Staff Picks From This Week's Comments

The Huffington Post Community team is identifying new ways to highlight our community members' experiences and contributions to the site. We're developing features both from an editorial and tech perspective that will bring your thoughts into focus on the site.

As a first step toward our goals of promoting your point of view and highlighting the most intriguing discussions across the site, here are some of this week's staff picks of comments. We'll continue to expand on ways to feature comments in the weeks and months to come, because community is one the most important strands of the HuffPost DNA.

So take a look and follow the links in the captions if you'd like to continue those conversations.

As always, let us know what you think. We would love to hear your thoughts on these goals and any ideas that you may have to highlight top discussions in the community.

What are your favorite comments? Who are the commenters that you'd like to see highlighted?

 

Comments

[Vyslichajici]

05:27 PM on 12/18/2011

imo it is a huge mistake to hide the World section. it is one of the main strengths of huffpost, and it is now unavailable from the pagetop tabs. this is to request you include it. it is absurd to include "local" and to exclude "world".

please reconsider the decision to bury the "world" section. put it in the tabs please.

[Christina-Xena]

10:13 PM on 11/18/2011

Is the badge giving program gone for good now?

Haven't seen any I could give anymore, or that have been given to others.

[Mahi Joe]

04:09 PM on 11/11/2011

I like these staff picked comments with one exception. Being that these comments are actually quite interesting it's a shame we can't engage in the conversation.

[Macgregor Thomson]

11:13 AM on 11/16/2011

Thanks Mahi Joe. I agree, this isn't the best way to present the comments, since ideally users would be able to reply right in the slideshow, for example. In the meantime, while we work on making better tools to highlight comments, you can navigate to and reply to the comments in the slideshow by clicking the link in the caption of the slideshow.

[Macgregor Thomson]

01:19 PM on 11/08/2011

Hey folks, be sure to check out my colleague's article with more highlighted comments. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/annemarie-dooling/womens-comments-of-the-week-11-4_b_1076692.html

[amleth]

07:48 PM on 11/07/2011

I wonder if anyone else is having glitches in their new notifications box? When I click on "show all notifications" all I get is favorites. When I click on "show favorites" I get something else I can't even describe. When I click on a name that has favorited me, hoping to see what comment they favorited and when, the name disappears. Clicking on other notification items makes the calendar go backward by hours or even days. No offense, but why bother with this program if it does not function? The old notifications box on the regular page was not perfect, but was much better than this.

[gypsynomad]

01:44 PM on 11/08/2011

What happened to the comments at the side or at the top of the threads. No answers as well...sigh....

[Macgregor Thomson]

03:53 PM on 11/08/2011

Hi gypsy! sorry for the delay to respond. We're aware of those issues and working on fixing them.

[Macgregor Thomson]

03:58 PM on 11/08/2011

Hi there, you should send a message to tech to report this. Go to the contact us page: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/contact/ and click the link below "Report a Technical Problem"

[amleth]

05:55 PM on 11/09/2011

Thanks, Mr. Thomson

[sparkygirl91]

05:25 PM on 11/06/2011

Mr. Thomson, if, in fact, the badge program is gone - I'm so sad :( - don't forget the FAQ section needs to be amended then. Thank you.

Signed: Your friendly, average, sometimes pain-in-the butt, reader/poster :)

[BoFo]

07:47 PM on 11/06/2011

For me, badges disappeared several days ago. It happened the day after I kept getting an annoying and persistent reminder, at the top of my profile, of 5 people who had given me badges along with a suggestion that I award them badges.

I have contacted HP twice via the contact page, but have received no reply. Many others have commented about the disappearance of badges, but HP has been strangely silent on the issue.

If they have decided to discontinue them, they should just say so, or if there is a technical problem, they should at least admit it and say they are working on it.

Macgregor Thomson, who is the Community Standards Manager, has replied to a lot of the comments here, but has ignored all of those that have mentioned the badge issue.

BTW, I agree that the badge program is kind of silly. (Who would want a permanent LOL badge appearing at the top of all their serious comments?) They should either fix it or get rid of it.

[sparkygirl91]

10:18 PM on 11/06/2011

Well said. Mine also disappeared after that neon "give a badge" reminder. Actually I badged quite generously to those who were deserving so........ And yes it's interesting no responses to the "mystery of the badges" LOL. Sounds like a book or movie title - LOL. Take care.

[riverlee34]

08:24 AM on 11/07/2011

Same here, I kept getting the reminder, everytime I x-ed out, it came back the next time I went back to my profile. Then, I think it was the day after that, I couldn't give badges anymore. I thought I had done something, changed a setting or something. So, I wrote to HP, no response. I have seen others talking about it though, so at least I know it's not only me! And, yeah, just send out a quick message and tell people whats going on. OH--another thing is I always had a section that would show on the right of my screen when someone responded to a comment I made, I like it BC you can read it even when its still pending, that's gone too, very annoying.

