Site News: New Commenting Functionality

Miroslaw Swietek captures stunning macro images of insects covered in dew. He takes his photos early in the morning in the forest near his village in Jaroszow, Poland. At that hour, insects and other bugs are still in a state of torpor and aren't disturbed by the camera, Swietek told LiveScience. CREDIT: Miroslaw Swietek View full size image

On Monday (Oct. 31), LiveScience will change its article commenting system to one that's more fully integrated with Facebook. The new setup allows anyone to log in with a Facebook account, or with a Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail account.

The change reflects a convergence in article commenting and other social media. As of this writing, LiveScience has more than 62,000 Facebook fans, and conversations about our articles increasingly take place on Facebook itself as much as on our article pages. By integrating the two more fully, we expect the conversations about science and how it fits into our lives will become even more thoughtful and useful and engaging.

Unlike our current setup, the new commenting system will not allow anonymous posts.

With this change, previous comments will not be archived, and LiveScience log-ins will no longer work. We'll be making a fresh start.

LiveScience has long had a robust community with lots of insightful and entertaining things to say, and we'd like to apologize to those who may not like the change. But we hope you'll stick with us and give the new setup a try as we go boldly forward.

Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.