I’ve been testing out the distributed commenting system Disqus here on the Laughing Squid blog to improve comment management and facilitate better conversations.
Features include threaded comments, email & mobile posting, the ability to track and subscribe to comments, comment ratings and just today they introduced a comment flagging feature. An API is in the works and if you ever decide to leave, you can export your comments as XML or RSS 2.0. For more info, see the Disqus tour and FAQ.
Installation was super easy using their WordPress plugin. We were fully configured and up and running in less than five minutes. Disqus comments will show up on any old post that does not have any comment as well as any new posts (like this one).
Disqus has user profiles, which include built-in social network functionality. If you create a Disqus profile your account will be verified and your comment will be automatically approved on this blog without moderation. Here’s my profile on Discus.
Special thanks to Disqus co-founder Daniel Ha who quickly added a feature request for us, as well as providing some custom CSS for the Discus blog widget.
Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
- FriendFeed Comments on Laughing Squid
- Disqus 2.0, Featuring WordPress Comment Synching
- Backtype, Helping You Track & Search Comments
- Laughing Squid Facebook Page
- Twitterfeed for Laughing Squid, The Squid List & Squid.us
{ 71 comments… read them below or add one }
Good choice on the move to Disqus. I've been using it for some time now on my blog and I love it!
Testing testing …. 1. 2. 3.
You know Disqus also supports Seesmic video comments. They are way cool. I don't see that option here – but one step at a time, right!
Enjoy Disqus!
Love the lightbox integration!
testing your comment function here — go have a taco at La Taqueria on 25th street for me, willya? Closest thing here in AZ is Taco Bell. Blech.
I started using Disqus a while back, and it's been really helpful. Granted, I rarely have more than 3 comments on anything, but it keeps everything looking sharp. :)
Threaded commenting with lots of options and all with a Wordpress plugin? See, now I have to go look into this myself. (Oh, and here's your test comment.)
Good stuff. I like Disqus
I'm liking Disqus too…and i never got to thank you for posting the fake parkour video I did a few months ago. you sent us a few thousand youtube views! thanks!
you need to turn on the video comment feature using seesmic.
your tweets are funny stuff
ok, but only if you leave a video reply
I just enabled it. So record away!
I was a bit skeptical about Disqus, but after seeing what they're planning, and after running it on my blog for a while I'm completely sold.
snazzy!
'lo there, Squid.
- mike
sure. I'll post one when I get home. I'll try and get my dog to say Obama on
camera.
Seesmic video reply from Disqus.
Disqus is great, hope it works well for ya.
<3 Disqus
Looking good!
Also, you can add your Disqus profile to your FriendFeed account, so your FriendFeed shows all the comments you've added, to any blog using Disqus.
I had that enabled, but I think it adds too much noise the stream.
Since we seem to have your ear here.. can we hear more about the history of SF's multimedia gulch?
everything seem to be ok, well done
checking it out…pretty cool!
It's really nice not to have to approve all of these verified commenters. I also looks like WP Super Cache is not causing any problems, I'm assuming because the comments are hosted remotely. Now let's see how things hold up when we have our next front page Digg.
Actually I wrote a post about it last November, check it out: http://laughingsquid.com/san-francisco-multimed...
Just added Disqus myself, though I'll never have this type of traffic. :) It's a nice system, and I didn't know about the video comments. Going off to enable that now.
Looks good from here. I glad to see more sites using Disqus.
haha I just wasted several seconds of your life ;)
Is this in combination with the FriendFeed comment WP plugin you installed recently, or you have switched to this? I am hesitant to move my comments off the site, as I like to maintain ownership of them in the MySQL database when/if I move the site to a different host, platform, etc.
sorry accidentally hit post twice.
Yes, but many more seconds were gained not approving all of the others.
I'm using both Disqus and the FriendFeed comment plugin. Regarding control of comments, I lost that when I started using Twitter and then FriendFeed. The next thing I'm working on to try to get the twitter replies to show up here. Maybe one of you guys will write a nice plugin that does that.
I was at work and uh “testing” this feature. Actually I just wanted to see how it worked. Uhh.
Looks good. Should add this to my own blog. Not so sure about video comments though, but each to our own.
Yeah, that was my biggest irritation with the WP comment system and I don't have .0000001% of the traffic you do. I can't imagine how much of a timesink that was for you.
How does Disqus handle the comments you have on the site if you change hosts or the url of your site?
Woo-hoo! This looks pretty cool…. I'll have to look into Disqus in the near future….
that's nice of you to share with us
Not sure, that would be a question for the Disqus guys.
Yay for Disqus!
Nice. I hate the fact that it's so hard to track your OWN comments over the bloggocube. This is a huge improvements; thanks Disqus (and Scott)
Not so sure about the video comments; they don't “scan”, search or filter easily…
Looks like I'm too late to help the testing unless I start dropping terms like “Viagra” and “Nigerian bank account”. I'll be taking a better look at Disqus and how well in integrates into a Drupal site.
So this is an interesting system, but how is the spam protection?
So without verifying the comment, it has to wait for moderation. What happens when I am already a discus member?
If you are already registered with Discus, then you are verified by default.
Too soon to tell, but from what I hear it is excellent.
If the video comments don't work out, they can be easily disabled.
I've heard a lot of buzz about Disqus recently and although it is a cool idea, I don't understand how they are going to make money unless they start putting ads in comments, which of course wouldn't make many people who are using it very happy.
Word. This is good.
Which feature did you request?
The ability to exclude blog post excerpts on the Community Page.
Not gonna happen. Ever.
- Daniel @ Disqus
Congrats! You should be able to tweak the CSS to get the comment input box to have white-on-black text too, by the way. At least, I've seen it like that on other blogs.
See my FriendFeed comment for another link to a useful pingback hack.
LOL this made me laugh. A++ would watch video comment again.
To each his own, Scott, but remember that FriendFeed has a hella effective filtering system. If someone doesn't want to see something, they can filter it out.
Personally, I track people via Disqus AND read comments on friendfeed, but perhaps I am a bit of a freak.
I'm thinking about implementing WP Super Cache on my blog this weekend, any tips?
It's been brought up before, Daniel has helped several people move their comments from one site to another, and there is a full backup/restore feature in the Disqus control panel.
The Disqus forum:
http://disqus.disqus.com/
I've been running it for 3 months and have only seen two spams hit Disqus, both times they were automatically thrown in a spam queue. I don't get the comment traffic you do, though, so I'm interested in hearing your side after a month or so.
It seems that Disqus has you covered here — they let you archive your comments and I believe you can import and convert comments in bulk. In other words, they are unusually open and flexible. (I don't work for them, just impressed with their ethic)
What kind of tips are you looking for? I think it should be included in WP core and have even asked Matt about it, but I don't think it's going to happen. It's absolutely essential for Laughing Squid and I keep it in lockdown mode all of the time, in case a surprise front page Digg hits while I'm out.
The problem with comments showing up randomly is they are out of context. But then again I try to provide context even when I post to Twitter.
The comment itself is out of context, true.. but often people comment on articles they really like or really have a strong opinion about.. that is usually enough for me to follow the comment back to the original blog entry, which, many times is one I haven't read yet.
hmm i'll have to make a profile, this is pretty neat!
confusion
Wow, I like this stuff. I never saw it on french blogs.
I read it launched on nov 2007. Is the buzz starting or am I just late?
-_^
just set mine up. I'm liking it a lot more than when it first came out.
is this still Disqus? Doesn’t look like it from the front end.
Hahaha, not exactly Disqus anymore so reading a post about it being on here is quite funny. :)