Changing over to Disqus Comment System

Today I have taken the plunge and changed my commenting system from the default WordPress over to Disqus. What persuaded me to do this was the ability of Disqus to integrate more social elements for readers who comment on Web-Work At Home. In order to get the ball rolling I will have to backup my data for all my previous comments just in case I lose them with the changeover.

I have now decided to delay this install, I did try a dry run on Monday night but I lost all of my comments as soon as i activated the Disqus plugin, for the benefit of information only I have left the rest of this post intact.

I must admit I do have reservations about changing over especially since I already have an excellent commenting structure already setup. But because I use the social networks quite a lot in my business I thought it prudent to bring these networks onto Web-Work At Home. The networks that integrate with Disqus are FaceBook, FriendFeed, Twitter, Delicious all of which I use, also included are Flickr, Linkedin and Tumblr which I don’t use at the moment.

Here’s the official description from Disqus….

Disqus, pronounced “discuss”, is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. The Disqus comment system can be plugged into any website, blog, or application. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community.

Disqus is a free service to the general public with absolutely no inline advertisements. A premium service for large-scale websites is in the works but is not yet available.

Key benefits for Websites, Publishers, Bloggers

• Threaded comments and comment ratings
• Powerful moderation and admin tools
• Filter out spam, trolls, and unwanted commenters
• Enable your visitors to become a real community
• Moderation by email or mobile
• More comments and increased engagement
• Connected with a large discussion community
• Increased exposure and readership

Key benefits for Commenters, Readers

• Track and manage comments and replies
• Verified commenter reputations across sites
• More control over your own comments on websites
• Never lose your comments, even if the website goes away
• Build a global profile, or comment blog, to collect and show off what you’re saying
• Easier to comment on websites using Disqus
• Reply to comments through email or mobile
• Edit and republish comments with one click

The transfer over to Disqus needs to be done with care as I don’t want to lose my comments, so the install of Disqus has an import function to import your previous comments from WordPress.

If you would like to import your existing WordPress comments into Disqus, select Advanced Options and locate Import.

• After this process, all future comments will automatically sync Disqus and WordPress.
• Note: As a safety precaution, we recommend that you backup your database before importing or exporting comments.

To get an idea myself of how Disqus works and looks I checked out Inquisitor.com what’s really useful is when you come across another blog or any website for that matter that has Disqus your profile follows you around, so if you have signed in elsewhere on the web you don’t have to sign in again as your profile is all set and ready to go. When you roll your mouse over any of the commentators’ links you get a snapshot of their profile and online activities like the one below.

So as I said I will delay the install of Disqus until I can get some feedback of how to get my previous comments included. I do not see the point of losing all of my comments which I value a lot, and it would be a shame for all the people who have taken the time to comment.

Please let me know if you have had the same issues with importing your WordPress comments into the Disqus system

Bill Masson @ Web-Work At Home

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