May 08, 2013 06:59 AM UTC

Say Hello To Your Facebook Friends

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Perhaps the biggest reason why Colorado Pols is the most read and discussed blog in Colorado politics is our astute community of readers. We have always placed a high value on providing a forum for political debate for our readers, many of whom are themselves political insiders. That's why our reader account and community blog system has always been fully self-contained and pseudonymous.

In the time since Colorado Pols was first launched in 2004, social media has given readers many more options for interacting with news. Many readers today expect to be able to respond to our readers and content from their own social media accounts, and we want to accommodate them without disrupting our current successful model.

With that in mind, as some of you have already noticed, we have rolled out supplemental Facebook-based comments for all diaries. We have implemented Facebook comments separately from our primary account comments, and located them below the main comment feed on each page. Colorado Pols user accounts are and will remain the only way to post community blogs, and community comments will always be displayed above the Facebook comments on a page. This feature will not connect your Facebook account with Colorado Pols unless you proactively make that decision on your own. Colorado Pols community accounts are still the way to get the most out of the site.

To reiterate an important point: You can still comment anonymously as before, and you don't need to use Facebook comments unless it is your preference. But for those Facebook-lovers out there, it's our hope that in giving the vast audience of Facebook readers an easier way to participate, we'll bring many more existing readers out of the proverbial shadows.