Commenting System — Huge Apologies

April 14th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan

This is not the kind of news I like to run into. We recently changed our commenting system. We started using DISQUS as it is considered by many to be one of the best commenting systems, if not the best one, out there. And we love it, too.

However, a little problem popped up. While the place where we normally go to moderate comments still receives some comments awaiting moderation, most of the comments awaiting moderation get fed somewhere else. I also see a notification that I have comments needing approval in the old place but not the new place. I didn’t noticed this until just this morning — I just thought the comments were being auto-approved or being fed to the normal place. The result: a ton of comments were awaiting moderation for quite some time (since about a week ago). I just went through and approved them all (except for a few that were clearly SPAM).

I know when you leave a comment, you want others to see it. And we value your comments greatly (which is why we made the switch).

From now on, if your comment isn’t auto-approved by the system, it will be quickly approved by me (unless it is automatically marked as SPAM by the system — hopefully, if you’re human and reading this, that won’t happen). Generally, the only comments that won’t be auto-approved are comments that include links or look potentially illegitimate to the system for some other reason.

Again, apologies and hope you won’t hold it against us.

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Tags: commenting system, comments, disqus

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

Energy efficiency

haha good article mang i likes it
http://dianabol.blog.com/ Dianabol

i think disqus works pretty well 75% of the time
- Anonymous
  
  Diana – any specifics about the “25%” failures? What sorts of problems have you observed?
  
  (I’m working on a list….)
g…

Cool. My last comment critisizing your liberal views on your republican attack didn’t make prime time lol. I do enjoy reading your blog. Keep up the great work.
- Anonymous
  
  hmm, thanks! what was the point of the previous comment? on which post?
Anonymous

Subscribe does not seem to be working.

I subscribed when I posted yesterday. I’ve received no notification of the three additional comments.
- http://zacharyshahan.com Zachary Shahan
  
  hmm, strange — i’ve been getting updates (but maybe not all of them)… have you checked your spam?
- Anonymous
  
  Hmm, strange. I have gotten a few notifications of new comments on posts i subscribed to, but haven’t checked to see if i missed any. Have you checked your spam.
  - Anonymous
    
    None in spam.
    
    Your post – the one to which I am replying – did not show up in my email.
    
    I did get the g…, but not your reply to him. (“17 hours ago”)
Anonymous

I like Disqus. Its a really tight system.
- Anonymous
  
  me too
  
  & agreed
Frank Hanlan

I am truly sad to hear that you have moved to Disqus. I was delighted that Clean Technica was one place that I could simply enter a comment without a hassle.

I refuse to add another web site that requires registration, user name & password. I already have more than I want.
- http://profiles.google.com/davidryal David Anderson
  
  One of the great things about Disqus is that you don’t need any *new* accounts because it’s so easy to log in with an existing account. Our old commenting system had a nasty habit of losing people’s comments if they didn’t fill it out just right.
  - Anonymous
    
    right, & i am pretty positive you don’t have to put any more in to comment now than you had to before (just won’t lose the comment if you miss something or if you want to comment twice & forget to put your info in the 2nd time)
Anonymous

Stuff happens. Don’t sweat it. I ‘lost’ a couple of comments, but that’s a small price to pay for a significant upgrade.

Now we’re got immediate display (as long as we don’t get spam-trapped), so we have the possibility of discussions. And we’ve got email notification which keeps us engaged.

I’d suggest a couple of tweaks.

1) Allow links or at least one link per post for people who have been posting for a while and shown themselves to be contributors, not spammers.

2) Make ‘email notification’ the default for commenters but also leave the ‘subscribe’ button available to those who want to follow along without commenting.

And, if a lot of legitimate comments are getting trapped, consider setting up additional mods. You need to sleep once in a while.
- Anonymous
  
  thanks, Bob.
  
  I think i recovered your lost comments (saw some of yours in the old ones i found & approved).
  
  i am “whitelisting” regular commenters (basically, once i recognize that they are regulars), but most comments are going through automatically now anyway.
  
  i’m not sure if #2 is possible, but if it is, that’s a good idea. will look into it more.