see mine 🙂 – and correct it right away.
If you moderate comments, the comment won’t be sent through moderation again. However, it will be sent through Akismet again. That precaution will prevent a spammer from leaving an innocuous comment, then changing it to spam after it’s moderated.
I wish every blog used these or similar plugins. I am embarrassed at the number of comments I’ve left all over the blogosphere with errors that I’ve caught … just after the comments went live, with no way to correct them. Errors in comments don’t reflect very well on me as a writer and editor, and I cringe every time I see a mistake I’ve made. I want to give my commenters the opportunity to catch their own errors.
As I state in my comment policy, I will correct typos in comments, but I prefer for my commenters to edit their own comments.
Thank you to each person who has posted a comment here, and special thanks to those who comment regularly. Blogging has become much more of a conversation than I expected when I started, and I love hearing from my readers. I’ve thought of adding a top commenters plugin, but my sidebar is already too crowded. Even if I don’t recognize commenters in a post or listing, I do respond to every comment, and I appreciate every one!
Updated 10/9/07: Commenter Misti Sandefur, reminded me of another comment plugin that I love. I’ve used Subscribe to Comments for a while, so it’s not new to me, but it’s an excellent plugin folks should know about. Maybe it’s new to some of you.
updated 10/9/07: Thanks to Mike Olbinski for helping me get Brian’s Threaded Comments working with my current theme. this is a wonderful plugin that allows commenters to reply to specific comments.
[tags]comments, Live Comment Preview, WP Ajax Edit Comments, WordPress plugins, Subscribe to Comments[/tags]