One sad task of any blogger is dealing with comment spam. While the systems I’ve used have been simple and mostly automatic, a reader recently noted an inability to post due to an error in an antispam plugin, so I have had to disable it and install another (slightly more intrusive) challenge.
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Thanks – I use Disqus and Akismet to good effect, but then again, I don’t see the traffic you do over here.
I would second the Disqus. It’s very easy to setup on WordPress and it makes spam go away.
Joseph,
I looked into Disqus, but…
1. You lose control of your comments. Technically, they no longer reside in your WP database, so they are not yours. If Disqus vanishes, so do your comments. I don’t like that reality. With more and more “in the cloud” shenanigans happening every day concerning content, that’s a big problem.
2. No piece of blogging software on other people’s sites has consistently given me more frustration than Disqus. It’s no contest. Failing to load, slowness, outdated versions, incompatibilities, comments vanishing, general flakiness, etc., etc., etc.
3. I’ve been on the Internet since it was the ARPANET Defense Network. In that time, it is almost universally true things like Disqus have a habit of going from free to paid in time. I don’t want to wake up some day and find Disqus is now charging “just $9.99 a month” to manage my comments for me. I’m tired of being nickeled and dimed to death. See #1 and ask yourself about content being held hostage.
4. I know this may be a few years off, but it is coming: See #1 and ask what happens when the company that controls the content doesn’t like the content of the content. For Christians, this will become an increasing problem as our voice starts grating even more obviously with the direction of culture. The definition of “hate speech” is managed by the forces of political correctness, and Christianity is already not PC. I know this is an issue for any ISP too, but software like a cloud commenting system promises to be the canary in the coalmine. I don’t want to wake up some day and find all my blog comments missing because some company decided my talking about Jesus as the only way to God is “hate speech.”
I’ve been thinking on what you’ve said in your reply to Joseph, Dan – a lot – especially your last point. I’ve been online nearly as long as you have, but not blogging for anything like as long as you have.
I’ll be thinking on this a bit longer – I don’t like to change what is currently working for me, and I hate comment spam – but I’d be foolish to not consider switching back to what can be handled by WordPress alone, given well-coded plug-ins.
Thanks for what you do here, as always.
Rick,
Three times this week, Disqus “lost” large replies I had written on other blogs. This is not a good app/plugin. It fails as much as it succeeds, and I groan whenever I see a site with a Disqus-based commenting system, because chances are, it’s going to screw up, especially for Firefox users.
That alone kills it for me. You don’t have to go any further on my list.