The last time I used the web site commenting service Disqus, I was really less than impressed. Back in July 2009, I tried it and for lack of a better term, it was sloppy. While the core of the system worked, it seems as if nobody there paid attention to detail. However, everybody deserves a second shot.
Fast forward to about a week ago, when I decided to re-install Disqus again on Mitchelaneous.com, FirefoxFacts.com and WebHostingShow.com. As a reminder, here are the flaws the system had before:
Now I’ll cut to the chase, and tell you why. It seems that no matter how I tweaked around with WordPress, I could never get DISQUS to pick up on all my trackbacks and comments. One or two a day would get stuck going to the internal WordPress comment engine (which is practically blocked from you after you install DISQUS).
Now, while this is still true, Disqus does a better job now at picking up all the comments, so none get missed. If you have trouble with Disqus missing comments or trackbacks, try these steps out:
- Login to your WordPress administrator section, and go to Settings > Discussions.
- Be sure to leave these unchecked:
+ Users must be registered and logged in to comment
+ Automatically close comments on articles older than X days
+ Enable threaded (nested) comments X levels deep
+ Break comments into pages with X top level comments per page…
+ Anyone posts a comment
+ A comment is held for moderation
+ An admin must always approve the comment
+ Comment author must have a previously approved comment - Under “Comment Moderation” be sure to bump up the link number to something ridiculously high, like 200. This way WordPress won’t try to moderate the incoming comments and will leave that job to Disqus.
Also, be sure to save your settings after making those changes. Ever since I made those changes, I have had no problems with WordPress and Disqus, and hopefully neither will you.
The real benefit in using Discus is it gives your commenters a way to login to comment via multiple different services. For example, you can now login using these services to comment right here on Mitchelaneous.com:
- Disqus
- OpenID
- Yahoo
I also really like the fact that in the usual “trackback” section, you can show people’s recent tweets about your pages too. You can skim Digg, Twitter, and a number of other social web sites. I can also stay in touch with all of you better too because Disqus gives me one place to check out all the most recent comments from across all my blogs.
So Disqus, I take back the bad things I said about you. Just keep up the great work, and I’ll be a happy fan boy.
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