[Macgregor Thomson]

01:18 PM on 11/08/2011

Hi, Badges should be back now

[sparkygirl91]

01:45 PM on 11/08/2011

WOO!HOO! Love my badges - LOL! Thanks Mac. :)

[amleth]

04:59 PM on 11/06/2011

AS with Pronese herein, I dared to ask for an improvement - and was scrubbed. Since when is asking for improvement an attack on anyone? What I would like is a specific thread within the site where we can go for updates about programs herein and changes to them. For example, does anyone know what is going on with the disappearance of badges?

[PRONESE]

05:44 AM on 11/05/2011

How about a weekly selection of comments that were redacted by the HuffPo AOL Moderators.
If the comments were no longer in context to a Blog posting they may no longer be objectionable but would be interesting reading none the less.
Nah!
Never Mind...
More Coffee...
R/ PRONESE

[msstrick40]

02:30 AM on 11/05/2011

Not sure if this is the appropriate place for this suggestion...but you all might try doing something with the articles that have the most favorable or positive comments. They're few and far between...lol..so it's refreshing when you see a majority of the posters agree on something. There were a lot of comments also.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/04/father-daughter-wedding-dance_n_1076406.html

[Rokgoo]

01:59 AM on 11/05/2011

I like this idea but, I would say the selected comments are not comments but articles about articles.

[TokyoTea]

11:01 PM on 11/04/2011

Wow, a place to give opinions on HP itself! I've been looking for one.

- You need proofreaders!

- A lot of articles leave out vital info that can make them confusing or misleading.

- HATE the sensationalist, I-won't-tell-you-unless-you-click headlines.

- The commentary is as important to me as the articles.

- Love that comments are open MUCH longer than on the NYT. (I never make theirs in time.)

- I have noticed, unfortunately, that the quality of commentary DECLINES badly for articles that are linked on AOL's homepage. I love the thoughtful exchange of ideas, but I'm really irritated at the zillions of comments on some articles that just spew insults. (I don't know if you can do anything about this.)

- Thanks for listening!

[rumple4skin]

10:44 PM on 11/04/2011

I would like articles to cite the original source. I would like "headlines" reflect story content. Some of the "teasers" are simply tablod-cliched and have become annoying.

I would like to be able to submit stories for moderator consideration for HuffPo readers. Many stories do not link back to HuffPo comments. (Maybe this is a good thing!)

I support your "Staff Picks" concept.

Sincerely yours ... and thanks for the great work you all do.

R4S

[Mort]

10:16 PM on 11/04/2011

Since we're using this as a suggestion box...

I'd like to see the comment box system dropped and go to direct links to the thread. The boxes may look nice, but they limit communication big time. If you want to see the flow of comments you have to scroll through page after page hoping to find it.

A direct link gives you the full context of the discussion, shows everyone involved and provides easy access to reply wherever you want. It lowers the need for extra coding, too, and saves everyone time, effort and frustration.

PS, Those ads that hijack the whole page are a form of guerrilla advertising. Huffington Post is better than that. At least they used to be.

[amleth]

09:24 PM on 11/05/2011

Well said. Fanned and faved. Apparently there are no more badges, or I would give you one, too.

[Mort]

10:20 PM on 11/05/2011

Thanks! And returned.

[riverlee34]

08:27 AM on 11/07/2011

I agree!

[gypsynomad]

10:13 PM on 11/04/2011

Just curious Mac, just read some posters were talking about having their badges vanish, or course I opted out, so out of curiosity I thought to see if you have posted on that. Here also none of the posters have badges either. So it is a glitch I suppose ?

[sparkygirl91]

02:52 AM on 11/05/2011

Yea, I was wonderin' too. Silly or not, I've earned my SuperUser title as well as my permanent "smart" badge. I love my badges, where are my badges? LOL. I want my badges! I want my badges! Just sayin' - LOL!

[gypsynomad]

07:03 AM on 11/05/2011

For me I opted out of the badges , hope you get your badges back !
Okay Mac...what`s going on ?

[amleth]

04:51 PM on 11/06/2011

Thomson, sorry.

[amleth]

04:50 PM on 11/06/2011

Or maybe they are working on the programming. It is intensely irritating to me, given the excellence of the site in many ways, that major changes occur without warning nor explanation, and most queries about them rest unanswered. It's not good policy in public relations, and it is really rude. There ought to be a specific place we could go for explanations of what goes on. No offense to you, Mr. Thomsen, I am grateful that you are here, even if you often seem lost in a rush of irrelevant and marginal articles that I would like to see separated from information specific about the site and its operation and policies.

[sparkygirl91]

05:12 PM on 11/06/2011

"Insightful" AND "Smart" :)

[gypsynomad]

06:07 PM on 11/06/2011

X2 and well said amleth , I hardly get an answer, Mac is good but nice to get some kinda response....I wonder sometimes if the posts are a bit antagonistic answers would not be there...;)

[Rheinbear]

09:18 PM on 11/04/2011

While every poster on HP seems to have problems with the moderation I have learned to love with it by taking a 'post and move on' attitude. I would disagree with the complaint of the "hit and run" snarky one line comments. These are sometimes the high point of some discussions and I have indulged in a few myself. As for slide shows, I like them. Just not a purist I guess.