The Matthias Chronicles

1. Experimental blog advertising program
2. An award and an AFTR update
3. Obama: Not the first black president
4. After 2000, Chapter One
5. A white man's view of black history
6. Page Load Timer: A small, but useful JavaScript
7. For GOD so loved the world

Thursday, January 8, 2009, 4:26 PM

Giving IntenseDebate a spin

by Mar Matthias Darin

UPDATE: Ok, IntenseDebate is toast... I found a detail through heavy investigation and research that just does not sit well at all. IntenseDebate does NOT pass URL link love. On this blog, that won't wash, I value my commenters to much to allow this... The way IndeseDebate works (I suspect Disqus, JS-Kit, SezWho, HoloScan and the rest work similarily) is as such, when a person leaves a link, IntenseDebate reroutes the link to its own server first, like a springboard. The ending result is when search engines come crawling by, they see IntenseDebate, not the URL of the commenter. I truly despise URL hijackers...

Crash and Burn, Live and Learn!

The security system from hell is back!

Well, I've gone an done it... I'm trying IntenseDebate to see how well it does in encouraging comments. I've looked over SezWho, Disqus, IntenseDebate, JS-Kit and a few off varieties. IntenseDebate won out.

The setup and install were incredibly easy plus I didn't have to monkey with the color scheme. It blends in quite nicely. The moderation and admin controls are more then enough to do what I want and it has threading (a real nice touch).

Best of all, are that commenters don't have to sign up with IntenseDebate and if I don't like it, I can get all my comments exported so I loose nothing. That is a big plus...

Let me know what you think. Is this a keeper or should I trash it?

Comments from MattSpeak

I installed Intense Debate on my blog a couple of weeks ago. So far so good. I like how commenters can reply directly to others' comments and open a thread that way. I also like being able to reply directly to a comment without having to scroll up and down the page several times. I still need more testing on it but I like it so far.

Comments from PaulsHealthBlog

When I first started blogging, I tried to install just about everything. I'm a perfectionist, but not a techie. Now I try to keep things simple, or otherwise I will drive myself nuts - and not get much sleep either, staying up late working on my blog.

Comments from Windmill ^{118.100.155.19}

Hi Matthias,

Hmmm, I've seen that "Intense Debate" somewhere, sometime back but never looked closer at it. Similarly, like PaulsHealthBlog, I've been dabbling with all sorts of widgets, third party services, you name-it but I noticed that many of them slow down the loading time and some like sezwho for example, add more work than do help.

Your findings and report on the matter is appreciated. It has helped improve my understanding. Thank You.

Comments from MarMatthias

MattSpeak: I have to agree. I don't know if this will be long term, but so far this has been a nice system. I am impressed on how easy I was able to install it. Usually custom software like what I use to generate this blog is a real pain in the backside.

PaulsHealthBlog: I know the feeling. I've also done the same thing. Widgets here, widgets there, widgets everywhere... I like the concept, just not sure if I want to give up the control (and the headaches) of comment management. As weird as this sounds, I'm already missing my security code...

Windmill: I've encountered that alot as well. The sad part is IntenseDebate is definately a nice system. For a blog like a newspaper or mostly commentary based where comment links are no an important part, IntenseDebate is definately worth its weight, other than that, its a big red flag for any SEO or Comment Luv.

Comments from Windmill ^{118.100.155.19}

I'm back again Matthias to thank you for your valuable point regarding the WP reCAPTCHA plugin that I installed at my Blog.

I've still a lot to learn. I shall use it and see how it performs to stave Spammers. If Spammers have found a loophole with the reCAPTCHA, I shall change it to the one that you're using.

May I know the one that you use, is it compatible to work on WP and could I have the link where I could download the widget and script needed.

Thank You Sir!

Comments from Mar Matthias Darin

Windmill: You're welcome. However; I'm not going to recomend a mass exodus from Captcha.net (this is what the WP plugin uses) because they are already evolving to address the issue. Every single system, including the one I use, has its advantages and disadvantages. There are no exceptions to that. You already have some of the most powerful tools at your disposal with the most important one being you. Moderating your comments is by far the most powerfulest tool you have. Unless you are having a mass overrun of spam (which, based on your article, you have under control) I don't see the need to fix something not broken.

The one I use is a custom built method because I couldn't get Captcha to work with my blog. It requires server side functionality in order to work. That has been one of the major issues (disadvantage to many) that I have had in regards to drawing interest to it. One of the other issues is ironically not computer related, people with color blindness.

Comments from Matt ^{24.242.209.239}

Matthias, I just wanted to let you know that I posted an article about IntenseDebate on my site and linked this article. After reading your update I have decided to discontinue using it for the same reason you stated. My problem is that I did not uninstall it correctly and lost all of my comments. I'm trying to figure out how to get them back. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I used part of your comments about IntenseDebate in my post. I hope you don't mind. Thanks for the update on this post, it is good information.

Comments from Mar Matthias Darin

Matt: Thank you for the link love and I don't mind at all. Do you have a backup of your comments? Maybe a restore? Also, did you export your comments from IntenseDebate? The xml from IntenseDebate is at least something to work with. Thats what I did and just hand put them back in my system. Took some work, but it was worth it.

1. Declaring Our Independence - Based On God July, 2009
2. Canada going to private health system
3. Remembering the many who has passed before us
4. Google sued for overcharging AdWords customers
5. VCL: Zhu, Da Huai
6. Addition and a new blog
7. King Pest