We’d like to announce a change in the way comments are handled on AJC.com. On Nov. 29, we will switch from an in-house commenting tool to Facebook’s commenting tool. Facebook commenting offers several advantages. It is the most widely used social discussion platform; your comments will appear both on our sites and on your own Facebook page; and our sites will have fewer of the totally anonymous comments that users have told us are occasionally inappropriate or abusive.
What this means:
• The switch is set to occur Nov. 29, sometime between 9 a.m. and noon.
• All historical comments in our previous system will no longer be on our sites.
• Commenting will only be available on some content. Editors decide on which articles will be open for commenting currently, and that will continue to be the case.
• You will have to log into your Facebook account to comment on our sites.
• Our organization will have no access to your Facebook information; this merely a widget that allows discussion on Facebook to appear on our site’s pages.
• Our site’s managers will still have the ability to monitor and remove comments or commenters.
• Users will still need to abide by the visitor’s agreement for this site, and you may be banned for violating it.
• Because the comments are Facebook’s, you can also be banned by Facebook from violating Facebook’s terms of service.
We apologize for this temporary inconvenience, but we believe the comments on our content will be more widely read, and the discussions more productive and more civil.
