Comments on HinesSight posts

Comments are often the best part of a blog post. This is how blog visitors get to communicate with other visitors and the author of the post.

Recently TypePad, which hosts this blog, added some new comment features. Here's the best one: you now can subscribe to a comment feed.

If you're not familiar with Internet feeds, here's an overview. Basically they're a way of keeping up on what's happening with a web site or blog without actually visiting the site/blog.

The comment section of every HinesSight post now begins with: "You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post."

If you click on "comment feed," you'll be taken to some options for subscribing to a feed for that comment. Once you've subscribed, you can use that option to keep track of new comments without going to my blog.

I've tried out a couple of the feed readers. My favorite is Google Reader. It's free, easy to use, and supported by the TypePad comment feed. Here's a quick tour of Google Reader.

I'm no expert on feed readers, but I've learned a few things in the brief time I've been using Google Reader.

--It can take a while for a feed, like a new comment on a blog post, to show up. Maybe several hours. Google Reader periodically checks for new content. The more popular a web site or blog is, the more often it checks.

--Clicking the "refresh" button doesn't mean Google Reader has gone out and checked your feeds for new content. It just means that Google Reader has checked it's regularly scheduled scan of the sites/blogs.

--The first time you add a feed, likely quite a few posts, comments, or other content will show up on Google Reader. The number of new items is shown in parentheses, like (11), after the name of the feed on the home page.

--When you've looked at the items on a feed, click the "mark all as read" button. That will make the feed name disappear from the column on the left side of Google Reader. Don't worry. This is good. When there is new content, the feed will reappear with the number of new items shown, so you won't waste time re-reading stuff.

The TypePad comment feed feature also worked well for me in Microsoft Outlook, the email software. When I clicked on "Outlook," a feed for that comment was added in the "RSS Feeds" mail folder.

New comments didn't show up automatically in my email inbox, but when I clicked on the item in the "RSS feeds" folder, the comments showed up. Almost instantly after they were posted.

So if you want to know ASAP when a new comment has been added to a post, Outlook seems to be the way to go -- compared to Google Reader, at least.

Lastly, TypePad also has added a feature that is good or bad depending on how you look at it. The number of comments shown on one "page" of a post now is limited to 50. To see more, you have to click on "More comments."

On a few posts this will make it a bit more difficult to read the most recent comments. But if you subscribe to a comment feed for a post, as described above, this won't matter.

Comments

[james louis]

You are a typical asshole who doesn't know much about wildlife in the state of Oregon. Move back to California or the East Coast where you belong.

How much money does the average enviro spend on protecting wildlife while complaining about hunters ect. Hunters spend thousands to promote heathy enviroments for game while most most of you do little to help. Your numbers are wrong, and the truth of the matter is deer populations are not doing well in our state because of predation. 1 cat takes one deer, elk, sheep or goat every week. Thats equal to over 100 hunters. The average hunter sucess rate per game unit is 30 percent at best. The state of biologist want more hunting and have supported measure 34 to repeal 18.
Futhermore, as a native and third generation Oregonian I don't think most outside of Portland see this issue "Through an Oregonians Eye" like yours. Spend some time actually getting into the field and get your facts staight because your just another one of the sheep you listen to groups from outside of our state.

[Blogger Brian]

James, I don't have to go far to get "into the field," since I basically live in one. Our home is on ten acres in rural south Salem. We've got deer browsing in our yard every day. We have cougars around here also, along with coyotes. So we know a lot about wildlife.

We just don't hunt them. Most Oregonians are like us, not like you: non-hunters. The United States and Oregon are democracies. Public lands aren't managed for the benefit of a few people, but for the benefit of all the people. So the goal of wildlife management isn't just to keep enough game animals around to keep hunters happy.

Research shows that top predators like cougars and coyotes are essential to a healthy ecosystem. Read some of my posts on this subject if you don't believe this. Go to the Google search box in the right column and type in "cougar" or "coyote."

[quid]

how thing look through an "oregonian's" eyes >. unfortunately "oregonian" and liberal have become inter-changeable these days:
not all lib ideas are bad >. but almost all have unintended consequences

[quid]

i am so sorry >. being a NATIVE OREGONIAN does not give one special insight or credibility >. in fact considering the jingoistic heritage of of Oregonians (they are a bunch of Okies) and the school system in Oregon (sub par to put it mildly) >. being a "native" implies both bias and stupidity >> no offense

[Blogger Brian]

quid, I grew up in California and moved to Oregon when I was 22. So I guess from your point of view I'm immune from the diseases of native Oregonian'ness.