I have replaced the Recent Comments widget in the right sidebar with one having better organization and more information. It has a bug: clicking on the commenter’s name only works if the comment is on the “first page” of comments. To make that less of a problem, I have increased the page length to 10 top-level comments.
There was also a problem with some comments being unreachable. I don’t know what that is about, but a new version of WordPress has been installed since that problem was reported.
Blogging software is not designed to manage an online forum. I could install forum software, but there are already lively forums on Obama eligibility elsewhere.
FYI: I liked the old recent comments widget better.