Blog Comments

If you haven’t heard by now, Automattic has acquired the third party commenting system, IntenseDebate. IntenseDebate is based out of Boulder, Colorado and is one of a few third party commenting services/systems in the so called "enhanced comment space". IntenseDebate offers features such as replying to comments via email, threaded comments, importing/exporting of comments, etc. While having a conversation with a friend of mine regarding the acquisition, he asked the question, "Why didn’t Automattic just create something in house?". It is worth mentioning that WordPress 2.7 will have threaded comment functionality as part of the core which as far as I can tell, was created in-house. However, threaded comments are just part of the equation.

I think there are a few reasons why they opted to acquire rather than create. The first being that acquisition is faster than creating something from scratch on your own. The second, commenting on WordPress.com or WordPress.org powered blogs out of the box, sucks. Both the front end and the back end of WordPress as it relates to commenting has been in need of a serious overhaul for quite some time now. In fact, I remember Lorelle Van Fossen at WordCamp Dallas telling Matt Mullenweg along with the rest of the crowd that administering comments in WordPress sucks. You should of seen the reaction on the attendees faces. Matt also admitted on his blog post that comments really haven’t changed much within the span of ten years and that it was time to kick it up a notch.

Long-term, I think that comments are the most crucial interaction point for blogs, and an area that deserves a lot of investment and innovation. Comments really haven’t changed in a decade, and it’s time to spice things up a little.

The third reason for the acquisition is the relatively small size of the company in terms of personnel. IntenseDebate is made up of only five individuals. On top of that, they are using PHP and MySQL as their platform which is the same platform WordPress is built upon. This makes it easier than ever to integrate the service into what is already being offered by Automattic.

I’m not sure if the WordPress.org project will have a fully integrated IntenseDebate commenting system but I can certainly see something like this on the WordPress.com side of things. Also, I find it interesting that at the flip of a switch, IntenseDebate pulls into the lead in terms of market share out of the various offerings provided by third party commenting systems. Disqus claims that over 25,000 websites have signed up to use their service. Meanwhile, WordPress.com has over four million blogs registered to the site meaning, IntenseDebate will automatically (pardon the pun) have four million blogs to work with on top of their independent users. While I have seen a number of tech bloggers jump on board the Disqus bandwagon, it will be interesting to see if they will switch to IntenseDebate, knowing that the service is now owned by the folks who develop WordPress. I have never felt comfortable using a third party to replace my comments but knowing that IntenseDebate is owned by Automattic relieves those types of worries.

Last but not least, think about this. Automattic plans on leaving IntenseDebate as a separate entity alongside services such as Akismet, Gravatar, BBpress, etc. When Gravatar was purchased by Automattic, some feared that the service would only be available to WordPress. That has turned out not to be the case and the same can be said for IntenseDebate. With this acquisition, Automattic is finding themselves opening up to not only WordPress powered sites, but owning companies/services that are independent platforms. Talk about versatility! Only time will tell on how IntenseDebate is really integrated into the WordPress.org project and WordPress.com but I know one thing, I am certainly happy to see attention being placed on comments as they are truly the one aspect of blogging that forms interaction between the author and reader.

WeblogToolsCollection.com has announced the results from their popular WordPress plugin competition and WP Comment Remix has taken first place. So what does first place win?

• $2000
• Production of a professionally recorded song for the winner.
• Dedicated server for one year from iWeb (Intel Core 2 Duo, HD 160GB Sata2, 1GB of RAM and 1500GB of bandwidth per month)
• Copy of OIOPublisher Advertising Plugin

Second place went to Aaron Harp who created Manageable. Manageable allows for inline editing of the date, title, author, categories, tags, status and more on both posts and pages. Interestingly enough, WordPress 2.7 is slated to have many of these same features.

Congratulations to the winners of the competition and for all of those plugin authors who created a plugin from scratch for the competition. I was one the judges for the event and I have to admit, their was plenty of competition. I especially found the plugins that were created by Vladimir Prelovac to be innovative and thought he was going to run away with this competition but I was proved wrong.

Brian Pipa of the massively popular blog Candy Addict set out to do something I’ve only dreamed of doing: he’s created an amazing online tool that people will not only love but that will also end up being very profitable. It’s called Teenormous.

