Abbas S

This plugin helps to create a widget and shortcode to create featured blogs.
Following are the things done
A settings page created for featured. 
You can enter the blog id in the blog id: text box in the settings page and click on get blog details button . 
This will fetch( by AJAX ) get the blog name , blog link , and blog Avatar ( based on the avatars plugin ). 
It will also add two buttons 
 Add this blog -> Which will add this blog to the featured blog list 
Can -> it will not add the blog to the featured blog list. 
Then saving the settings will save it. The settings are saved different for each blog . 
Then the user can use the widget as follows . 
Drag the widget on a widgetize area. 
Enter the blogids in the widget , then those blogs will be used as featured blogs. 
If nothing is entered in the bloglist the blog list from the settings will be taken. 
The user can use the short code as follows
The user can specify the blog list in short code argument. For e.g:- [multisite_featured_blogs blogids=”3,2″].The those blogs will be displayed in the featured blog list. 
If the user passes no argument then in case the featured blog list will be taken from the settings. For e.g:- [multisite_featured_blogs]
This plugin was done as a part of some work done for http://premium.wpmudev.org/ , but was later not released. 
Thanks for all the help for this plugin from WPMU Dev

Multisite Featured Blog

This plugin helps to create a widget and shortcode to create featured blogs

Christian Wach

Commentpress

CommentPress Core is an open source theme and plugin for WordPress that allows readers to comment in the margins of a text. Readers may comment paragraph-by-paragraph, line-by-line, block-by-block or by selecting text (coming soon to touch devices).
Annotate, gloss, workshop, debate: with CommentPress Core you can do all of these things on a finer-grained level, turning a document into a conversation. It can be applied to a fixed document (paper/essay/book etc.) or to a running blog. Use it in combination with BuddyPress and Groupblogs to create communities around your documents.
Please note: for the time-being, this plugin works best when the Gutenberg editor is disabled. If you want the simplest CommentPress experience in WordPress 5.x please install the Classic Editor or Gutenberg Ramp plugin to manage the post types on which the Gutenberg editor is enabled.
Please note: this plugin comes bundled with three official themes, one of which must be active for CommentPress Core to function. The “CommentPress Modern Theme” will be auto-activated when the plugin is first activated. The old “CommentPress Default Theme” is still included for those who wish to stay with it or have built their own child themes for it. Since version 3.9 a new “CommentPress Flat Theme” is included for those who want an alternative layout. If you are upgrading from a previous version of CommentPress (3.0.x – 3.3.x), please follow the instructions in the Installation section before doing so.
For further information and instructions please see the <a href="http://www.futureofthebook.org/commentpress/" rel="nofollow ugc">CommentPress website</a> or visit the plugin’s <a href="https://github.com/IFBook/commentpress-core" rel="nofollow ugc">GitHub repository</a>. Contact the developers by email at <a href="mailto:cpdev@futureofthebook.org" rel="nofollow ugc">cpdev@futureofthebook.org</a>.
For sites hosted in the European Union, please note: the “CommentPress Default Theme” makes use of cookies, but for presentational purposes only. If you intend to use the “CommentPress Default Theme” on a public site, you may need to inform visitors of this.
Many thanks to the following for translations:
<ul>
<li>French – <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/profile/pouhiou">Pouhiou</a></li>
<li>Spanish – Andrew Kurtis from <a href="http://www.webhostinghub.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">WebHostingHub</a></li>
<li>Dutch – Gerrit Jan Dijkgraaf</li>
<li>German – Chris Witte</li>
</ul>

CommentPress Core

CommentPress Core allows fine-grained commenting in the margins of a text. Use it to annotate, workshop or debate a social text in a social context.

Multisite Featured Blog vs CommentPress Core