Improvements to our discussions system

Discussion on the internet has, for the most part, become hidden on Facebook, or shunted to Twitter, Google+ or other places where it's harder to take part, and harder to see.

Discussions are, for the most part, also hard to monetise - nobody clicks on ads in discussion pages, for example - and have the capacity to stretch website teams. 99% of people are lovely, but 1% of people are unpleasant and disruptive: and this can cause significant issues.

Our own discussion area is surprisingly well used when it comes to new comments. A typical post can spawn quite a few new comments - helped particularly by Facebook's commenting system, which shares posts to Facebook itself.

However, it's been harder to persuade people to post new topics. Partially, we think this is because our discussion area is fairly hidden away, when compared to our directory pages. And, partially, we think this is because it's not always obvious when a post is connected to a media title.

We all feel strongly about the media. When our favourite radio station changes something, or our favourite newspaper reshuffles its features, we want to have a say about it: but we're not, yet, making it easy to do so. Until now.

You'll now spot posts appear in their directory pages - here's an example - as well as in the topic index. And, from every directory page, you'll find links to 'post a new topic' on media titles, channels or stations.

Our Twitter account for discussions now contains more information, and you'll see notifications on replies as well as new posts, too.

And we've also fixed the issue with "no comments yet" appearing erroneously. Thanks to Dave Hedley for spotting that.

We hope you enjoy the improvements.