[kennethmac2000]

What criteria do you use for deciding whether or not to allow comments on a particular story, and is your decision influenced by any third parties?

For example, as a UK reader who has already experienced the problem of the UK Big Brother 3 being streamed using RealOne, I would quite liked to have commented on today's similar story relating to the US version, but I couldn't.

Then sometimes there are stories that one couldn't possibly imagine wanting to comment on for which comments are permitted. It all seems very bizarre!

[Macola]

Would have replied earlier, but IE crashed on this page (yet again...)

I think you can comment on any story if you click on the headline itself. However, this is not at all obvious, since the only indication that the headlines are clickable is a rollover. Using two different hyperink schemes (one of which violates basic usability principles) on the same page is an example of really bad interface design (from my viewpoint as a usability specialist, at least).

Also, for whatever reason, many of the stories lately are not showing up as having comments, even though they're there.

[kennethmac2000]

Ah right. Cheers. (IE also hung for me on my first attempt at viewing this thread!)

Presumably it would make much more sense to have '0 comments' next to stories with no comments then, thus making it clear that comments can be made.

[Roxie]

...And some stories that allow and show comments made have none when viewed.

As far as hanging on this site only, it's been horrid since MacNN did it's last upgrade or was that the last i.e upgrade I installed? They both came about the same time, at least for OS X. Whatever the case may be, it just seems to worsen over time.

Rox