Some of our readers may have noticed recent issues affecting the comments section of the UK Defence Journal.
Due to a change in the backend system that manages user engagement on the site, there have been temporary disruptions — most notably, a lack of notifications for replies and a noticeable increase in spam.
We understand how important it is for readers to follow conversations and engage meaningfully with each other, and we’re aware that these issues have affected that experience.
Please bear with us as we work to address the problem. We’re actively testing a promising solution that should significantly improve the performance and reliability of the comment system. Our goal is to ensure that discussion can continue in a respectful, well-managed, and technically stable environment.
As always, we appreciate your continued support and patience. We’ll provide an update once improvements are in place.
Nice one 👍
Thanks for being upfront about it 👍….keep up the great work George (and the team) !
Jolene makes the point nicely.
Thanks George. I wondered what had gone wrong. Can I have my emoji’s back please ?!!
Being able to paste links again would be nice.
Would be nice to see everyone’s actual profile like on the FB and Twitter sites. It stops all the multi account malarky !
“You show me yours and I’ll show you mine”.
This pixel “profile picture” is actually a really good way of spotting multi accounts.
I’m pretty sure it’s unique for each email address, so if the same name posts with two different colour combinations it’s easy to tell.
So good, I didn’t spot it! 😬
Get a Gravatar.
I don’t know how!
If you look at the new comment writing “box”, you can’t see your profile at all.
I guess you and Dern have just been around for long enough to have been able to get a gravatar.
I went on Gravatar.com long ago before I found UKDJ. It carries over into other sites, apparently.
Would you look at that, it worked!
Sorry for copying your colour scheme, the image is just too good to miss.
Wey Hey!
Join the club. Who else will join the Gravatar Brigade?
It is a bit too conventional for you though mate? No mortars or 105mm hanging off the wing pylons.
Yeah mine is from when I had my own website yonks ago, I was using gravatar for the profile pictures in the comments section. Once you have a gravatar it’s standardised for your email across basically any website that uses this comments system. Welcome to the club!
It did make me laugh though. I’d no idea I had an impersonator 😉
Stop being so gen y and 21c 😂🤣
I have had only one personal information leak over the last few years, which came through gravitar, so I’m reluctant to go back. I doubt that my experience was a normal thing and probably it’s all been handled, but I’m still a little raw.
I reckon ChariotRider is the evil Mastermind.
Oh damn, you rumbled me 🙂
And he has a lair, and a white cat on his lap as he moves around in his wheelchair manipulating events.
This is very good to hear, thanks George.
And it’s excellent that a solution is on its way! 😁👍
Fingers crossed it works, it has not been good for several years now and extremely frustrating when readers see Spam published on every article but genuine comments held for days at a time for moderation.
Years? We’ve had the spam issue for four months, a lack of reply for five?
I’m glad George has put it out there and acknowledged that solutions are afoot.
Full profiles of all contributors to weed out trolls would be good.
Do you mean like the old profiles with the history of comments?
Or a full profile like on a “proper” forum?
I’d certainly want the comment history back, as you could follow favourite posters, as well as see quite quickly who posts seriously here and who just trolls with one liner “drive by shooting posts” with no interest in debate or conversation, but an agenda to ridicule and deride.
There are several still here that fit this category.
I’m not on other forums so I don’t know what such a profile on a “proper forum” is? I’m one like several others who has no problem using my name, so a proper profile wouldn’t bother me.
Didn’t know you used to be able to follow people, that’s one of the functions I would consider most useful, especially when we have people like DaveyB around who wait a few days before posting a massive comment under an article.
The problem with comments history is that people can use it to pick out old statements and mistakes to attack others, like the person/people occasionally do with my real name, which I used for maybe 5-10 comments in, what, 2022, but keeps cropping up in the troll comments.
Mate, only follow people insofar as you’d look at their history. There was no actual “follow” function as such.
A proper forum is more like a bulletin board with subjects and threads and categories rather than a comments section like we have here. There getting pretty rare these days, which is a shame, but honestly defence forums are pretty intimidating to get into, even compared to something like the UKDJ comments section.
Thanks Dern. Is that so?
I’m very happy to know that this is being worked on – all the best with finding a solution! I’m looking forward to no longer hearing about how I can earn extra cash.
Funny that there aren’t any bots under this article yet.
I suppose some will turn up later, but it is very fitting.
There are some articles which they seem to avoid initially. I wonder if it has something to do with engagement.
I think George has been pruning them from this article, there was at least one I saw when it first went up that’s gone now.
Dearie me, I thought it was the Russians!
Not going to lie I thought this was in relation to all the “I make $60 an hour by doing abc”
Thanks George and team for all your hard work.
Looking forward to the new system.
Cheers CR
good time
We appreciate your efforts George, keep up the good work, someone has the hold the line. 🫡
And a thank you from down here in 🇦🇺 too George!
We’ve just returned a Labor government down here quite convincingly. Not sure how same itvis with UK Labour. It’ll be interesting to see how the AUKUS subs, missiles, drones and frigates all progress. Hoping the CSG might make a visit into Sydney.