Intense Debate

lee · 2009-01-07 10:03:15

Anyone have experience of using http://intensedebate.com/home with TxP or any other system?

Destry · 2009-01-07 14:43:08

Although you’ll still get a lot of debate, there’s been a lot of signs on the web that comments are becoming less desired at all. Such things as spam, trolls, hostiles, etc just makes comments after the first 10 to 20 not worth keeping comments open. Andre at Design by Fire has turned comments off permanently, and Roger at 456 Berea Street has talked of doing the same thing. Many more out there too for the very same reasons. Plus there’s a lot of trend predictions that traditional blogging has peaked and will phase-out or undergo an evolution against other socialware. It’s early but the signs are favorable to such. Thus, something like this IntenseDebate might be too little too late, as they say. I could see how it would work for a site aimed at precisely debating things (e.g., politics), but I think it’s pointless for the general blogger, especially if they don’t have a following anyway.

variaas · 2009-01-07 15:51:02

@destry – Turning off comments seems more like a cop out than really trying to figure out how to get good conversations on your site. For example, SeriousEats is a site that I frequent often and I find that the comments on their site stay on topic and provide value for the most part.

@lee – I haven’t used IntenseDebate yet, but let us know how it goes if you give it a try.

Destry · 2009-01-07 17:53:07

variaas wrote:

Turning off comments seems more like a cop out than really trying to figure out how to get good conversations on your site.

There’s many sites that have good dialog going in comments, no doubt. I also see tons of sites that have a ton of comments, but most of what is being said is shit. (Volume isn’t always best.) The two sites I named had good commentary but both site owners have publically stated how much work it is to keep things humane, respectful and on topic all the time. If one spends more time playing moderator than content developer, then it’s probably time to rethink the model. Copping out isn’t really the point.

The other side of it, what I was really trying to touch upon, is that the blog/comments model is an old one now (5 or so years is old in this game) and there’s signs the model is changing. It’s expected. Spending considerable energy trying to make your blog comments a success (by whatever measure) may not be the trend anymore. For example, 10 Ways Twitter Will Change Blog Design in 2009 poses some interesting ideas. Twitter might end up being the dialog channel now, increasingly integrated with the blog, replacing comments, and perhaps even replacing blogs at some point. It’s still hypothetical, but interesting to discuss and watch things unfold nonetheless. :)

Neko · 2009-01-08 01:36:35

Well, if seen it in use on a couple of blogs I regularly read… not bad in my opinion. At first seems a bit sluggish (it doesn’t appear immediatly on page load) but if your goal is to… let’s say “out-source” the burden of comments onto another system then that’s perfect for you.

Mind you, I’ve only used as a user, not as an admin, so I don’t know exactly what kind of features it offers. If it offers Akismet/blacklist/spam prevention out of the box, then it might be really good.

The only negative point is that, on the blogs I’ve tried it, the interface is in English (while the blog themselves are written in Italian). Don’t know if it’s because English is the only interface available or what.

Last edited by Neko (2009-01-08 01:38:57)

hcgtv · 2009-01-08 15:24:27

Destry wrote:

The other side of it, what I was really trying to touch upon, is that the blog/comments model is an old one now (5 or so years is old in this game) and there’s signs the model is changing.

It was Open Diary that introduced commenting back in 1998.

The model is indeed changing, but I don’t think any one service, like Intense Debate, can service everyone just right. Wordpress users aren’t the same as Textpattern or Geeklog users. Since comments are personal, I would trust a home grown solution, that’s catered to the piece of software that I use, more so than a generic Automattic one.

What Intense Debate has done is legitimize the concept, what each project should do is embrace this new model.

Destry · 2009-01-21 10:20:57

I’ve actually been seeing this threaded comments concept being used in a number of blogs I’ve visited recently. Whether or not it was this particular app running it, I don’t know, but it is kind of nice way to put comments in context to each other.

One problem I do see with moving away from the linear model and into a contextual one is that if a person is responding in context to a parent comment made earlier in the commenting history overall, it’s less likely to be seen by anyone if the entire comments tree is already long. I think the habit of blog readers, even here in the forum if a given thread is 50+ pages, is to just quickly scan and then maybe jump to the end to add their two cents. Thus, that suggests a second usability problem with contextual commenting, which is redundancy.

Actually, maybe that’s not a second problem because every long comment stream I’ve ever seen (linear, contextual or otherwise), is more than 50% redundant noise anyway. No change there.

Last edited by Destry (2009-01-21 10:21:32)

wspence · 2009-01-23 20:42:04

This whole conversation is a very inner debate. When you boil down to it, it doesn’t matter the means of which there is a conversation or a community. It just matters that there is a community. I personally think twitter is very tech oriented. The average joe doesn’t understand what it is or what it does. Though its going more mainstream, its also more corporate. Personally, I never like comment threading in blogs. I think there should be a discussion in a different area, like a forum. It just makes the post look a lot less cluttered IMO and maybe I’m old school, but I still believe that forums are a great way to create community. I see something like laconica possibly having as much, if not more impact as twitter does on blogging.

wspence · 2009-01-23 20:43:10

Destry wrote:

I’ve actually been seeing this threaded comments concept being used in a number of blogs I’ve visited recently. Whether or not it was this particular app running it, I don’t know, but it is kind of nice way to put comments in context to each other.

the new commenting system in Wordpress 2.7 is a threaded comment system. This is a default setting and it is great.

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#1 2009-01-07 10:03:15

Intense Debate

#2 2009-01-07 14:43:08

Re: Intense Debate

#3 2009-01-07 15:51:02

Re: Intense Debate

#4 2009-01-07 17:53:07

Re: Intense Debate

#5 2009-01-08 01:36:35

Re: Intense Debate

#6 2009-01-08 15:24:27

Re: Intense Debate

#7 2009-01-21 10:20:57

Re: Intense Debate

#8 2009-01-23 20:42:04

Re: Intense Debate

#9 2009-01-23 20:43:10

Re: Intense Debate

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