[Magazine] Closing comments on old articles?

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, Oct 16, 2015 at 03:19:31PM -0400, Justin W. Flory wrote:
> On 10/16/2015 03:15 PM, Gabriele Trombini wrote:
> >Il giorno ven, 16/10/2015 alle 14.55 -0400, Paul W. Frields ha scritto:
> >>How do folks feel about time-limiting open comments on articles?
> >>We often see comments coming in on old articles.  We can't
> >>reasonably expect authors to monitor these forever.  It seems to
> >>me like 30 days should be enough time to allow comments,
> >>considering the curve of hits we see on the articles.
> >>
> >>What do other folks think?
> >
> >good point, sometimes I'm really bored about seeing comments on old
> >posts; but there are some evergeen post we should leave open (e.g
> >[1][2][3]) or open for a long time.
> >
> >IMO posts not related to the release or a specific version of software
> >should be open for more than 30 days.

How long?  90 days?  180?  Forever?

And what would you, as a commenter, a reader, or an editor, expect to
happen with the comments left after a certain period?

> >Is there a way (e.c. categories) to handle these terms? Are we able to
> >distinguish amongst posts? Also, are we able to remind to the author
> >his post is going to be closed, so he can ask to leave open if he
> >considers that its cycle is not ended?
> >
> >[1]http://fedoramagazine.org/make-github-pages-blog-with-pelican/
> >[2]http://fedoramagazine.org/how_we_translate_fedora/
> >[3]http://fedoramagazine.org/use-fpaste-share-problem-reports/
> >
> 
> I think having a category or some kind of tag to mark articles as
> time-sensitive is a good idea - I also think there are some articles that
> might be better for a longer commenting period and others that are useful
> only for a specific window of time (as mentioned with specific Fedora
> releases). I think this also depends on the author's activity with the
> magazine too.

The built-in function in Wordpress is global.  Either comments are
open, disabled on articles after a certain time period, or closed.

I found a plugin that accomplishes what we want on an individual post
basis:  https://wordpress.org/plugins/comment-expirator/

We should probably test that elsewhere before trying on the site.  The
plugin has a pretty low uptake, although it looks simple enough.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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