Here’s a bold prediction: Teenormous will be be a household Internet name in less than a year and within a few years will be a staple in the top 1000 Alexa sites. I feel that confident about the quality of this project.

Here’s my interview with Brian.

Tell us a bit about the history behind Teenormous?

I’ve always loved t-shirts. Once my candy blog, Candy Addict, took off, I noticed that my top performing affiliate “ad” on Candy Addict was for candy t-shirts. It far surpassed every other affiliate month over month. That got me thinking… maybe I should create a t-shirt site.

I started poking around and found loads of t-shirt blogs, and I didn’t feel like stepping into a crowded niche. About the same time, my buddy Tom Davies was having some success with his GiftHat site. We started talking about communities and how we could create a t-shirt site/community. Eventually, the idea for Teenormous became clear.

That was about two years ago. During that time, Candy Addict took off, GiftHat was going strong, and Tom had his first child. We didn’t *really* get started coding til January of 2008 and even then, we both have real day jobs and families so it was hard to find time to code.

What was the biggest challenge in moving the project from concept to completion?

Completion? We are nowhere near done. 🙂 One of the biggest problems is deciding when you’re done, or done *enough*. Launching the site even though it’s not nearly feature complete is hard to do. We have a bajillion ideas and plans for the site but if we waited for all the ideas to be implemented, we’d never launch at all. We finally whittled down all of the features to a bare minimum so we could launch. We settled on Teenomrous as a kick-butt search engine to begin with. That will be the basis for all the great features to come.

The other challenge is just finding time to code. If Tom and I didn’t have “real” 9-5 jobs, we could have had this done in no time. Trying to squeeze coding time in between the job, the wife’s demands, the parties my 7-year old daughter must go to, etc. is rough.

How do you plan to monetize Teenormous?

We’ve come up with a number of ways to monetize the site. I can’t give away all of them, but the main one is traffic plus affiliates. We’re taking the retailmenot.com approach. I read an interview with them that said that only 40% of their links are affiliates but because they are the market leader, it doesn’t matter, they still make plenty of money.

We will index ALL great/cool t-shirts sites (not just affiliate sites) and a percentage of the sites will have affiliate programs that kick some money back to us for each sale. Even though all of the clicks won’t make money, we will be the goto site for t-shirt searching, so the volume of traffic will make up for not monetizing every click.

I love the large number of t-shirts that you have indexed and the quality of your search results. How much work was it developing the search algorithm?

We used an open source search/indexing engine but we (Tom) really tweaked the settings all to heck to work for us and it has worked flawlessly. The search is much better than either of us expected. The one thing we have over the competion is complex filtering of your results. Say you get 88 Nintendo t-shirts. After the initial search, you can filter that down to something like blue Nintendo t-shirts for guys that cost less than $20.

The searches come back in order of relevancy. The first page of results should be right on the money and the further you go in the results the less they are relevant (but they ARE still relevant). We have come up with a way to make the results even more accurate (incredibly accurate) and we’re working to get that out soon.

Can you give us a glimpse of some the upcoming features you’ve been alluding to in various places around the net?

We already have something coded to keep all tees in the system up-to-date. We’ll be rolling that out in the next week or so. That will keep all of our info current and fresh. Tagging and user accounts/logins are also on the way.

We will also soon have a portion of the site for “charitees”… t-shirts from non-profits like the American Red Cross – http://www.redcross.org/. We want to help match up giving people with charities with great t-shirts. We’re also tossing around some other ideas for ways to give.

We have a couple more things planned that are unique and innovative and should make a big splash when we release them.

In my completely honest opinion, Teenormous is clearly the best t-shirt search engine, on almost all accounts (functionality, search accuracy, filters, etc.). But you are going up against a new competitor who probably has a marketing advantage (in virtue of the owners’ name recognition). How do you plan to handle this enormous hurdle?

We did all the heavy lifting of making the searching rock solid since it will be the foundation for the rest of the features we’re planning. As Google has proven, if you can provide a clear advantage in search capabilities you can knock out even proven or well-known competitors, even with a simpler interface. Just ask Alta Vista – http://www.altavista.com/.

Do you have any tips for bloggers who might want to try their hand at an online project outside the world of blogging?

