First I hope that the blogger.com team reads this post
Second I respect very and thank them for the new features they add to blogger.com
Now to the main topic of this post, from two weeks ago I stopped at a blog whose comment section was different to me , it did not look like any comment section I knew whether in blogger.com or in wordpress or in Typepad or in blogspirit , it was different , at first I thought it could be something similar like Cocomment , as it has similar features but I was wrong.
That comment section was a disqus commenting system, a new web 
service that gives more control on comments in your blog than you imagine.It substitutes the commenting system of your platform with its commenting system.
I was surprised with the features of the service including moderation and blocking and that it can substitute the blogger.com commenting system.
Of course I could not test it here because this is my main blog ,so I tested in another blog for mine ; already I made this blog to test the new add on applications without risking with my blog content.
You can click here and see it in action
Here is what I think , I wish that Blogger.com improves more and more its commenting system and includes it in the same page of the post just like every blogging platform online , I mean it is silly, it is not to enough to open id
Let's face it the commenting system in Blogger.com needs a complete reboot , to be honest I like the fact that I rarely receive spam comments thanks to Catphca , in wordpress.com or standalone wordpress I receive daily dozens of spam comments and the worst thing that plugins like Akismet sometimes consider real comments as spam "You can feel the embarrassment I feel when I found that 3 comments from 3 months ago were considered as spam"
Now to Disqus pro : based upon blogger.com system
- Disqus in blogger.com puts commenting section under the post as it should be and this is no.1
- There is a feature where you can reply directly to specific comment and create a thread.
- There is a feature where you can block a specific commenter based on his disqus username or his email or his IP "for someone like me I need this feature so much and I think some of you will know why,already I tested yesterday , now Amr can't comment in my test blog anymore , hopefully he will not comment here too"
- There is of course comment moderation with other options ,You receive any email once you get a comment
- there is also a gravatar support
- There is a rating system in Disqus ,where you can rate comments
- If you register with Disqus ,you will be able to track your comments you left in disqus powered comments in the same way like Cocomment
Now to the cons of Disqus : based upon blogger.com system
- Your comments are no longer stored in blogger.com as soon as you install disqus you have to modify in your blogger.com blog setting that new posts do not have comments , I am not ok with this , because you store your comments elsewhere then your blog , what if Disqus is facing downtime or some reason those who own it decided to close the project ?? How many comments will be lost . By the way these are not my concerns alone when users are asking about it
- Disqus is very sophisticated and some users will not like it , you need a straight forward method for your comments.
- Installing the application and the fact that every time you change your blogger template you need to download it from blogger then to upload it disqus can be hard for some people , it is silly for me and you can forget it by the way
- There is an export feature in it which only works with wordpress I think .
The cons are not that easy and they are strong short backs.
Look I do not request that Blogger.com adds all these fancy feature , but at least they can change the old system and make the comments area in the same page like the rest of blogging platforms with more security feature of blocking.
About Disqus , I think it is a great idea and I know it is successful , it is enough to know more and more blogs use it despite its short backs .
This is my review about Disqus , I hope I helped you guys
That's a lot of features.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to mention that there are captcha plugins for wordpress. I'm using one myself, and it lets you customise the words,the font, etc... The problem is you can't use those on a free wordpress account since they don't allow you to install plugins.
On the other hand blogger.com captchas are a pain to type up.
I decided to customize mine to only display names that are 4 characters or less in a clear font so as not to annoy people.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteSounds good. The comments section sounds a lot better than having to type in random letters you sometimes cannot read. I usually have to type mine in twice, for some reason.
ReplyDelete@Vagabondblogger,this happens to me too ,I think because of time , they put some time limit ,it is stupide because sometimes you need to write long comments
ReplyDeleteI switeched to disqus last week on my blog. I like it, but when I post remotely (ie:flickr, blip.tv, or even sms) I lose the disqus comments and it reverts to the blogger comments. I mentioned this to the disqus developers and one mentioned they are working on fix. I consider this an addition to the cons of the system. But as with any other new service there are some bugs in it. I am sure they will fix it.
ReplyDelete@ninelives, this is bad , disqus is good but I wish they add an export feature to blogger.com , or a feature that blogger.com keep the comments in case that their system is down
ReplyDeletethis one is really good, but for me i prefer blogger because we can easily post on it, unlike disqus after you post then when you come back again, your post got deleted. but that's only my opinion. both of the two are good, and the most important thing that they have a database or Storage System that can store the data,
ReplyDelete