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MovableTypeFeedbackAndCommunityManagement
Movable Type: Movable Type User Manual
Feedback and Community Management
In this chapter, the following topics will be discussed, along with their related tasks and procedures:
Configuring Weblog Feedback Settings
Managing Comments
Managing Commenters
Enabling, Accepting and Viewing TrackBacks
1.1 Types of Community Feedback
A crucial element of many blogs is the interaction they provide with the community. Movable Type provides functionality for two types of feedback:
Comments: Comments are replies by your blogs readers to the entries that you create. Each entry can be individually configured to accept comments through a comment form typically found on each entrys individual archive page. The comments are also typically displayed on this page.
TrackBack: TrackBack is a protocol used primarily to provide remote commenting and notification functionality for weblogs. For example, TrackBack allows a blogger to comment on an entry on their own blog and have an excerpt of the reply and link back to it sent to the original blog via a TrackBack ping. Once received, it can be displayed alongside the comments and other TrackBack pings on the original entry to create a distributed conversation. Each entry can be individually configured to accept TrackBack pings and Movable Type can be configured to automatically send pings to blog entries that you reference in your own.
Whether its one of your blog readers commenting on an entry which you posted or another blogger doing so on their own site via TrackBack, community feedback is one of the most compelling and interesting facets of blogging because its breaks down the wall between publisher and reader.
As the traffic on your weblog increases, some users will emerge as trusted commenters: those who become known to you and make appropriate and relevant contributions to the conversation. Occasionally, however, a commenter will abuse a weblogs comments either by posting inflammatory and antisocial commentary or by spamming. One of the most effective safeguards against unwanted comments is commenter authentication.
Authentication of commenters ties each comment to a verifiable private account (i.e. a pseudonymous identity) meaning that the commenters can effectively be managed. With authentication in place, you can designate certain commenters as trusted and others as banned. Giving a commenter trusted status allows the system to handle them differently, publishing their comments immediately, while other commenters are queued for moderation. Besides the goodwill this designation generates, it can save you the time and effort of moderating and publishing queued comments.
Steps for enabling commenter authentication via Six Aparts free TypeKey service (http://www.typekey.com) and for managing commenters are detailed hereafter in this chapter.
1.2 Configuring Weblog Feedback Settings
Movable Type provides a sophisticated set of controls for setting and enforcing your feedback policy which can range from completely open to open but controlled (i.e. moderated) for some or all submissions to completely closed. Which is right for you is based entirely on your usage of the software and your community.
Feedback controls can be defined on the system level for all blogs, on the weblog level or on a per-entry basis.
To access and edit feedback settings for a weblog
1. Navigate to the Main Menu for your individual blog, or any administrative screen where your blogs sidebar navigation menu appears.
2. Click the SETTINGS link found in the Configure section of the sidebar navigation menu. This will open the General Settings configuration screen for your blog.
3. If the Feedback tab is not visible on your screen, click the link labeled Switch to Detailed Settings found in the upper right hand corner of the screen to reveal this tab.
4. Click the Feedback tab to open the Feedback Settings screen.
5. Edit the desired fields as described in the following sections.
6. When finished, scroll to the bottom of the screen to click the button labeled Save to apply your changes.
The comments section of the Feedback Settings screen allows you to set the logic for applying a range of policies to commenting features on an individual weblog basis. The policies you enable will depend on the type of community you intend to foster and your own preferences and tolerances. These settings are described below.
Accept Comments From: This option allows your to specify whether comments should be accepted on entries (which have been configured to Accept Comments) from unauthenticated commenters, authenticated commenters, both or not at all. Setting this control to No one effectively disables the receipt of incoming comments for the weblog.
Authentication Status: Authenticated systems supporting the TypeKey API require a key or "token" to operate. This control allows you to create and store your token in the authentication service or retrieve one if you already have an account. If you don't already have a token, click the Setup Authentication button to set up and install one. Not all authentication services support the automated form.
Require E-Mail Address: This checkbox forces a commenter to provide their email address as part of the authentication process.
Immediately publish comments from: You can control if incoming comments are immediately published or queued for moderation based on the commenter's status.
E-mail Notification: You can request that the system send an entry's author an email notification for comments with this control. If notification is set to Attention Required, email will only be sent when a ping is in moderation and requires approval before being published.
Allow HTML: This checkbox defines whether HTML is permitted in the comment body. If the box is unchecked and HTML is not allowed, all HTML will be stripped from the display of the comment.
Auto-Link URLs: When checked, all bare URLs will be transformed into linked URLs by adding the necessary HTML to form the link.
Text Formatting: Like entries, comments can use a text formatting engine or plugin. The pulldown menu specifies the text formatting plug-in to be used for weblog comments.
Under the TrackBacks section of the Feedback Settings configuration tab, youll find the following three controls related to managing and monitoring TrackBacks:
Accept TrackBacks: If enabled, TrackBack pings will be accepted for any entries that have been configured to Accept TrackBacks. Unchecking this option effectively disables the receipt of incoming TrackBack pings for the weblog.
