Facebook adds sorting and reputation features to Comments

Facebook has updated its Comments Box plugin for third-party sites with two new sorting options, Reverse Chronological and Social Ranking, on top of its existing chronological ordering, Inside Facebook reports.

The update has been rolled out and is available on the 300,000+ sites that use Facebook Comments.

Moderators get a new button to play with as well. A “Boost Comment” button allows mods to promote a post to the top of the discussion, allowing site owners to emphasize and encourage participation in particularly high-quality threads.

Social ranking doesn’t seem to be so much about ranking comments by one’s social proximity to other commenters, but instead based on the number of Likes comments have gotten, as well as the number of Likes and Boosts users have received inother comment threads.