Comments on: WPWeekly Episode 90 – Interview With Michael Koenig

By: Katerina Levine

Katerina Levine — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:31:09 +0000

I have been commenting with intense debate for a while but just today installed it on my blog. It is easy to set up and I like the fact that it works with comment luv. When I installed it, it did take out my top commentators but you can install intense debates version using HTML.

By: Jeffro

Jeffro — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:22:56 +0000

@Michael Koenig - I'm late on our bet but I have my reasons lol. Still working on getting ID on the site for at least a week.

By: Michael Koenig

Michael Koenig — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:22:00 +0000

@donnacha | WordSkill - thanks for the feedback. That would be a really cool addition and definitely something we'll look into.

By: JLeuze

JLeuze — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:34:53 +0000

@donnacha | WordSkill - That's a good point, such a small percentage of readers actually leave comments that anything you can do to reduce the friction is a good thing.

By: donnacha | WordSkill

donnacha | WordSkill — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:09:13 +0000

Well, the main advantage of distributed comment systems has always been the idea that people who stumble upon your site are already logged in and therefore more likely to leave a comment. Anything - absolutely ANYTHING - you can do to lower the barrier to participation is good. As such, the value of any one system largely depends on how many users it has: how many users will arrive at your site, see their own gravatar smiling back at them, telling them that they are already logged in and that any comment they contribute will earn them rep within the larger system. Any rep system used by a large number of sites is going to encourage people to comment more frequently. Now that the merge between the IntenseDebate and WordPress.com userbases is underway, IntenseDebate effectively has 12 million users - at a stroke, it has become the most useful commenting system. If the rep system is also deployed across all WordPress.com blogs, Automattic will have a home run, no-one will be able to match that momentum, IntenseDebate will become the standard. My only reservation about IntenseDebate it lacks the killer feature that makes Ajax Edit Comments (the comment plugin Jeff uses here at the tavern) really shine: the countdown that allows users to fix mistakes in their comments that they didn't notice before clicking Submit.

By: Nicolas

Nicolas — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:45:32 +0000

@JLeuze – this seems to be a general consent within the WP Community … the default WP Comments handling isn’t too bad but the features IntenseDebate promises to add are tempting. Still a lot of people holding back on adding them … maybe Jeff is going to be the big switch ;-)

By: JLeuze

JLeuze — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:31:29 +0000

I’ve been meaning to give Intense Debate a try for a while now, I’ll be interested to hear how your experiment goes Jeff.

By: Nicolas

Nicolas — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:00:33 +0000

I’m hesitant as well to switch my comments over to IntenseDebate. Guess I’ll be checking your review post and make a decision at this point. Great interview with lots of insights!