Moderation: If checked, all TrackBacks will be held for approval before they're published.
E-mail Notification: You can request that the system send an entry's author an email notification for pings with this control. If notification is set to Attention Required, email will only be sent when a ping is in moderation and requires approval before being published.
Under the Junk section you will find three controls related to handling of undesirable comments and TrackBack pings.
Junk Threshold Score: This control provides a junk tolerance level for all comments and TrackBack pings received on a weblog. The value of this setting will be considered the baseline for non-junk for all future feedback to the weblog and any with a Final feedback rating lower than the threshold will be considered junk. This setting provides an administrator to lessen the impact of noisy yet effective anti-spam plugins. Threshold values can be any real number between -10 and 10 and can be adjusted via the slider although Six Apart strongly recommends the default value. See Chapter Six for more details on this.
Auto-Delete Junk: When checked, junk feedback will automatically expire after a duration of time (set in the next option) since the feedback item was marked as junk.
Delete Junk After: This control allows you to choose how many days comments marked as junk should be held before expiring from the system. The default is 14 days.
To disable comments/TrackBacks system-wide
1. Comments are normally controlled on the blog-level, but can be disabled system-wide if neeed. To do so, navigate to the System Overview screen, or any screen where your system-wide navigation bar appears.
2. Click the SETTINGS link found in the Configure section of the sidebar navigation menu. This will open the system settings.
3. In the Feedback Master Switch section, you will find one checkbox for disabling comments and one for TrackBacks. Check whichever you wish to disable.
4. Press the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page to make the change take effect. After this all feedback of the selected type will be denied and discarded. A notice will be shown on the blog and entry controls indicating the disabling of the functionality and if the blogs are rebuilt, the changes will be evident on the published blog.
To enable commenter authentication
1. Navigate to the Main Menu for your individual blog, or any administrative screen where your blogs sidebar navigation menu appears.
2. Click the SETTINGS link found in the Configure section of the sidebar navigation menu. This will open the General Settings configuration screen for your blog.
3. If the Feedback tab is not visible on your screen, click the link labeled Switch to Detailed Settings found in the upper right hand corner of the screen to reveal this tab.
4. Click the Feedback tab to open the Feedback Settings screen.
5. In the Comments section, in the field labeled Accept comments from, click the radio button to select either Anyone or Authenticated commenters only. This will reveal settings related to user authentication.
6. Click the button labeled Set up Authentication in the field labeled Authentication Status to either set up a free TypeKey account and obtain a token or to retrieve your token from your existing TypeKey account. Alternately, you can log into TypeKey, retrieve your token and manually paste it into the box on the right of the setup button.
7. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the Save button to implement your changes.
8. When prompted, rebuild your site for this change to appear on your public facing blog.
1.3 Managing Comments and Commenters
Weblog comments allow readers to post comments on an entry and engage in a more direct and immediate conversation. This idea originated from the earliest of online community tools: bulletin boards. Weblog comments differ by organizing the conversation in a single thread. Unlike on a bulletin board, these discussions are typically started by a limited number of individuals, which generally increases the quality of the comments.
Procedures for all tasks related to managing your comments (viewing, editing, publishing, unpublishing, deleting, etc.) are outlined here.
To view and manage all comments for a weblog
1. 3b26f08743785f26e9a795244cd84e23 Navigate to the Main Menu for your individual blog, or any screen where your blogs sidebar navigation menu appears.
2. Click the COMMENTS link found in the Community section of the left navigation bar. This will open the comments listing screen for your blog.
To view and manage all Comments system-wide
1. Navigate to the System Overview screen, or any screen where your system-wide navigation bar appears.
2. Click the COMMENTS link found in the Aggregate section of the left navigation bar. This will open the Comment listing table displaying all Comments for all blogs in your system.
3.
In the comments
listing table, select the comment or comments you would like to publish by
clicking anywhere in the corresponding item rows, or by checking the box next
to each of the desired comments. Unpublished comments are identified by the
following symbol:
4.
Click the button
labeled Publish located in the action bar above the comment listing table.
This will automatically publish the selected comment to your public facing
site. Successfully published comments are identified by the following symbol:
To remove comments from public view (unpublish)
1.
In the comments
listing table, select the published ( ) comment or comments you would like
to remove from your public facing blog by clicking anywhere in the
corresponding item rows, or by checking the box next to each of the desired
comments.
2. Click the down arrow in the More Actions dropdown menu and select Unpublish Comment(s). This will automatically remove the selected comments from public view, but will not delete the comment from your database.
1. In the comments listing table, select the comment or comments you would like to publish by clicking the title of that comment. This opens the comment editing screen.
2. Modify the content of the comment in addition to the publishing status and commenters profile information as desired.
3. Click the Save button to finalize your changes, or the Delete button to remove this comment from your blog entirely.
1. In any comments listing table, select the comments you would like to delete by clicking anywhere in the corresponding item rows, or by checking the box next to each of the desired comments.
