
Test over. I love Disqus, but I’m back to the WordPress comment system.
Here’s what I loved about Disqus, why it might work great for you, and why I turned it off (at least for now).
The Awesome
- Disqus handles filtering comments, auto approves and generally takes care of a lot of the admin side of comment management. It did save me time. For this reason alone it’ll stay a possibility for the future.
- The layout is beautifully clean. I like that. It just looks neat and orderly.
- It allows sign in through multiple sites, helping improve your reach into the social networks.
- It brings in Tweets as reactions and lists them below the comments. Awesome for social proof as well as a nice little ego-boost.
The Less-Awesome
- It didn’t work for everyone. I’ve had more than one regular commenter unable to leave comments. This makes me sad. Troubleshooting it isn’t easy unless I want to go through 20 questions (what browser are you using, are cookies turned on, is javascript turned on, are you signed into Disqus, are you signed into social sites, etc — no one should have to go through that to leave a comment). And if a few people have emailed to tell me about it, how many have gotten frustrated and left without commenting?
- It doesn’t show trackbacks. I like knowing if I’ve been talked about somewhere else. They still show up in WordPress and I can moderate them there so it’s not a huge deal, but it’d be nice if they were handled in Disqus.
- I had to give up CommentLuv (the plugin that shows the poster’s last blog post below their comment). I love, love, love CommentLuv. It’s awesome. It makes it easy for me to visit my commenters.
- Also had to give up the Twitter Link below usernames and I found I missed that more than I expected. I really like to connect with my commenters on Twitter and get familiar with their names/IDs.
- Gravatars weren’t showing up. I have no idea why. I miss seeing faces though.
Some of these are probably settings issues. I’ve played with it some but I haven’t been motivated enough to really mess with it — so in other words, I didn’t give it a totally fair chance and you shouldn’t hold this against it. Some may be related to my theme (although it’s a popular premium theme and I have to think it was tested with Disqus at some point). And most are really minor (except the top one and the CommentLuv one). In fact, the awesome almost outweighs the less awesome list. It’s really close. I can see Disqus being the perfect solution at some point in the future for me–especially if they implement something like CommentLuv.
Did you like Disqus here or are you happy I’m back to CommentLuv and WP powered comments? I’m willing to keep re-thinking this one.
But for now I’ve pulled my comments back out of Disqus. CommentLuv is back. So comment away and get links back to your site, your last blog post, plus a link to your Twitter.
I’d love to hear your two cents on comment management. Do you prefer a system like Disqus with the profiles and other cool features? Or have you stuck with what’s built into your blog and just added plugins for more functionality?
I like this much better because it remembers me and all I have to do is type in my comment. Good on ya!
Jeanine
Good to know, Jeanine, thanks!
Me too. I hated Disqus with a passion :)
I need to do the comment luv thing on my blog too!!! And someone asked me to put a little button that you click to tweet this (I said I don’t know how but will ask the Tech-Expert (YOU!))
P.S> This is exactly what I always think
And if a few people have emailed to tell me about it, how many have gotten frustrated and left without commenting?
Here’s CommentLuv – http://comluv.com/download/commentluv-wordpress/
For Twitter there are lots of choices. :) Here are some to checkout:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweetmeme/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sharebar/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/new-twitter-button/
I like this way better with comment luv. the disqus, sorry i ahted when someone has that for leaving comments because it is a huge hassle. btw, i tried to get comment luv to work on my blog, but cant get it to work, maybe because its blogspot?
Hey Mari, I’m not too familiar with Blogger but if I understand correctly it allows Intense Debate and then ComLuv is a plugin for that: http://comluv.com/download/commentluv-blogger/ Hope this helps! :)
I like this much better :). I’m glad you switched it back. I use what’s built in and add plugins.
I missed CommentLuv! I think that’s my favorite commenting plugin of the ones available for the WordPress built in comments.
First – Welcome back to wordpress comment system and I am sure you will stay with it . I am a webmaster but always refuse to comment on those blogs, where I find Disqus comment system . I don’t want to login my user id and password of any profile to make comments .
It is just not me but many other normal users too . They always hesitate to enter social account details on other sources and that’s why they don’t even post feedback too .
Disqus offers a couple of options there, including allowing commenters to just enter name/url to comment but many users turn that off and force logins. I agree, that decreases the chances of someone leaving a comment.
Great article. I agree that WordPress is the way to go. I have tried several different comment plugins for various clients and still prefer the WordPress one the best.
There is something I’ve never liked about Disqus. It seems a little convoluted when compared to other commenting systems, which even puts me off commenting sometimes. Not good!
I have recently found both and tried them both the only reason I want go with Disqus is for the reactions however they don’t seem to be working so I will be going back to CommentLuv after 24 hours just so it has time to settle down and see whether it finds them.
I must admit I prefer CommentLuv as I agree with what it is trying to do and its great for all bloggers, but a few of my readers react using twitter so Disgus would suit me if the reactions would work but watch this space and thanks for the article I really enjoyed the read.
I have recently found both of these comments addons in order to try and increase the amount of comments and interactions on my blog. My blog is very small and gets hits but no one seems to leave a comment. I must admit I do it in my spare time.
The main reason I want to use Disqus is because it gets twitter reactions which I do get but it doesn’t get reflected on my blog so if that feature works I will probably go with Disqus. However that will be the only reason and in my heart of hearts I am hoping that it doesn’t so I can go back to using CommentLuv because it helps everyone.
I will being giving it an hour or two to sort itself out so feel free to drop in after that or before for that matter and have a look around.
Great post Michelle. I’m in the same boat right now. Although I like Disqus, I’ve noticed a decrease in my comments once I switched to it. Plus I love Commentluv and a few other plugins that aren’t Disqus friendly. I think I’ll be making the switch back to WordPress comments soon.
My comments have definitely gone back up since I dropped Disqus and reactivated CommentLuv. I think it may depend on audience though because I’ve heard from some bloggers who had their comments go up once they got Disqus working (I’m thinking they may not have been using CommentLuv in the first place). I’m still holding out hope that they’ll figure out a way to integrate CommentLuv. Until then, I’ll stick with WordPress comments. :)
I just love disqus as a commenter because it seems like a real time commenting system. The people that use to comment and comment when the topic is really a live. Well I guess having a good topic in a blog makes the people attract to comment on it. With this post, I find it so interesting good job.
Currently using Disqus, thinking to shift to CommentLuv just to find out how it works out
I’m late to the discussion, but I find there is no perfect commenting solution. Disqus takes care of so many headaches. For example, when administering your blog system yourself, like you seem to be doing now, I often find myself having to tackle up to 500 spam comments a day, just as one hassle example, which detracts from my enjoyment of the blog.
– Carl Kruse