Hi Again,
Sorry for the bug which were introduced in Replyable 2.2.6. All is well again, and an upgrade to 2.2.7 (available now in your WordPress dashboard) will fix any issues related to missing comment notifications.
Best,
Jason
Author: Jason
Author-comments bug in Replyable 2.2.6
Hey Folks,
We’ve been alerted to a bug in the recently-released Replyable 2.2.6. We are addressing it now and hope to have a fix out today or tomorrow.
The issue is that authors, in some cases, may not receive notifications of new comments on posts which they have written.
We will post here again when the update has been released. In the meantime, it’s perfectly fine to roll back to 2.2.5, if you would like.
Let users subscribe to replies-only in Replyable 2.2
The newest version of Replyable is available now and brings with it a few new modes for powering comment subscriptions.
How Replyable has always handled active conversations
By default Replyable uses two systems to make sure nobody gets too much email.
First, it judges if a comment is worthy by performing length, relevance, and reading level. Those that don’t make the cut won’t be sent to subscribers.
Second, Replyable is smart about how much email it is sending. If a post gets too chatty it will either pause subscriptions (in the free version) or switch to a daily digest mode (on paying plans) that sends only 1 email every 24 hours with all new comment activity.*
This system works great for small and mid-sized sites but what if you are subscribed to 15 active conversations on the same site? That means on a good day you’re still going to get 15 emails from Replyable. Eh. Not so good on large sites.
* When one of these modes is active direct replies are still sent immediately to the person being replied to. Nifty.
Switch things up and send replies only
New in Replyable 2.2 is the ability to enable replies-only mode. You’ll find it in the plugin settings. Once enabled, subscribers will receive only direct replies to their comments via email. No other chatter. No daily digests.
Once enabled all legacy comment subscriptions will switch to replies-only and the tooltip on your comment form will change to let users know what’s up.
The risk of going replies-only
For most small to medium sized sites we don’t think replies-only is a good fit. It has been the #1 request of larger sites though. The reason we’re cautious is because of fragmentation within the conversation.
Danny Brown says it best in a comment on our Spring Postmatic Update:
I’m not too keen on the Direct Replies Only option – for me, it’s essentially reverting blog conversations to siloed conversations, which benefits no-one. A number of times I’ve had extra conversations spring up after a comment digest has gone out shows the value of open conversations.
That is a fair word of warning, but which brought us to our next idea…
Replies-only + Daily Digest mode!
As a kind of middle ground between replies-only mode and the default behavior we’ve made it possible to send direct replies to comment subscribers, but also keep them in the loop at the end of the day with everything else they missed in the conversation. We’ll probably make a tidy checkbox to enable this in the future, but for now all you need to do is set the trigger for Comment Digests to 1. That will do the trick.
We hope these three possibilities let you find a comment subscription setup that works for your community. As always, reach out if you need any help, ideas, or have an idea for a feature.
Switch to native WordPress comments, without letting down your Disqus users
Have you recently migrated from Disqus to native WordPress Comments? Cool. We’re glad to have you back.
One feature your commenters probably liked best about Disqus was that they could comment easily on your site without having to fill out their name, email, and website. Disqus let’s users sign in using their social profiles from places like Twitter, Facebook, and Google. That’s pretty handy.
You can recreate that experience on your site using any number of social login/authentication plugins such as our own Postmatic Social Commenting. But. We just ran across an interesting idea that is especially nifty if you used to use Disqus.
Let users log in with their Disqus account to leave a native comment on your site
WordPress Social Login is a plugin that lets users comment using their social profiles. It also now supports Disqus logins. If your commenters used to enjoy signing in using their Disqus account, they still can. But you can use native comments and still own your data. Win. It’s kind of the best of both worlds.
The featured image to this post is a recent weekend here in Vermont. Spring is a bit grumpy this year.
A Guide to WordPress Email Notifications and the Discussion Settings Screen
Comment notification settings in WordPress are confusing and make little sense. You may not even realise it. We have tested, analyzed, and document how it all works and the results aren't what even we were expecting.
Say hello to our new blog – Engage
You may have noticed that last month we introduced Replyable - a simpler, more affordable version of Postmatic with a focus just on commenting. And with it comes the launch of a new blog: Engage.
In the coming months you can expect at least one post a week focused on commenting, community, and leveraging engagement to increase sales, search engine rankings, and authority in your niche.