Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Should We Dump Disqus?

Michael

A few months ago we introduced the Disqus commenting system to Israel Thrives because nested commenting is important for discussion, but this product may be proving itself more trouble than it's worth. School warned me about this on day one.

Sooooo...

I am seriously considering dumping Disqus, but if I do that it means that every comment that any one of us has made since its introduction will be deleted.

All I want is to be able to hit the damn "reply" button and actually reply to a comment. If Disqus cannot consistently handle that then Disqus should probably go away.

I do want to hear what you guys think, tho, before I plunge forward with this change.

.

13 comments:

  1. If Disqus is what's causing the difficulty, I vote for getting rid of it.  To add this comment, I had to
     
    1) sign out of Google,
     
    2) sign back in to Google as Andy Lewis,
     
    3) come over here,
     
    4) mistakenly use the "Sign in" link in the upper right corner,
     
    5) type my comment,
     
    6) plow through the "Post as" dialogue,
     
    7) realize that using "Sign in" had messed up my Web session,

    8) get off the Web,

    9) get back on the Web, and

    10) repeat step 2, 3, 5 and 6.

    It's a bit much.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andy, you had to go though all of that??

    Well, that seals the deal and the thing of it is, I don't really know that the problem is disqus.  It could very well be blogger or google, but disqus is the commenting system.

    Unless I hear a strong sentiment to the opposite, I intend to dump disqus... probably this evening.

    I couldn't even reply to Andy's comment, but had to make a freestanding comment in order to respond.

    Disqus is gone tonight.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Michael,

    My name is Giannii and I work at Disqus. I'm sorry to hear you've been experiencing issues. To help figure out what's going on I have a couple questions.

    1. What browser and version are you using?
    2. Are you logged in our out when hitting reply?
     a. What type of authentication are you using to login?
     b. What happens when you hit reply? 

    Regarding your comments, we actually sync locally with Blogger. It looks like you have it enabled. You can see that here: http://israelthrives.disqus.com/admin/tools/import/platform/blogger/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Are you using two Google accounts? Like a gmail and google apps account?

    The top right Sign in scenario sounds like a one off but I'll see if there is anyway our team can capture that login. In any regard we're working to make this much easier in the next version of Disqus. 

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Giannii,

    I am using the latest version of Google Chrome.

    And I am logged in when hitting "reply."

    More importantly my users having difficulty with the system, which I just tried to delete, but which is still apparently in operation.

    In any case, sometimes when I hit reply the box comes up and I can reply, but oftentimes not... and that is precisely what my readers are claiming, as well.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'll hold off for the moment to see what kind of magic Giannii can conjure up... besides I already tried to delete disqus and disqus won't let me!

    LOL!

    I very much hope that we can resolve this shortly because the clunkiness of the commenting system is hurting my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  7. What type of account are you logging in with? Gmail, Blogger, Google apps, or a plain old Google account?

    Note: Site removals can take up to 72 hours to process.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Giannii,

    I have a google gmail account and I am registered with google.

    I honestly do not know type of account I log in with.  All I know is that when I click on the "Powered by Disqus" link on the right it shows me to be logged in under my "Karmafish" username.

    Note that about 2 minutes ago I tested the reply function and it opened a reply box, but now, when I seek to respond to comment, I had to go to the top of the page to do so, because it would not allow me to comment.

    In any case, if you guys have some magic that will solve the problem not just for me, but for my users, terrific.  But if not then we'll have to go to a different commenting system.

    I am willing to hold off for the moment, however.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I have started to log straight into disqus. It keeps my entries and replies, and it is more stable.

    The edit screen is way too small!!!!

    The reply button on site is hit or miss, and the threading format makes comments way too narrow way too fast.

    Other than that, it's hunkey dorey.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yep. I had to send this reply from inside disqus because the reply at the site was inoperable.

    In case you do dump it, those who are registered with disqus would be able to find their comments.

    I could go either way. Having to prove I am not a robot at some sites is no less frustrating.

    ReplyDelete
  11. It looks like your site is loading the Disqus embed twice and something funky is happening with replies because of that. It's specific to your site and implementation. I tried to reproduce this across Disqus and could not.

    Did you hardcode Disqus in or did you use the widget installation? If you hardcoded Disqus in your theme I'd recommend saving it to a local text doc before messing with it. If you used the widget install try reimplementing Disqus using this guide: http://disqus.disqus.com/admin/blogger/

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'll give it a shot, Giannii.

    I have nothing against you guys.  I just want a user friendly interface for my readers.

    I think that tomorrow I will play around with your suggestions.  If you have the time, drop in here now and again over the next few days and I will keep you updated.

    Many thanks,

    M.

    ReplyDelete