Take what you know or what you’ve learned through blogging and apply it. Solve a problem/need you have and chances are, it will be useful to others too.

So, I will be the first to admit that I can garner a temper when someone mindlessly bashes something I write. I could let it all slide, and let things be said about me and my writing, but, then again, I should have the right to defend myself when someone criticizes what I write. Well, it is a complex thing, and one must compose himself or herself in a correct manner to avoid ending up in a bad situation.

I tend to take everything head-on. Some of the stuff I have taken the time to write in the comments sections of some of my blog posts could be developed into full-fledged articles, but it is a thin line between defending myself and entertaining the haters. I will not hold back on anything I write about, and if someone or something is downright ridiculous, I will put my reputation on the line to state the facts. It is who I am, but I know that I have been in situations that I could have handled better.

Knowing that my fairly straightforward approach to taking on those who have less brain cells is generally uncalled for, I offer some of you advice that I only wish I could follow myself at the times when it is most needed. I’m sure that many of you are better than me in that regard.

A Few Tips for Dealing with Unruly Commenters

Come back later: Do you know that feeling you get when you say something you really regret, and you know that if you had just taken a few moments, things would have been better than they turned out? Well, I’ve had that experience countless times before. If you come to a situation that is going to have repercussions, step away from the computer screen. Come back later. You’ll be able to approach conflicts in an entirely different manner.

Ignore it: Having tough skin is a quality that many people desire. Most people take criticism in a negative way, but some can harness that into positive and encouraging material. I’m actually extremely happy to take on constructive criticism, but there is the destructive criticism that just does nobody any good. Ignore it if possible, but if you must react to something like this, make the other person look like a fool, instead of making yourself looking like one.

Admit when you’re wrong: Sometimes the contents of an article are going to be wrong. It is going to happen, and it happens much more often when considering that many bloggers don’t feel as obligated to get the facts right. (Journalists are far from perfect as well.) If you wrote something that was incorrect, tell your users that you were wrong either within the article, within the comments, or both. Avoid trying to justify being wrong, because it will just fuel the fire. Take your punishment and make it up with better content later on.

Moderation: Many times you will get those comments who will flock in from a social networking site, glance the article, and give you one of those typical “this article sucks” responses. I have absolutely no problem with removing these types of comments. They add nothing to the discussion, and the person probably is not going to bother responding anyways. Chances are high that these comments originate from young teens who don’t know any better. Unfortunately, the computer screen can make anyone feel invincible.

Reputation

Above all else, understand that you are part of the blogosphere. The blogosphere is a place of conversation, information, and, sometimes, confrontation. Reputations can be shattered after one wrong move, and this is even more important as you and your blog grows in popularity.

There will be a time when you will have to stand up and defend yourself. Conflict and controversy is always brewing. Just realize that people are going to take sides (it is how the world works), and how you present comments and responses might be far more important than the actual meaning. It’s a weird world that we live in.

In the meantime, fellow bloggers—share the love!

How do you deal with people who leave nasty, derogatory comments on your blog? I’d love to know about it. Leave a comment or two. (Hopefully not bad comments!)

[Image Credit: “Must love computers…“—Sierra Koch]

If you run a WordPress powered site, you’ll know first hand how awesome Akismet is. However, it’s not perfect and although it does a great job out of the box, here are a few configuration tips you can use to not only cut down on the spam in the queue, but also aide in moderation of comments.

Configuring Akismet:

In all actuality, there is very little to configure in terms of Akismet. But there is a configuration option which has drastically cut down the amount of spam which ends up in my moderation queue. That option is: Automatically Discard Spam Comments On Posts Older Than A Month. Before I enabled this option, I would look at my spam queue everyday and see hundreds of spam comments. The reason this configuration works is simple. As you blog, more and more content ends up in the archive. Once your archive reaches hundreds or thousands of posts, that is a lot of content for spammers to feed upon. The way I see it, most people will comment on blog posts within the first week or two of being published. Therefor, this option is perfect as it takes all of the spam comments which are aimed at the archive of your blog and discards them before they reach the queue. It’s much easier to browse the moderation queue when it contains 10 entries rather than 100.

Configuring Comments:

You can configure comments in WordPress by browsing to SETTINGS-DISCUSSION in your administration panel. There are an abundant amount of options within this section but I’ll only be covering what you need to know. The section I want you to play particular attention to is BEFORE A COMMENT APPEARS.

