Responding Directly

102 12

Starting today you might notice something different in the comments of the blog. We’ve created a plugin for WordPress that allows our blog authors to reply directly to a comment and have that reply appear next to the original comment. This should minimize many of the “@username” responses in our comments.

Comment Response

Currently, this feature is only available to the blog authors (you’re used to seeing their responses in red). We’ve debated opening up the option to everybody (and we may still), however, the question we always ask is, “Are we trying to replicate too many forum functions?” The other fear is that threaded comments would turn into this:

First!

As for you WordPress geeks out there, we plan on releasing this plugin along with one other very soon. More on that in a bit.

Comments are closed.

102 Comments

12 Author Replies

  • Definately don’t open this up to the public. The blog would get way too browded. You bould get off-topic arguments flowing easily and so being able to take up alot of space and it would be a serious pain to look through the comments. Keep it restricted to authors and you, of course, and it will flow much easier and would certainly turn out more user-friendly.

    Wonder what that “one other plugin” will be o_O

    I would like to see as much integration to the Playstation Forums as posible, possibly being able to fully combine your accounts. Would be great if the accounts were fully liked, but maybe just having different handles for the forums and the blog instead. However and whatever is done, I would love to see this happen.

    btw, how good are you on the drums at Rock Band? I can do Hard for the vast majority and Expert on most.

  • I agree with the other posters that say don’t open it to the public. It would get to cluttered and harder to read and this is supposed to be semi-professional :P

    –Add the ability to find [u]”blog authors” [/u] easier to see responses quicker
    –Add the ability to ignore [b]spam posters[/b]
    –Add the ability to [b]spell check[/b] before posting (yes I make mistakes and rather catch them before the post happens
    –Not a strong bullet point but an [b]quick edit[/b] option would be nice as to not have to double post in order to rephrase what you mistakingly typed incorrectly

    That’s pretty much all I can think of right now but if i come up with more I will post it.

    Thanks,

    GamerMan76

  • Jeff: it works now hehe!

    @46 –I have Jeff on my PSN list too–LOL we should all meet up in Resistance—I finally made 4-star general woo hoo! (don’t laugh–I took a LONG break from Resistance when I made 3 star and now just picked it back up—had it since launch LOL!)

  • (2nd post)

    @51 FYI: I mentioned in one of my previous posts my team is redoing our site to be wordpress—-we thought of trying a similar idea to what you are suggesting (combining the WordPress commenting login with a forum login)—when my guy looked into it he said it creates some nasty loopholes hackers can exploit to cause havoc—-so it is doable but I bet that is why SCEA isn’t doing it—sucks when you have to plan around the deviant people out there :-(

  • So, Jeff, I know I sound like a broken record, but can you PLEASE tell us an ETA for an in-game XMB announcement? At the least could you get Eric Lempell here to discuss the possibilities of getting it any time soon? It’s been over a year since I’ve been wanting in-game XMB, and all you guys have been saying is “We’re listening.” :(

  • Nice feature! You guys should swap places with the people who are working on PS3 since it seems they’re doing absolutely nothing. (In game XMB should have been there from the start, where is Home? Why does Japan get all the good stuff? Where is our GT5 Prologue Demo? etc…)

  • Awesome addition, and as a word press user I am extremely happy that you are releasing this to the world… Will it be free of charge?

  • @54-oh, that stinks. It would be awsome if it would happen, but I didn’t know that. Maybe SCEA could work to plug the loopholes, but maybe it just isn’t currently possible. Oh well, it certainly would have been nice.

  • Make um blue instead of red.

  • Jeff any thoughts on my idea about having a button or something that links to the post you are replying to/ talking about?

    • I think it\’s a decent idea, but it goes to the back of the queue. We\’ve got – by my calculations – close to half a dozen other improvements being worked on currently.

      Thanks for the feedback though, and please keep it coming. If enough people want this (or other features), well that\’s how we get things done.

  • I think it should be kept only for direct responses from blog authors, otherwise with all the fanboys from all sides weighing in, it will just look horrendous later on if you open this feature up to everyone. Keep up the good work guys!

  • Ok I Love it, and Jeff are you working on that Podcasts you said you be looking in to it? Love to is it!

    • The videos from CES were a first step. Right now, it\’s a matter of finding enough hours in the day. Can you lend me some?

  • http://www.douglaskarr.com/2007/10/27/blogs-versus-forums/

    This is a really great post about the differences between a blog and forum. Maybe it will help guide you guys in the right direction concerning the threaded comments issue.

  • @ Jeff

    Will there another PSP bundle? (Crisis Core, or God of War: Chains of Olympus). And I know Crisis Core bundle is limited in Japan.

    Off-topic: Do you really get paid by page views?

    • Keep coming back here for any and all announcements. Well, not the comments area. We\’d of course make any announcement big and bold and at the top.

      And no I don\’t.

  • Great idea for the direct replies. Cause sometimes I’ll admit if it’s something I’m interested in. I’ll go down and look to see any red replies if I’m in a hurry.

    Then I have to go back through and see what number was who and what they said. I wouldn’t open it up to the public though.

  • Hmm, we’ll have to look into some of the plugins used on here. We would really like to use them on our site.

    At out site, Triplechat.com, we use WordPress in conjunction with vBulletin for blogging and we got the colored-comments idea from this site.

  • What about linking this page up with that orange bar thing on the ps3.Then iI can check the blog without going into a browser thus that orange bar thing wouldnt be useless

  • Jeff, great idea. While I’ve got you, Toy Home does not allow you to load your saved data. E-mails to Sony and the developer have fallen on deaf ears (mice). A little help?

