We've made it easier for you to comment

We made a change yesterday that makes it easier for you to write your own comments in response to one of our posts.

A you know, we welcome your opinion on the blog, and by simply clicking the "comments" button at the end of any given post, you'll be taken to a page where you can weigh in with your thoughts about the topic at hand. A while back we changed the settings so you no longer "have" to register to comment. Still, by registering you can safeguard your name (or pseudonym) so nobody else gets it first.

What we did last night is even better. You now no longer have to refresh the page in order to post a comment, or update the comments to see what everybody else has written. Once you're on the comments page to a particular post, just write your comment, publish it, and it will appear on the page without refreshing/reloading the page. The same thing happens when someone posts a new comment while you have the page already open - their comment will magically appear in front of you as it's published, no page reload (i.e., no delay) necessary.

We know the site can sometimes load slow, and trust me there's little we can do about it (we've tried). But this tweak will, I think, make it hugely easier to comment. In essence, once you're on the page, the comments will operate almost like a chat room.

In the end, we sacrificed some of our all-important pageviews in order to make the comments easier for you, but I trust the increased utility of the comments will hopefully make this an even better, more interesting, and vibrant community. So we think it's worth it. Try it out. It's quite cool.