First off, the more popular your blog becomes, the more time you spend moderating comments and that time could be better spent writing content. Thats why I’ve left the first option unchecked. The second option is there for accountability of the commenter as well as the fact that spam bots will need to automatically populate those fields. If they don’t have to populate those fields, you’ll see a major increase in spam. This third option is one that has really cut down on comment moderation. If someone leaves a comment on your blog for the first time, they will be placed in the moderation queue. However, if you approve their comment, anytime they leave a comment in the future it will be published immediately. So although you’ll spend time approving their first comment, you won’t have to do it again in the future.

One last option you may want to configure is how many links a comment can have before it’s placed in the moderation queue. On my blog, I’ve chosen 2 or more links. Spam comments generally contain more than one link so this option cuts down the link spam.

Conclusion:

This is by no means a comprehensive list of blocking spam or configuring the way comments are handled but the methods I’ve described above have helped me out tremendously when it comes to dealing with spam and comments. I’m sure you have your own configuration techniques to handle spam along with comments so let’s hear them!

Ronald Huereca of the Readers Appreciation Project brought up a point in which I haven’t thought about before and that is when to turn off comments. In his post, Ronald mentions that it is probably a good idea to turn off comments when:

• You’re on vacation
• You’re done with blogging
• You’d rather concentrate on writing
• You don’t ever respond
• You don’t ever have time
• Legal Issues

I’d like to add on to this list with a few of my own.

• Spam filter doesn’t work
• Receiving hateful comments on a regular basis

Personally, the way I have Akismet set up on my WordPress blog, I don’t think I’ll ever have to worry about a ton of spam getting through. However, I would much rather have the commenting system disabled on my blog rather than coming back from vacation to 100 or so comments that are within the moderation queue.

Have you ever disabled comments either on a post or your entire blog? If so, what brought about the change? Also, if you have any more suggestions to add to the list of when comments should be disabled, be sure to add them in the comments.

Just a few days ago, I published a poll which asked the question, “Who owns your comments?“. So far, the response with the majority amount of votes is “The Blogger“. Despite all the hoopla involved with the issue of owning comments, I think every blogger should clearly display a commenting policy either near the comment form or have a link within their navigation that points to the document. This policy will cover the basics and will ensure that the blogger and commenter are on the same page. Now, let’s dive into some examples of commenting policies as well as tips on what information your own policy should contain.

Your commenting policy should be easily accessible. If you are using WordPress, you can use Alex King’s Comment Policy plugin which will add the policy within the comment form. In case you don’t want to use a plugin, you could always add it in manually by editing your blog’s theme and hard coding the text into the comment form. Alternatively, you could publish an entire page dedicated to the policy, but I doubt anyone will bother browsing to that section of your blog.

This policy should clearly explain what you as the blog author will do with comments posted on your site, who retains ownership of those comments and explain circumstances which would require you to edit an end user’s comment.

Once you’ve figured out how you are going to display the policy, keep the following tips in mind before creating it.

• Make the policy clear and concise
• Be specific
• Outline what you will do with the comments that are published
• Explain how certain circumstances will generate the need to edit a comment
• Think about adding privacy information

If you experience difficulty creating your own policy, here are two examples in which you can use for inspiration.

Alex King’s Policy

Please note: Use of a non-personal web site or blog in the field below and/or comments that are off-topic, personal attacks, or support requests will likely be removed at my discretion.

By commenting here you grant me a perpetual license to reproduce your words and submitted name/web site in attribution.

Themetamorph.com Policy

1) Abuse toward myself or any of this blog’s readers/commenters will not be tolerated, and since it’s my blog, I decide what is/is not abusive and will edit/delete accordingly.
2) This blog uses the Comment Timeout plugin to help fight spam, since spammers seem to enjoy leaving their crap on older posts. Feel free to contact me to discuss a post with closed comments.
3) I DO Follow.

If you still need help, please read this article entitled, Does Your Blog Have A Commenting Policy which illustrates a myriad of different things you should consider putting into the policy.

Do you have a commenting policy on your blog? Do you think this is a non trivial issue? Is this better than actually giving the comments a creative commons license?