A Venting/Experimenting Coral Thread, and an Apology

By now you have likely logged into our articles, Fanposts, and/or vibrant Fanshots and noticed a change to the commenting system along with the fact that comments on all old articles no longer show up. This is because, as part of an announced change by SBNation, we have transitioned away from our old commenting platform to something new called Coral.

For anyone now upset (as I mayyyyy or may not be) that all the comments on this and some of our amazing articles are gone, from College Community manager Beth Maiman of SBNation in her announcement post on Off Tackle Empire (and every other SBNation college blog, lest we feel special):

Some important information about the change: your old comments are being saved and will be returned to the pages in the future, but for now, stories won’t contain comments posted prior to the changeover. So please be mindful that any discussions happening at the time the switch is flipped will be interrupted.

We have passed on our hope that comments will be restored immediately. I recognize that many of the changes made by SBNation were not ones you requested and that this new commenting system has its share of detractors. Please know that at OTE:

1. We passed those concerns on when this system began over a year ago, in a meeting with SBNation support six months ago, and again when this transition date was announced;
2. We think this transition will be deleterious to the health of our commenting community; and above all
3. That we value you, our community, above any clicks and hits and pivots to video/audio/radio/video again/Facebook/Twitter/video a third time that might be required of us. We’re sure this one, though, will work out.

If you can believe this, a professor and sometimes sportsblogyeller doesn’t have control over these things. But that doesn’t meant it doesn’t hurt to know that you weren’t listened to and that the community and experience you’ve enjoyed may be changing, permanently and not for the better.

(And it may be for the better! I am contractually obligated to point that out!)

You all make OTE great, and I’m sorry that this is where things are at right now. If you decide to move on to other blogs and platforms, I can’t fault you for that decision. I hope that you’ll stick with us wherever this goes, and I am so grateful to this amazing community of sportsblogyelling freaks who like 3 yards and a cloud of punt. You all have made my entire much of a couple days of surely some point of time in the last almost-decade writing and then managing this blog wonderful. I do love this community, and that’s a credit to all the amazing writers, past and present, and you, the reader and commenter.

Thank you, we at OTE love almost all of you, and I’m sorry.

If you would like to experiment with Coral, register your concerns or comments or anything else, and just play in a sandbox for a little while—or, indeed, scream into the ether about your problems with this platform—please feel free to use this thread to do so. Go nuts in the comments. Post things (appropriate, nonpolitical things) and push boundaries.

I am learning along with you, and I hope that when our gamethreads return this fall, this commenting system does not actively hinder the community we have built.

Hope being the operative word.