I’m looking around for a new comment system. I’ve never liked the default WordPress comment system. The box is small and you can’t do much with the formatting. The worst part is you cannot edit mistakes. I thought about integrating a forum system like PHPBB, but that’s a lot of work and I’m old and lazy. A lazy man option is to use Disqus, but people seem to hate it for some reason. I’m not entirely sure why, but it is seems to stem from the lack of anonymity. I don’t get that entirely, but maybe there are other things at play there.
I discovered something called IntenseDebate that is like Disqus, but allows for anonymous commenting. You still provide a fake name and fake e-mail, but you have the option of creating a profile so you can maintain an identity as a commenter. It has an edit button, threading and allows for limited formatting of text and links. I tested it out last night and it is simple, easy to use and not a huge departure from what is considered standard these days. The nice feature is it lets you use your twitter and Facebook to comment. In other words, you can comment and post to social media at the same time. I get a lot of twitter traffic of late so I’m thinking that may be useful.
The other service I found is LiveFyre. I have to say, it looks really good. I have not spent much time on it, but my cursory review tells me it is going to be the hot new plugin for blogs and websites. It’s very slick and very polished. The only thing I see that could be a problem is you have to create an account of some sort. You can use any number of social media accounts or create an account here. Again, that seems to be a hangup for some people. I don’t know why, but maybe someone can fill in the blanks for me.
If anyone has other choices for me to consider, let me know. I’m going to spend some time on it over the weekend.
WordPress Editable Comments or similar Plugin?
https://wordpress.org/plugins/editable-comments/
Obvious solution is to become a writer for vdare, taki or unz.
Good one. I think that’s what most religions believe is the beginning of the end times.
A more serious reply:
I have never signed up for disqus or similar and I don’t think I ever will. There’s the anonymity thing and also the fact that your comments are saved and can be accessed by other people easily. For example I like Yancey Ward’s comments so much I go to http://www.disqus.com/yanceyward and keep up to date with his analysis of Megan McArdle and NRO articles. I really wouldn’t want some guy following my trolls and drunk one liners. I’ll leave that for twitter.
Anything I have to sign up for is basically out, too inconvenient. Also having to wait for the comments to load is a pain. On disqus pages I hit the load button, switch tabs, come back in 5 minutes and it hasn’t loaded. I’ve learned that I actually have to wait and watch it load for it to be useful. This bugs me.
The PHPBB thing reminds me of Denningers site and is weird and ugly just like him.
The current system works well. Editing would be nice but whatever, a typo or two doesn’t matter and if you need to clarify something do it in an additional post.
Edit: I meant to describe yancey’s comments as thoughtful and prescient.
Not to neg, but do not choose Disqus.
I have an Disqus account I use on NRO. It’s not without its problems. I have people who follow me around posting snide comments so I assume they are “following” me on Disqus.
Denniger’s site is garbage and the guy is so proud that he wrote it. But, he is a strange dude. Ann Coulter integrates with phpBB, but she is not using WordPress. I like forums for community discussion, but that’s more work for me.
I’m thinking Intense Debate could be the right answer. You can comment with a fake name and no signup or use whatever social media thing you’re into. That last part helps me build a reader base too. I get a lot of hits from Twitter, even though I barely use Twitter. if this bog is to be a launching pad for my new religion….
if you are trying to increase userbase, the way I started coming here is from your posts on marginal revolution which you don’t seem to be doing anymore. also comments from sailer and other blogs.
once you start having an actual forum you tend to attract crazies and radicals, which has its own appeal but I don’t think thats your style
He claims he was blocked from Marginal Revolution which is also where I found him.
I made Alex cry one too many times, I guess. I was banned a while back.
any idea what the offending comment was? I’m surprised because bannings seem to be minimal there, tho its hard to tell. I had no idea, figured you got bored. You gotta learn from the anti semites on how to get across without stepping over the line
Honestly, I was getting bored with it. I hardly read the site anymore and the traffic seems to be much lighter. I suspect he pulled back a little to try and shake off the fringe types so the subject matter is much less interesting. Tyler works in a university and depends on the Cult for his living. He can’t be hanging around guys like Steve Sailer or he risks banishment.
My initial commenting was with concern about privacy & I particularly liked those allowing anonymous comments & I have a general dislike for signing up with anything, even my doctors office, even more so with doctor’s offices. After thinking about it some, I realized the only ones I really would like to hide from is the gov & I think they have access to all my everything anonymous or not. Any non-Gmen that don’t like my writing or thoughts is fine. I probably like theirs less which applies to Gmen, too actually. Any that hold my mistakes or brain farts against me is no friend either and can’t even harm me telling my wife – she’s way ahead of ‘em. In short, I no longer consider anonymous important as I can’t be anonymous to those who “can and will” use me against me.
Thus, I mostly use Disqus, by accident & not by investigation, and it is convenient as I don’t need to sign up much. If anyone starts following me posting nasty notes they’re too FUBAR to worry about & and would be of no concern to any other readers that mattered. Disqus allows blocking others from scanning older comments but for reasons given hereto, I don’t bother. WTF does it matter?
I still hesitate to sign up for new accounts, not to protect my privacy, but I have so damn many sign-ons & passwords I had to create a little tool to keep up. To avoid clutter, I don’t want to keep piling on.
I read your commentary daily and enjoy it immensely. I’d so like to be able to share selected articles via a simple EMAIL logo you could have displayed, since I despise google and every other “social media”-type thingy you provide for those that want them. I KNOW I’m
not alone in this.
you were not banned from MR. the domain was blocked due to some wordpress spam filter issue. Change the domain and it will work. Tyler and Alex have an anything-goes-attitude. They let steve post , for example.
The PHPBB thing reminds me of Denningers site and is weird and ugly just like him.
ah ha funniest line all day