In the recent feedback and suggestions box post, a couple of readers asked for a way to subscribe to comments so they are notified when there are new comments or replies.
I used to use a plugin for this, and not a lot of people used it so I took it down. Now, there’s a new plugin by the folks that also develop Wordpress, and I activated it yesterday with the click of a button. I’ll let it run for a couple of weeks to see if it catches on. If it does, I’ll keep it active.
When you subscribe to a post’s comments, this is what the email will look like:
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You don’t have to have a WordPress.com account to subscribe to comments or receive new comment notifications. But if you do, they give you an easy way to manage your subscriptions. If you ask me, there’s not enough added functionality to justify signing up for a WordPress.com account if you don’t already have one.
This plugin is a lot less functional on my end. I can’t see who subscribes to which post’s comments – all I can see is the total number of subscribers, and how it breaks down for posts.
But the good news – on my end – is that notification emails are sent out from WordPress. When the previous plugin was active, a lot of readers replied to the email – sending their comments to me – instead of hitting the reply button to be brought back to the post and comment they wanted to actually reply to.
In order to subscribe to a post’s comments, you have to use a real email address in the comments field. It defeats the purpose if you enter [email protected] or similar as your email address.
It’s pretty straightforward how the feature works. Enter your name/email/URL if you have a site, and your comment, and check the “notify me…” checkbox before submitting your comment.
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As an aside, in the URL box, they’re asking for YOUR site’s URL, if you have one. For instance, let’s say you worked for Joe’s Construction and had a site at http://joesconstruction .com. That’s what you would put there. A lot of people put toolguyd, https://14cyiuhvcgv.com toolguyd.com, N/A, NONE, and things like that. Don’t have a URL? Just leave that field blank. It’s a common mistake, but I figured this was a good post to bring it up in since we’re talking about comments.
Right now, this feature has been activated for a test run. If there’s an issue or severe lack of interest, it might be deactivated down the road.
While we’re talking about subscribing to things, have you subscribed to our newsletter yet? Subscribe soon and you might just catch the first non-automatic newsletter that I’ve sent out in a couple of years! It’ll be a doozy
Questions?
Hang Fire
This is a nice feature, but an edit feature to comments would be of more interest to me, even if it was limited to 15 minutes. I try to proofread, but it always happens some egregious spelling or grammatical error creeps in and then it’s there forever!
Adabhael
+1 on editing. I always feel I need to compose my comment elsewhere and triple check how it will render the HTML before I hit “post.”
jason. W
I check this site so often I don’t need to subscribe.
John
This is great there will be way more responses and coverage as old posts tend to get swept under the rug rather quickly and lots of good comments get left unread.
Bill K
Where can I find the “subscribe to posting” button? Great idea! I’ve looked but don’t see it?
Stuart
It’s a checkbox right under the comment submit button.
Check the button and then submit a comment to subscribe to the replies.