A minor site update. Yesterday, I installed a couple of plugins that I hope make commenting on this blog a little more pleasant.

For months whenever I replied to a comment, I would hand-code a link to it like so:

@<a href="#comment-0000">commenter</a>:...

The result resembled a twitter reply:

@commenter:…

Now anyone who comments here can do that with far less effort. To reply to someone’s comment, simply employ an arroba (the “at” symbol, @) in front of the commenter’s name as it appears. For example, if you wanted to reply to a comment I made, enter @Fredo in the text field. When the comment is submitted, it will automatically generate the link as described above.

I thought about setting up a plugin for threaded comments, but I didn’t like how the only one I could find nested comments.

Second, if you’ve ever needed to edit a comment you made after you submitted it, you can do so for 5 minutes. This is similar to a feature in digg where you can edit a comment for two minutes after submitting it. No need to go to a special page on this blog to do it, just use the controls that appear under your comment.

If you’ve never left a comment here before, your first comment may still be put under moderation for me to approve, which I usually do within minutes.

The two plugins I used for these new features are @reply and WP Ajax Edit Comments.