NYCPHP Meetup

[Chris Snyder]

On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 4:38 PM, Paul A Houle <paul at devonianfarm.com> wrote:

>   No matter what technological measures you use,  you'll need a user
> interface to make hand edits.  For instance,  my site at
>
> http://spoonriveranthology.net/
>
>   uses Disqus for comments because I didn't have time to develop a good
> commenting system for that site.  Disqus is a service that runs on a central
> server that transcludes comments into your site with Javascript:  it gives
> you a pretty decent threaded commenting system with an admin UI,  spam
> defense and other good features.  There's a similar service from
> IntenseDebate,  which is also pretty good...  I just picked Disqus because I
> had to pick something.

Agreed, using Disqus is easy. I use it for my blog, which I don't
really expect comments on.

I would not use it long term if comments were really important to me,
for three reasons:

1) Requires javascript, which pisses off smart people
2) Introduces visual clutter
3) Your comments are now split from your content

Reason three is probably the most important, long term. If Disqus goes
away, or messes something up all of your comments are gone. If you
change the URI of the page, all that page's comments are gone. Also,
Google doesn't index your comments with your site.

It's a great service, but balance that against the potential
consequences before you use it.