Intense Debate versus Disqus, wow, what a quandary that turned out to be, obviously if you′ve noticed, I ended up deciding to implement Disqus, it wasn′t an easy decision. Until the clincher.
In case you don′t know Disqus and Intense Debate are comment management systems that integrate into a number of popular blog applications, including stand alone WordPress, the technology this site is built on.
I′ve never been that keen on the standard WordPress comment system. The latest revision combined with the Thesis theme I use, and recommend, is a significant improvement, but I was looking for something that had more on, and off site integration with Social Media applications, and the ability to aggregate my comments from other sites into a single location. Both Disqus and Intense Debate do this.
I′m not going to go into a detailed comparison of the two systems, do a search for Discus versus Intense Debate and you′ll find plenty of information. Alex Popescu′s post called Commenting Services face to face… is a good place to start. But, what I found was that, although I got a sense that Disqus was edging out in front of Intense Debate in terms of overall take up, I never read anything that gave me a clear winner. I was undecided.
So I went ahead and installed Intense Debate.
Twenty four hours later I′m using Disqus, and I′m happy with it.
Here′s the thing…Intense Debate would not allow me to edit comments, nor could I edit my replies after they were submitted. That, folks, was a show stopper for me.
Ok, so you can get around it with a bit of maneuvering backwards and forwards in WordPress but that defeats the purpose. On the Intense Debate blog they cite concerns about censorship in their rationale, I’m really not sure this holds up, after all we still get a delete button – if I want to censor something, I′ll delete it.
It′s not about censorship, healthy debate and opposing opinions make great conversation and a lively blog. It′s about editorial discretion and quality control. If I want to fix a typo, repair a broken link, remove content that might be subject to a company′s confidentiality from an otherwise good comment, or any other quality issue, I should be able to.
For a regular reader, or commenter – especially if you comment on a lot of blogs – I recommend that you get a Disqus profile. You can have one for a commenter, publisher, or both. It′s free and helps you keep track of your online activity. I hope you enjoy this feature on my site.
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Some rather good stuff in that post. I have just twittered this and I hope my friends come and visit. If others read this you should also share this with your online friends. A great way to show your gratitude.
The Intense Debate Commenting System is not all it’s cracked up to be. For one thing, the I.D. points system seems very flaky. Wonder if anybody else has noticed this?
After all the crap that one particular blogging site (to remain unnamed for now) and Intense Debate put us through, forcing us to sign up if we wish to make comments there, and forcing us to open up our systems to Cookies & Javascripting (and God knows what else) so they can monitor/surveill/dossier everything we say, you would think they would consider it a priority to give us “our rightful comment-points” as a friendly little enticement to keep us participating. Apparently not the case…
Not that the “points score” is a big deal in anybody’s life, but why even have it if you can’t make it work accurately? It seemed odd that the score associated with our sign-on handle would keep bouncing around the way it has done, so we took time to mull through the various pages of postings and individually add up the points for each comment, then compared that total against the total points being published on the Profile page: Total for individual postings is 97, whereas the points showing on the Profile page are 59. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?!
Intense Debate is basically a surveillance/censoring system that provides a blog-owner more databasing & censoring or deleting of people’s comments, with a lot of self-promotional HYPE from I.D. about how great the I.D. system is, but so far all we’ve seen has been: bogus point-scoring system, a helluva lot of hidden scriptings & ads & cookies going in and out of our hard drives, and unbelievably kludgey & slow page-loading because of aforementioned scripting, cookies, snooping, and oddball stuff. In the old days of the internet, we could just TURN OFF graphics, cookies, scripting, popups, and whatever else we did NOT want to be encumbered with, and just load the “meat” of the webpage and read what interested us. Not so with this new Intense Debate system! Intense Debate does not even try to load comments until all the aforementioned KLUDGE & CLUTTER is done coming and going, loaded and nosing around in our machines. You can try to block things like google’s or akamai’s endless snoops, but good luck at receiving page loads if you do so. And God forbid that you should have to RELOAD the page if the first time around failed–because you’re going to have to go through all that slow loading crap all over again. Or maybe you need to check something offsite before you finalize a post: Be careful about turning off Javascripting and cookies so you can traverse the Net without other sites trailing your every move, because when you come back to the posting site, ready to make your post, you probably will find your “log-in has expired,” so you’ll have to re-log in and reload the page all over again. Talk about wasting time and energy!
Furthermore, Intense Debate is rather heavyhanded in not allowing a poster to make his Profile private if he prefers. Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea to be “followed” (stalked?). Not everyone WANTS their comments to be “universal” across the entire worldwide web just because they felt moved to comment on a story on a particular site. Why isn’t there an option given for Public or Private participation? As for improving the quality of comments on a site, when I.D. is used, that’s debatable. Seems the points system mostly invites people to assault each other and compete with each other at least as much if not more than the older system where people merely commented on things and moved on. All this seems to be a distraction away from the content that the site is trying to provide.
