Remember this?Well, as I (and Hatter and Sebastian and a few others have found out), Disqus is nice to look at, and comes about 85% towards working well, but is leaving a few people out in cold. Not sending email replies when people are asking for them, not synching all of the comments back to Blogger (at least, not in a timely fashion), not displaying everyone's comments (sorry to TheGreatWhiteDope and anyone else that might have happened to.
Long story short - there was a lot I liked about Disqus, but to quote the man himself, "I do mind, the Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man." The bad news is no more replying by email (god, that was awesome) and no more nested replies (I have faith that Blogger will install this feature soon), and there are some comments from the last week or so that haven't made their way to Blogger yet (like on the movie logo post, which now shows zero comments). I've not had Captcha in some time so no fear there. The good news is, lame as Blogger's system can be, it's certainly reliable and delivers what it promises, and I'm fairly sure those missing comments will be there eventually.
Sorry for all the dust that was kicked up....back to normal.
19 people have chosen wisely: on "The new comment system is...no longer here"
Smugness is: every so often I see someone who's tried to make disqus work (often with the same result as above) and I think 'I'm glad I've never tried that'.
Blogger's comment system: simple but functional. Some would say, rather like me!
Better to try something new and see how it works. Otherwise, nothing new would ever get adopted. I think you're right, Blogger is slow to roll out new things, but when they do it works pretty well.
Bummer. I liked the new system a lot, but you certainly don't want to be using stuff that leaves readers out in the cold.
Thank you for not using Captcha. Sometimes I just see that and go, screw that, I cant be bothered to put in the wrong combinations of incoherent letters seven times before leaving my comment.
Sam - You smug bastard! ;) It seemed worth a shot. I know of a few bloggers that have Disqus and I've never had a problem getting replies back from their sites. Figured it could work here. Alas...
Jess - At least it alerted me to a feature I hadn't even thought about (reply by email). I really wanted the nested replies, as that's what I think makes all those WP sites' comments section flow so much better, but hopefully Blogger will indeed roll it out soon.
James - Indeed. The evidence became overwhelming in favor of ditching it.
You're welcome. I've had it here or there over the years, but my system now is pretty solid. I just have to approve comments made on any post older than a day. And with how often I check the bin, it's not like any comment will sit there in moderation too long.
Eh.
Does Blogger back up Disqus comments? If so, I'm gonna switch back right now.
Oh wait. Never mind. If you go into comments on blogger, a lot of the comments that didn't register are listed under spam. You just select all and then publish. Didn't get all of them all. My Oscar Nom Prediction post and the Snubbies post are now reading zero comments.
Yeah, I was doing that multiple times a day. The "didn't get all of them" problem is the big one. Apparently, they're not all synching up (I'm missing about 100 from Disqus; Hatter is as well). If they make it over here, great, if not...
This is a concerted effort to discredit Disqus!!! ;) Ahah, well it was worth a try. Still have to do what you think is best for your blog and readers.
Castor - I wish. Disqus did this all to themselves, the bastards! ;) I really like a lot of what they do, but if it's broke...
Sigh
@ Steve... When Fletch and I were talkin' about this today, we agreed that your site is the ideal:
Nested comments, ability to follow by email, no annoying "please confirm subscription" email.
So in short, what we learned through this whole experiment, is that we should all get retain The Cynics' services to get our comments features top notch.
Ah shucks. Flattery will get you everywhere!
All I added to mine was a "subscribe to comments" plugin and I was good to go. All hail the Wordpress!
Yeah, I don't jive with no confirmation by email. It's not complicated, it's just more clicking that I don't wanna do.
We're developing a new blog for our tv station that will apparently be using Blogger - I only hope we'll be able to find some kind of magic bullet comment system when we implement it.
sorry disqus didnt work out for you Fletch. at a few gos at it i kind of liked it but could see where it falls down. youre right about nested comments. as a wordpresser, i think the comments bit is great. it pains me but there are a lot of blogger sites i love - yours, Univarn's and Mad Hatter's for example - that i am just put off commenting on cos it takes so fecking long.
i know blogger has the wordpress open id thing so im starting to use that, which isnt bad. but the fact you have to open up a new page just to make a comment is poor.
having to hit 'publish' three times before it will take is also no fun. ive lost count of the number of times ive written a comment on a blogger blog and then lost it.
i think blogger is great and you can really make your blog look your own, which you cant fully do on wordpress (although in fairness to them they do roll out more new themes these days), but the comments thing is a major stumbling block. which is a shame, cos i feel bad for not interacting as much as i should on your guys' blogs.
anyway, if you can advise me on best way to comment id be glad to hear it.
cheers,
ross mcg
It's too bad that the system didn't work out for you. The lag on users comments leaves... something to be desired, but I am a whore for a pretty comment system.
Steve - good luck with that. Maybe Blogger will accommodate us all by that time.
Ross - Okay, I've heard from a few people (coughCastorcough) that seem to really hate Blogger, but outside of Captcha, I could never really get a pulse on why. Frankly, I don't understand why it's giving you such a hard time.
Question - you have a google account - why don't you just log in with that? If it works proper, you should only have to log in once (if your settings are done right) and you'll be able to comment on all Blogger blogs just as easy as I do.
The new window thing is my doing. I could have it be a separate post page (like Hatter does) or below the post, but I like the new window since the person can scroll the comments and the post and see both simultaneously. I think it's easier, so I just applied it to the site.
But publishing three times? What's happening there?
Fitz - I could deal with the delay, but when people are clicking to have email replies sent that never come, that's a big no-no for me. I hate it when sites don't even offer email replies (most do these days; Steve's, for example, didn't once upon a time, if I recall correctly). That's just a conversation killer right there.
You do recall correctly, until I got the "subscribe to comments" plugin, there was nothing. But I wouldn't have known that as the admin, it took a good samaritan to tell me.
With blogger though, after having to enter my password three freakin' time for whatever reason, if I'm not already logged in, it's easy to miss the step where you subscribe (which isn't available for clicking until after you sign in). Sigh.
That thing you mention about Blogger does indeed bother me. I've learned that, if it doesn't show me as logged in already, to click Preview instead of Publish so that I can check that little box. It's friggin' weird that if your comment is published, you can't then check the box...
Thanks Fletch - Preview will help. I hate finishing my comments to realize I wasn't signed in.
Jess - No problem! Me too. And I swear Blogger keeps making me sign into every site the last few days. Not helping. I've got it set to keep me logged in forever on this computer..
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