Hey there, everybody!
We've heard your comments and frustration around our recent commenting policy change, and it's high time to explain that. But first give me a sec to introduce myself, and I'll explain why it happened like it did.
Hi, my name is Aaron Weber, and I'm the product manager for GoComics. For those of you who are blissfully unaware of the intricacies of tech-speak, that means my job is to not only think about GoComics 24/7, but to oversee its operations and act as the director per-se (and general cat-herder) for the upcoming relaunch. Everything from the look to the function runs by my desk. I've been reading comics (both strips and comic books) for over 40 years, and my love for this art form has as much to do with why I'm here as my background in web development. To whit - this is just a small sample of my bookcase.
While I'm a relatively new hire by Andrews McMeel Universal (the parent company of GoComics) standards, I've been in this role for just over a year now. That year has been spent thinking about how to preserve the things we love about GoComics while embracing modern web standards and technologies, how to offer our fantastic creators more tools to communicate with you, our fellow comic fans, as well as just generally prettying up the place.
To steal a line from Tyrone Davis, Let me tell y'all: That's a lot to think about.
You might remember the survey we asked folks to fill out last November. That was me trying to get a feel for what you, the folks who make up the GoComics community, were looking to us to improve. We heard you loud and clear. Those answers informed so many of our choices for the relaunch, and (speaking as a comics fan), I think you're going dig what we've done with this glorious love-letter to comic art and storytelling we call GoComics. So thank you so very much for sharing your passion and opinions with us. I truly cannot thank you enough.
But let's get to this thing about the comments, yeah?
First up - Here's where we goofed. We didn't communicate the change to our commenting rules ahead of time, and you know what? That's on me. We had to make the call to implement the change quickly for a variety of reasons, and the site as it exists today lacks some tools that would allow us to convey urgent messages as they happen. So this is me saying very plainly: I'm sorry we couldn't communicate it ahead of time, and I'm sorry it's been seen as disruptive to your GoComics experience. Those of you directly affected by the new guidelines have legitimate reasons for being upset about how it went down, and were I in your shoes I'd feel the same way. I remember when the 7-11 I relied on for my daily dose of Pina Colada Slurpee swapped out my beloved flavor for some Mountain Dew monstrosity with no warning, and while no one ever found out what caused that unfortunate fire that leveled the building, I can't say I was sad it happened. But anyway - What I'm going to ask of you now is to let me explain why.
Reason #1 - Letting commentators use HTML to alter formatting and image links into comments represents a not-insubstantial risk, as it opens GoComics up to bad actors who would use that freedom to exploit and disrupt everyone's experience on the site. Our server team spends no small amount of effort protecting the site from malicious attacks on a regular basis. The fact that you see so little disruption to your experience is a testament to the skill and care our team generously gives the site. We've had a particularly bad round of that exact scenario of late, and locking off commenting was simply a case of self-preservation.
Reason #2 - Because our (frankly pretty awesome) commenting community is linking images rather than uploading them in some very real ways we're potentially hurting other websites. Having a site as big as GoComics using up your bandwidth can put a real technical and financial pressure on whomever is actually hosting that image. I can even give you a very recent example - The wonderful community of fans who wanted to partake in the current Luann wedding contest were frustrated on the first day of voting because we sent so much traffic to the wedding site that it simply could not handle the load and was unavailable for a good portion of the day. That's just not great for the fans, it's not great for the Luann team, and it's not great for GoComics. We don't want to be the site that hugs other sites to death or imposes financial burdens simply because of how much traffic we send them.
Reason #3 - The new version of GoComics that we'll be sharing with you very shortly is built to look absolutely lovely on your desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone, and allowing images of any size, height, or width quite frankly can break that that experience. We would never, ever place our design and build above your enjoyment of GoComics, or the great feeling of community that can be found there, but at the same time we have to balance both some real limitations on how those images look on all the aforementioned devices, as well as the feedback from so many of you who told us that the current commenting system was obtrusive, distracting, and was taking away from your enjoyment of the comics.
So there you have it. I'll say right now that I can appreciate that those of you who utilized the image and link options in the comments might find these reasons cold comfort indeed. We altered an experience you had come to consider part of your daily life, and while we did so with the best of intentions, it doesn't diminish the disappointment.
So let's make a deal, one comic fan to another (or in this case, many others) - Our upcoming beta is exactly that, a beta. We're going to show you some new and exciting changes that we're thinking, (hoping, wishing, and a'praying) you're going to love, but the explicit promise in launching a beta is that we give you a chance to kick the tires as well as voice your feedback, which I can promise you we'll consider and explore with great care before we commit to a new way of doing things.
In the meantime, We'll continue to evaluate and explore our new commenting system (which looks great, by the way), and we'll listen to your feedback on what you want to see from it. So while we've had to restrict some commenting options right now, that doesn't mean we're going to restrict them forever.
Got questions? Fire 'em off in the comments below, and I'll address what I can.
Again, It's frankly pretty great to finally make everyone's acquaintance, and I'm looking forward not only to helping everyone understand the nuts and bolts of what we're doing with GoComics, but to being a part of what is inarguably an absolutely wonderful community of fans who love the same art form I've loved my entire life.
Cheers and don't forget to
READ COMICS EVERY DAY,
- Aaron