Discuss With A Q – Reasons to Use This Comment Widget

If you use Blogger, you’ve probably had people tell you from time to time they couldn’t comment on your blog. If you don’t use Blogger, you’ve probably at least once tried to comment on a Blogger blog and couldn’t. 

If you already use Disqus, you’re across this issue. If you don’t, you’re either scratching your head about why people can’t leave comments (because it’s random, and you’ll probably have comments on the post someone told you they couldn’t comment on) or you just plain don’t know how to fix the issue. 

 

For those who don’t know, it is a well-known issue with Blogger that sometimes comments won’t post. You endlessly get asked to enter CAPTCHA phrases or clicking the publish button produces no response. It has been raised as a technical issue but to the best of my knowledge no attempt has been made to fix it.

Of course, in the blogsphere comments are currency more valuable than gold so the possibility some comments aren’t being made is horrific! 

There are workarounds. You can use full-page comments instead of embedded comments and it seems to work, but I found this option quite ugly and cumbersome. 

Or you can use Disqus.

I’ve never had a commenting problem on Blogger since I started using Disqus. It imports all your old comments, too, so you don’t lose any comments made on your blog in the pre-Disqus days. Occasionally a comment won’t come across but this can usually be fixed with a quick import. 

So what do I love about Disqus?

• Number one, naturally, avoiding the all-too-common lost comment problem of Blogger;
• Comment threads allow you to easily reply to comments and even hold on-blog conversations, allowing other readers to read and participate. This encourages even more comments on your blog;
• It eliminates CAPTCHA phrases. I hate CAPTCHA. No, wait, that doesn’t properly convey the level of my loathing for CAPTCHA. Seeing CAPTCHA is almost enough for me to throw up my hands in surrender. I can’t read the damn things! I’m sure these filter out as many real people as they do spam comments. Disqus effectively filters all spam comments without CAPTCHA!
• If you comment on other blogs that use Disqus you can easily see when the blog owner has replied to you without needing to return to that blog. I love this feature as I don’t always remember whose blog I commented on when or have time to go back.
• You don’t need to have a Disqus account to comment (so everyone can comment) but for those who want a Disqus account, it makes commenting even easier and auto-links to your blog or website.

I’ve heard there are negative things about this comment system but I had to Google it to find out what they were. One of them, apparently, is if you try to uninstall Disqus all your threaded comment conversations go haywire. Say what? *scratches head* Why would you want to uninstall it? This is such a brilliant commenting plug-in (widget? Gadget? I can’t tell them apart) that I can’t ever fathom wanting to remove it. 

This is a love affair for life. 

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This is part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge Series. If you missed the previous posts, you can find them here - A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O and P.

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