Some DISQUS and Intense Debate Thoughts – They Both Need Work

Feb 15, ’09 12:29 PM
Author Malcolm Bastien Categories General Tags , , , , , , ,
Yell - Barnstaple

I recently changed the comment systems on Open Mode And Toronto Dev to both use the DISQUS comment system, where they were previously using Intense Debate.  DISQUS did a great job of jumping on any Discussions either I was having, or that I could see other were having on Twitter about their system.

Besides DISQUS’s great response rate to joining the discussions we were having about the service, DISQUS also has built into its system the ability to easily record Seesmic video comments.  That was my biggest motivator for switching, DISQUS has had that feature for a long while, and Intense Debate doesn’t.  I wanted Seesmic comments so I could simply give my readers the option to participate that way if they wanted.

Now each system has some different strengths going for it, but right off the bat I am feeling frustration with some of the things I’m seeing with DISQUS.  Consider this my list of things I think DIQUS is doing well, and my “Please change this” requests for the service.

Good:

  • Minimalist and Fast: DISQUS is really less intrusive when implemented on a blog than Intense Debate is, and it feels snapper & faster to load.
  • Seesmic, Facebook Connect, and Friendfeed commenting: These are options that are all essential now and it great that DIQUS will even pull in comments from different sources like FriendFeed.
  • Nicer community pages: The community pages for DISQUS powered blog, like the community page for Open Mode, do a better job of giving not only the blog admin information, but also useful information for anybody in general.  But even though I think it’s a bit better than Intense Debates blog pages, I’d still like to see more useful information about my blogs commenters, and trends.

Bad:

  • Options pages are confusing and too big: The Settings page for an DISQUS comment site is 4 screens long. And some of the options are not needed (like font size) or unclear (please use a radio form with image rather than only select forms all the time).
  • I can’t do front end comment moderation: DISQUS only lets me Reply or Reblog other people’s comments while Intense Debate lets me Delete or Block IP of comments as well.  (I actually changes all the settings for one blog and copied over different widgets, and then realized that the DISQUS admin area had been set to the wrong blog in it’s select box… Enough with the select boxes already!)
  • Structure: Even though DISQUS might be minimalist and a bit faster, the placement of buttons, comments, trackbacks, could be better. Everything seems to fit together much more nicely on an ID system. This could be because of ID’s heavier use of graphic buttons while DISQUS is effected more by your site’s HTML + CSS.

It’s important to reiterate that I’m not, and we all shouldn’t declared that one is the winner above the other.  There is still a lot of really cool stuff each platform can do in the future, and new ideas that we haven’t really thought about to be implemented.  This is an example of competitiveness really delivering more value to us, the users, in the long run.

What are your opinions?
Why do you even use a 3rd party commenting platform?

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  • I for one appreciate the insight. Thanks for taking the time to write about and share your process.
  • Disqus had been really famous for many bloggers, for with disqus they can easily monitor their comment
  • Hi Malcolm,

    Interesting that even older posts have their place in "today" when the conversation continues from year to year. I am still seeing many, including myself, debating the pros and cons of these two off-blog commenting systems.

    After some research, I installed Disqus about 6 months ago. Six months later, it seemed (from the hype) that Intense Debate had added features and fixed flaws that made me dismiss it previously. So, I installed ID this past weekend. Within a few hours, after attempting to edit a comment and finding that I couldn't, I uninstalled it. Every blog owner wants the ability to edit the comments on their own site (not to change the intent, but sometimes mis-spellings and such). That was the first show stopper.

    The second one was that I could not find a way to comment using the username/ID I wanted to use. With different websites and participating in different kinds of discussions, I want to use the relevant username in my comments. Needless to say, I went back to Disqus. I'm sure this conversation will go on and on, until they both get off-site commenting like WE want it.
  • I like disqus.. it rocks.. easy modifications... there should be an option to delete the comment too... but sometimes we dunno what arr the comment has been approved or not... anyways thanks for your nice post..
  • I like using Disqus for commenting system, But I never know that it has a SEO value... Thanks for sharing about this
  • DISQUS allows the blogger to have greater control with comments. It's one of the useful tools that any blogger can have.
  • Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenter across a thriving discussion community.
  • Disqus is commenting plug-in it is too easy to use as well as Intense Debate is going and allow developers to make a plug-ins like a Youtube video etc .I think both are too important for us....
  • Disqus goes great with Facebook awesome work Disqus.
  • How delete a site of disqus?
  • Go to the Disqus.com page and login to your account.

    Under the Settings:General page you'll see at the very bottom of the page a "delete this site" button.
  • 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.
  • Ya, this list is old and I found that for Intense Debate there are currently just a few show stoppers like the one you mentioned that keep me coming back to Disqus.

    Another show stopper which recently affected me was the default layout of ID put all the Trackbacks to your post above the comments or comment box, and there was not way of changing that. You'll notice that for Disqus, the trackbacks and social media reactions all come AFTER the comments.

    I think this is a logical design decision to make because I'm most concerned with comments, giving them the best visibility and putting them right there at the top to make it easier for readers to comment.

    Thanks for your comments Damian.
  • Using disqus makes my commenting system much better but there are still blogs that delete and do not accept blogs even if they're powered by disqus
  • Agreed it is getting better and better. What's cool about Disqus is that it makes it painlessly easy to comment, and does a good job at blocking spam.
  • Making commenting easy and painless? Absolutely. It's very difficult for me to sometimes make the decision to comment on some blogs because of the trouble most default systems cause for me.

    Though after having used both systems for a while, I can now say since the last times I've used Intense Debate, it was generally better at blocking spam than what I'm seeing with Disqus now.

    Taking a bit more time to reflect, the fact that Disqus adapts better to the custom colours of my Wordpress theme is a huge plus. With this orange Evidens theme I'm using currently, the blueness of Intense Debate would simply look too out of place
  • You will see, this system is only getting better and better. I'm sure the Disqus team will keep improving their product.
  • Yeah !
    Disqus just keeps getting better and better !
  • dctest
    we have found that we can't delete any comments. We use the moderator tool to do it, but it actually doesn't delete the comment from the live site. If you refresh the moderator page, the "deleted" comment returns. Very frustrating.
  • Ya, one thing I wish was that these two groups were more communicative as to what they were currently working on, and how they were taking into account the complaints and ideas of users of their systems.

    What did you think of ID?
  • Using disqus makes my commenting system much better but there are still blogs that delete and do not accept blogs even if they're powered by disqus
  • "Blogs that delete and do not accept blogs"? I'm not quite sure what you mean here.
  • I'd love to see this conversation explode because I'm trying to figure out what to use right now. I've even looked at JS-Kit which has the nice formatting, integration with other platforms, and other features available from Disqus or ID so my first question is, why use any of them?

    Then I'd ask, what do you think of the recent news about Disqus and Intesnse Debate plugins?
  • I'm actually really excited about the new developments for both platforms, Intense Debate plugins also has the potential for some really exciting advancements.

    At this point I'm not too ashamed to event switch back and forth as each tool improves.

    Why should you use any of them I can't really answer. You could have your own reasons to use a specific platform, or to not use a platform at all. But thankfully its easy enough to try, test, and change platforms while keeping your comment data safe on your server.
  • about your bad list have you tried sending them email about it? discus might improve about it
  • Ya, hah. That's actually a good idea. I should do that shouldn't I. As far as competing features go I'm sure each platform is up to date with the competition and has development plans in place.
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