One last irritant is that the SIGN IN and SIGN UP links are mixed up on the site. Instead of having a simple way to LOG IN, I.D. has at least three different methods and they’re all mixed up, with no clear solution until you waste hours and finally learn your way through their illogical maze.
For a company that claims to be among the “best” blogging and commenting sites on the planet, this I.D. system seems very unwieldy and aggravating. The original idea to provide content and allow folks to comment on it was pretty brilliant, and we’ve enjoyed using the particular site in question for quite some time, but this latest twist of forcing Intense Debate as our “gatekeeper” is pretty annoying… and may force us to go elsewhere to make our pithy remarks–which, regardless of which “Points Score” you use, seem to be pretty appeciated by other visitors of the site in question.
You can be sure that it's an editorial stance at The Independent end of things, not Disqus.
I don't know whether your comments are pro or anti Israel however my opinion is that whatever the status quo media position is the reality is likely to be very different.
You might like to read on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Independent …”It has also been critical of Israeli government policies…” etc.
Newspapers, and the news media in general, are beholden to their corporate masters agendas and political bias. It's a fact of life.
Thanks for this. I am trying to find information on Disqus because it is now in use at The Independent, an English newspaper I read regularly.
BUT, the problem for me is that every comment that mentions Israel is deleted, which does NOT bode for free speech.
It may well be an editorial issue, as all articles that are written about Israel, do not allow comment from readers.
testing out disqus
I think that the normal WP system is fine but it has limitations as far as integration with Social Media and off site tracking of comments. Something like Disqus is not necessary but a very nice enhancement if you desire better functionality and integration.
what a great article, thanks for publishing this. will read more from you many thanks!
Disqus has ability to import existing comments as well as export comments. I didn't lose any comments when I moved to Disqus..Disqus is really good stuff methinks!
I agree, obviously I'm using it on this site, and soon on our new company website, and am very happy with it.
Disqus is the top commenting platform in my opinion. Not only is Facebook Connect integration nice but allowing users to also use their Twitter accounts to leave comments is awesome.
Disqus is a great tool for those who want a robust commenting tool but aren’t using Content Management Systems with good internal tools built in (so folks who have flat HTML sites, homegrown CMS products, etc.).
Yes there are good systems. I really like Disqus but whether it actually works when you try and use it really is a factor in whether you rate it or not.
That's what it comes down to in the end eh? Whether it works for you or not. There's always multiple options and some pretty good apps out there.
Except unfortunately, Disqus doesn't work on ASP.NET. I'm using JS-Kit instead. The login system isn't as nice as Disqus (bulky and confusing) but at least it works.
Yes, I'm sure Intense Debate allows the same.
Thanks for the Disqus commenting system this will help my comments more interactive..
Disqus allows your readers to comment using their Facebook & Twitter Credentials.
I also like the way I can tap into the off site discussion related to posts on my blog.
Disqus looks like the winner to me, but Automattic bought ID, so not too sure…..
I'd debate the face that WordPress already does, by default, what Disqus and Intense Debate do. If that was the case then both companies would be nuts to spend the development cost on their products. They are both filling a significant gap in currently available functionality, and doing it well.
I think it is very likely that it is better than Disqus, and I can see some value in grabbing comments off friendfeed and republishing them on the blog; however, most of what it does is in WordPress by default, and is more configurable, so the main reason for switching off Disqus still applies to IntenseDebate. At least for me.
excellent post, thanks alot for the share!
excellent post, thanks alot for the share!
Sure, trying BackType now, it looks good in terms of it's ability to find conversation threads so I'm thinking it will help with my research for an upcoming post about Mark Hurd and corporate “ethics”.
I also like the way I can tap into the off site discussion related to posts on my blog.
All these new Social Media applications are making my head spin a bit
Let's keep in touch. BTW, have you tried BackType? I am just trying it out. It is supposed to compliment Disqus in finding related comments and bringing them to your site. http://www.backtype.com/home
Yeah, thought the same thing myself about WP and Intense Debate. I don't have time to beta test as I want to concentrate on my writing with what little time I have to spare.
Disqus has just integrated very nicely into my site and Social Media activity with little or no effort.
Damian: If you and your users are waiting for an invite to Google Voice, click on through to my site. I am running a contest to give away an invite. Here is the link: http://raywaldo.com/2009/10/gv-contest/
Hello Damien. I also went through the WP – Intense Debate – DisQus process. But I must be a bit SLOWER than you. Rather than 24 hours, it took me about 2 weeks to switch from ID to Disqus.
I really like both programs but Disqus is just more full-featured and it picks up the old comments better than ID. I installed Disqus on all four of my sites and it is working great. http://raywaldo.com. I would like to support the WP/Automattic team because I feel certain that ID will eventually be better suited for WP but I am not willing to be a beta tester. And, I don't think I want to go through another change in comment systems.
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