New story commenting features debut today

You’ll see a new look today at the bottom of stories on CharlotteObserver.com as we transition to an article commenting service that offers several new options.

(The new feature appears on stories created after 10 a.m. For stories created before then, you will see our old commenting system.)

We’ve prepared a Q&A to answer questions being asked most often about the change. I won’t repeat a lot of that here. But as a user, let me tell you some of what I like best about this new service.

Before, when you responded to another comment, your response often showed up amid a stream of unrelated comments. That could be very difficult to follow. Now, your response will be grouped with the original comment regardless of when you enter it.

The new feature also lets you go back into your comments and edit them at any time. Nice to know in case you see an error or have, uh, second thoughts.

Many of you are avid users of Facebook. The new feature gives you the capability of sharing your comments with friends on your Facebook page.

While this is a new commenting feature, you won’t have to re-register if you are already registered with CharlotteObserver.com. Your existing login information will still work. If you have forgotten your user name and password, you can have them resent to you by visiting http://www.charlotteobserver.com/member_services/.

Here is one downside we could not avoid. Your old Avatar will not migrate to the new system. We have a default Avatar that will appear unless and until you upload another. But we’ll make that easy enough to do.

Some users reading about the new system say they hope that this "fresh start" to commenting will lead to more inviting and enriching conversations. It’s no secret that a few rude and unruly voices can ruin the dialogue for everyone.

We've kept some features in place to help discourage that. The "report abuse" button still exists beside each comment to allow you to quickly alert us that someone has violated our rules for civil conversation.

We’ve also expanded the rules to expressly forbid some frequent forms of abuse. This includes the practice of camouflaging profanity with asterisks or abbreviations, and posting comments that bear no relation to the story. Go here to read the full policy.

Of course, only a small percentage of the thousands of comments each day violate these standards. And with your help, we can shrink that percentage still more. So, let us know when someone tries to mess up what is essentially your house and our house.

Oh, I should mention that this blog is a new look for me, too. For years, I’ve communicated through a Q&A column. I’ll still be answering questions about the Observer as you submit them through the link to the right. But I’ll also use this blog, as well as occasional columns, to keep you up to date on happenings in the newsroom.

So let me hear from you.