It’s been a little over a week since Effortless Anthro made the flip from Blogger commenting to IntenseDebate (ID for short). In an effort to keep everyone in the loop, I’d like to open the discussion to the community to see what you like and don’t like about IntenseDebate, as well as what’s working and not working.
Though this blog is a hobby for me I’ve implemented many of the skills from my real job here, and let me tell you this flip has been much like an application or website launch! I realize that many of you are experiencing bugs with the commenting system and let me say that I feel terrible about it. It is my personal mission to make this blog as community-friendly as possible and I take it personally when you run into an issue using any of the tools here. I appreciate each of you reporting the bugs you see, whether via email or a comment. In my work experience I can tell you that no product launches without a few roadbumps though and all in all this transition has been relatively smooth. (Hopefully I didn’t just jinx myself by saying that).
From what I’ve seen, here are the bugs the community is currently experiencing with commenting:
1. The comments section sometimes doesn’t load at all (this may be an issue where people’s IT depts are blocking ID at work)
2. The subscribe feature is not working at all for people without ID accounts
3. For people with ID accounts, the subscribe feature is working inconsistently and only for 50 comments. There is no way to “resub”
4. People are leaving comments and they are not showing up **(note: I will explain this one below.)
And here are some of the features concerns:
1. in email notifications, replies are not clearly tied to the original comment
2. the “go to comment” function isn’t working correctly if there is more than one page of comments on a post
3. you can only see 100 comments on a page vs. Blogger’s 200
4. it’s hard to add photos to comments
Am I missing anything? If so, please let me know in the comments. To be clear, bugs are features that should be working and are not (the top itemized section above). Features are like a wishlist — items that are currently working correctly but we wished worked differently. That’s the bottom list.
** Real quick, I want to touch on a few things. First, many of you have reporting leaving comments that do not show up or saying nothing is happening when you submit a comment. What’s actually happening is that your comment is going to my moderation queue in IntenseDebate. Not to pick on anyone but I had 5 versions of a couple of people’s comments from Monday’s Trade Market in my queue. 😉 You should see a message after leaving the comment that says “this comment must be approved by the admin” or something to that effect. So just take a second after you write your comment to see if you got that message. And if you did, please be patient. I check the moderation queue several times a day and have a co-admin helping me out.
** If your pictures don’t show up the first time, email me. Or as I come across these comments I’ll edit them for you. ID members can edit their comments on their own if they so choose. You can also utilize the FAQ/test post here. I’m happy to edit the comment for you if needed. No need to repost it over and over — I’m sure that is a very frustrating process.
** You don’t need to leave a “sub” comment to subscribe to comments in IntenseDebate. At the top of every comment section there is a little RSS icon as seen in the shot below. Just hover over it with your mouse, and you can click the subscribe button in the menu that appears to subscribe to comments by post, or subscribe to all blog comments!!
Despite the bugs, I think IntenseDebate is a huge leap forward from Blogger’s commenting system. Blogger had its own bugs — remember the Monday before I flipped the systems, when Blogger was eating comments? That was no fun and it’s just one of several recent bugs I’ve dealt with here. In terms of features ID is leaps and bounds from the basic Blogger commenting system. I wish Blogger would implement these features in its own system and perhaps eventually they will.
It’s clear to me that the threaded conversations are encouraging more comments and better exchange of information. While I know many of you are still learning how to get the photos just right (patience and testing are key), it’s an amazing benefit to be able to include photos in comments. From an administration standpoint ID is fabulous. It’s caught so many spam comments already and I can easily find user comment history which makes my life much easier. Both are free services so the support is sketchy. But I am working with IntenseDebate’s team to get the bugs resolved, and their product is awesome in my eyes.
That being said, I hear the feedback loud and clear from parts of the community that none of this matters if the system doesn’t work well. So I want to open things up to the community two ways. First, feel free to leave a comment with how you feel about IntenseDebate. What do you like about? What’s no good? Do you prefer ID to Blogger? Or should I just flip back to Blogger’s commenting system?
Secondly, if you have a moment please vote in the poll below. I appreciate your thoughts and feedback. Your participation in this community is key to its success. My guess is that the poll is going to end up about even, but well…you never know. Thanks for your patience everyone.