2. Click the button labeled Delete located in the action bar above the comment listing table. This will bring up a dialogue box confirming your deletion.
3. Click Okay to confirm that you wish to delete the selected comment(s) they will be removed from the database and the listing table immediately.
To view and manage junk comments
1. From the comments listing table, click the tab labeled Junk Comments to open your junk comments listing table. The junk comments listing screen can be identified by its distinctive brown color.
2. Select the comment or comments you would like to manage by clicking anywhere in the corresponding item rows, or by checking the box next to each of the desired comments.
3. Click any of the buttons or select an action from the itsemset actions dropdown menu on the right. The Not Junk button automatically publishes the selected comments to your public facing blog. The Delete button permanently removes the selected comments from your database.
To empty your junk comments folder
1. From the comments listing table, click the tab labeled Junk Comments to open your junk comments listing table. The junk comments listing screen can be identified by its distinctive brown color.
2. Click the Empty Junk Folder button in the action bar. This does not require selection of comments and will, after confirmation, empty your junk folder.
To access a list of all authenticated commenters
1. Navigate to the Main Menu for your individual blog, or any screen where your blogs sidebar navigation menu appears.
2. Click the COMMENTERS link found in the Community section of the left navigation bar. This will open a listing screen of all authenticated commenters.
To designate authenticated commenters as trusted
1. Navigate to your authenticated commenter listing screen. This screen contains a list of all authenticated commenters that have commented on your posts, displayed in reverse chronological order.
2. Select the commenter or commenters you would like to mark as trusted by clicking anywhere in the corresponding item rows, or by checking the box next to each of the desired commenters.
3. Click the button labeled Trust located in the action bar above the commenter listing table, The specified commenters will now be designated as Trusted within your blog and, if configured in the Feedback settings, their comments can be processed differently than non-trusted users (e.g. automatically posted on your blog).
To ban authenticated commenters
1. Navigate to your authenticated commenter listing screen
2. Select the commenter or commenters you would like to ban by clicking anywhere in the corresponding item rows, or by checking the box next to each of the desired commenters.
3. Click the button labeled Ban located in the action bar above the commenter listing table, or by selecting Ban Commenter from the More Actions dropdown menu and clicking Go. The specified commenters will now be designated as banned within your blog and their future comments will be handled as junk by the system.
To view/edit information about an authenticated commenter
1. Navigate to your authenticated commenter listing screen.
2. Click on the name of the commenter in the Commenter field of the listing. This will the authenticated commenter editing screen.
3. From the authenticated commenter viewing screen, you can change the status of the commenter (Trust/Untrust/Ban/Unban), send email, view the commenters TypeKey profile or URL or do a search for other comments with that same commenter information using the magnifying glass to the right of the information. For example, you can see all comments with a particular URL or from all Trusted users.
To view comments by an authenticated commenter
1. Navigate to your authenticated commenter listing screen.
2. Click on the name of the commenter in the Commenter field of the listing. This will the authenticated commenter editing screen.
3. From the authenticated commenter viewing screen, you can change the status of the commenter (Trust/Untrust/Ban/Unban), send email, view the commenters TypeKey profile or URL or do a search for other comments with that same commenter information using the magnifying glass to the right of the information. For example, you can see all comments with a particular URL or from all Trusted users.
4. Click on the Comments or Junk Comments tab at the top of the screen. This will show you a full-actionable listing of the commenters authenticated submissions. This is different than a magnifying glass search from the previous procedure in that a comment that was submitted an unauthenticated or authenticated under another username can have the same metadata such as email or URL.
TrackBack pings are managed precisely like comments in Movable Type in that they have a listing screen, an editing screen, can be moderated, published, deleted and searched. If you have a grasp on managing comments from the previous section, you will feel very comfortable managing TrackBacks.
Aside from display on the published blog, the difference between TrackBacks and comments is simply in their source. While comments are submitted by authenticated and unauthenticated commenters, TrackBacks are sent from other blogs and contain different metadata.
The listing table illustrates these differences and contains columns for: Excerpt, From, Target, and Date. There is an additional column in the system-wide listing specifying the blog to which the TrackBack is related. To help you better understand TrackBacks, these components are described below.
Excerpt: This is the excerpt of the entry on the remote blog.
From: The remote blogs name linked to its URL.
Target: This is your local blog entry to which the TrackBack ping was sent.
Weblog: This is the blog in your system to which your local entry was posted. This column is only visible when viewing the system-wide TrackBack listing table.
Date: This is the date on which the TrackBack link was received.
To view and manage all TrackBacks for your blog
1. Navigate to the Main Menu for your individual blog, or any screen where your blogs sidebar navigation menu appears.
2. Click the TRACKBACKS link found in the Community section of the left navigation bar. This will open the TrackBack listing table for your blog.
To view and manage all TrackBacks system-wide
1. Navigate to the System Overview screen, or any screen where your system-wide navigation bar appears.
2. Click the TRACKBACKS link found in the Aggregate section of the left navigation bar. This will open the TrackBack listing table displaying all TrackBacks for all blogs in your system.