  • I have a ?? when is HOME finally coming out?
    There was all this talk about Playstation HOME what happen.

  • Can you guys also knock down the commercials and start actually informing us again?

  • Do you guys want to “Respond Directly” about the phasing out of the 80g model, and will it be replaced?

  • I like the new feature. Let’s see scaling support for those of us with 1080i-only HDTVs.

    Background:
    Games that only support 720p, downscale to 480p on televisions supporting only 480i/p and 1080i.

  • @ Jeff again

    Will HOME have trophies from old games such as Resistance, R6V?

    Will there trophies for PSN games like Pixeljunk Monsters?

  • This is the 250+ page thread about the scaling issue:
    http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3&thread.id=1543693

    See Comment 72 for details about it.

  • To Jeff yes I can! Is two hours good to you! If I can help I well, you if you like to have more hours get me on the PSN. The videos from CES were good and yes I’ll like to see more.

  • What’s wrong with the blog being more like a forum?

  • I’ve pretty much been here since the PSblog started and I gotta say that this “Responding Directly” have more red comments in it than I have ever seen in any other on this bloggsite. :P

    Nice work!

    And yeah, try to teach SCEE something about bloggs and how to listen to their fans in EU.

  • I think PS blog is the best thing ever donet his year :P

    Srsly, enabling a way to gamers to contact devs this easily is godlike!

    Keep the good work and I want to see more cool features :D

    BTW, the reply feature really works :D And keep the good work Jeff!

  • I think it would be cool for us to use it, but maybe limit it to one or two per blog entry and still keep the red color to blog author?

  • @Frazz

    Thats what I said in the past… this blog needs to be in the message board of the ps3.. only the headline and then said for more information click here and open the ps3 browser to the blog… the message board is a cool idea but now looks real bad with late news and sometimes with nothing, many people and ps3 fanboys knows about all ps3 content and downloads but the general people don’t… so, educate them…

    @tagout

    Yep, that will be cool but I guess is up to the developers of the game and not sony perse… but it will be cool at least sony push the developers of first and 2nd party games to do it…

  • Hi jeff, good job on the improvments. Some bugs tho. The red area does not come up on the psp browser. Also looking FWD to better psp support for this blog in the future. Keep up the good work.

  • Any idea when the next firmware update will be Jeff?

  • This is a great new feature so i might as well ask a question. Do the people at Sony look at what people post in the Forums?

  • My vote is a big no in making that feature avail to us…it would get way too busy on the eyes and make people skip over a bunch of comments unnecessarily IMO. Anyways great job on keeping us informed, keep it up!!

  • Hey Jeff, could you make this blog page more accessible via the PS3’s browser. The videos never play and logging in through it sometimes just freezes the thing (or maybe it’s my PS3 that freezes… in which case, crap!) maybe you could create a window below the XMB or something with a blog icon that will allow me to log in and read/comment.

  • Blair? Is that you?

  • Tear griffin it’s the same for my PS3 browser what few times I come here and use it. Whenever I log in it just freezes everything.

  • This guy sure does like replying to comments.

  • Awesome job with keeping the blog fresh and easy to use. :)

  • Sweet addition, I’m looking forward to that plugin release. I’ve been meaning to update my blog xD.

    And yeah, don’t think it’s a good idea to open that feature to the public, at least not for a blog. It can get quite spamtastic, I’ve seen some crazy chains of replies over at deviantArt.

    And with that post, I’m officially out of lurker mode :P

  • @Jeff

    Great addition to blog, hope this will help to understand each other (Sony & It’s users) a little better. I personally want to ask you a little favor – there are 3 simple things that I can’t do with my PS3:

    1. To see TIME on XMB screen.
    2. To charge SIXASIX when PS3 is off.
    3. To change “Album name” for multiple files.

    …and it’s really annoying =(. Could you please tell this 3 simple “bugs” to people in charge? It’s really easy to fix them (~20 min of coding). Thank you.

    P.S. Sorry for my bad English,

  • Hey Jeff just wanted to say thanks for working the best you can with us. Can I be your buddy?!

    I have a suggestion, its really crazy, but it would work out, it would get rid of the constant comments asking for things. Ok, here it is
    A post where Sony asks for what features would users like on the PS3 besides in game XMB and home, then after about a week, the most reasonable and coolest by the way (oh, and possible) are picked in a top 10. And then Sony can add these features during the lifespan of the PS3. I know it sounds disastrous but maybe the leaders of PS can round up in one big blog post?

    BTW Jeff please add me, my PSN is my ID here. Please! Your Awesome! When I become a game developer I want you to interview me BTW. So don’t start planning on retirement any time soon. :)

    P.S: Did anyone see the awkward comment about Jaffe and his video game groupies?

  • Hey jeff…since your a rock bander,you should let the sony highers ups know that the only thing keeping this former ps1 and ps2 owner from getting a ps3…Is the lack of a Rock band guitar patch,It would certainly help make my dive into the now gen alittle easier…

  • @#95 wes_jett2008
    I’m pretty sure that was Activision’s decision, not Sony’s

  • Jeff, what about Home? This is a nice feature but what abut the home feature. we wanted that like you wanted this……….

  • this is a great way for oyu guys at sony to reply to use.

    are we going to see a big jump this year on system updates if so what are some of the plans. thats if you can share some information to use.

  • @“Are we trying to replicate too many forum functions?”

    I would say no, you guys still have the power in creating the threads and people will still be replying to others even if you didn’t add the reply button (as they do now).

    So adding that function will only create a more sense of order IMO.

  • LMAO @jrubenstein #29

    thats alot better than before good work :D

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