BHB Adds Disqus Commenting System

By on January 20, 2013 9:59 pm in Miscellany

Good news! We’ve added the Disqus commenting system to Brooklyn Heights Blog. For starters you may now use your Disqus, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! or OpenID accounts to comment here. Facebook and Twitter users can now share their comments from BHB on those platforms. Another bonus is that when you’ve commented using any of those compatible accounts, you can choose to receive an email when someone responds to one of your comments.

Onward and upward!

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  • BrooklynBugle

    And this is what a comment looks like!

  • Knight

    Does this finally mean that “Gerry” and his opinions will no longer dominate every thread on this blog?

  • BrooklynBugle

    For starters you can ‘flag as inappropriate” as comments you feel are out of bounds.

  • TeddyNYC

    And this is what a reply looks like! I’ve had issues with Disqus in the past, but in general it’s not bad. I appreciate being able to edit my comments from now on BHB.

  • BrooklynBugle

    That’s about how we feel. This should be interesting.

  • TeddyNYC

    I just noticed the up-vote/down-vote feature. That should make things really interesting for some of the regulars here.;)

  • BrooklynBugle

    Also note that our “old” comments are currently importing and should “re-appear” within the next 24 hours.

  • Mr. Crusty

    Oh, we can now down arrow Gerry when he says something obnoxious? That’s worth the price of admission.

  • David on Middagh

    I like the upvote/downvote option.

    Unfortunately, threading will make it impossible to group new comments together. They will be scattered amongst the subthreads. Or if one chooses to sort by “New”, they will be simple a set of responses, divorced from their antecedents, no?

    Does Disqus offers the YouTube-like option to “show original comment” above each new response?

    Another concern. Will the Google and other search systems index the Disqus comments? I’ve used Google before to locate old, half-remembered posts, and look up the posting histories of other commenters. Does Disqus throw a wrench into that? Is what we type here lost to the Internet, unarchived, unsearchable?

  • Jorale-man

    I do hope this measure has the effect of ridding the blog of some of the garbage that’s come to dominate the comments in recent months. If you look back a couple years you’ll notice that the Open Thread Wednesdays were once actually filled with lots of interesting observations, questions and responses. They didn’t immediately degenerate into idiotic name-calling by the same handful of people. Other threads also stayed remarkably on topic.

    I don’t know if Disqus is designed to filter out all the trash but one can always hope it helps. I applaud Homer and the gang for trying to give things a reboot.

  • David on Middagh

    Okay, sorting by “New” leaves new, 2nd-level responses (like this one) scattered. If you need to catch up on an active thread, is there a better way?

    I usually avoid Disqus commenting systems. First, they don’t even show up unless I loosen my browser security and privacy measures. Then, they encourage you to log in with a social site so they can scoop up your social info and resell it.

  • Mr. Crusty

    I’m not quite sure what your objections to Disqus really are. This commenting system gives you so much more flexibility than the previous system used.

    You can sort the discussion by newest comment, oldest comment or by best (most up arrows)

    If a particular sub thread is not of interest you can hit the little mi us sign and collapse that sub thread.

    You can offer your approval or disapproval without even commenting by hitting the up or down arrows.

    You can easily report inappropriate comments to the moderator

    You can easily check all of your own (or anyone else’s) previous comments in all threads in one place

    You can check any responses to your comments in all threads in one place.

    And you do not have to use social media to sign in.

    And you can use HTML tags to italic or bold or quote

    And the best feature of all, you can edit your response after it is posted.

    What’s not to like?

  • James

    Disqus among yourselves…

  • DIBS

    Yeah because it works SOOOOO well over on brownstoner

  • DIBS

    Already I see it is not posting comments in the order that they are received!!!!!

    You will encounter many more problems if brownstoner is any example.

  • DIBS

    The Edit feature isn’t working. I tried to edit my word “poating” to “posting” and it doesn’t take.

  • DIBS

    I guess eventially it did work…took about 3 minutes.

    But still, recent posts are not chronological from what I am seeing at the bottom here

  • harumph

    @DIBS – no comment just trying it out myself!

  • DIBS

    OK…but are you seeing that posts are not in chronological order now hear, at the end of the thread??

  • Mr. Crusty

    You have the choice to see the comments sorted. Most recent, oldest, or most popular. Click on the DISCUSSION at the top left of the comment section.

  • DIBS

    That did sort things out. Thanks

  • Mr. Crusty

    It works. And you can sort the comments. Before you start knocking the system take a few seconds to figure out how to use it.

  • Dibs

    Testing pn iPad

  • Dibs

    No edit feature showing on iPad!!! And have to keep enterring name and email address. :(

  • Dibs

    Looks like it needed to “warm up” on iPad…showing my name and email now. LOL

  • Dibs

    Dont be so crusty

  • Dibs

    Not sure why my avatar doesnt post from iPad and only from Mac laptop

  • DIBS

    Testing the connect feature

  • DIBS

    Ahhhhhh…that seemed to have worked. Avatar here. Edit ability back

    Great!!!!!!

  • David on Middagh

    What’s not to like:

    You’re wrong about sorting by newest comment. Comments that are responses to other comments do not get popped up in their rightful chronological sequence. And if they did, it looks like all we’d see for context is the *first few words* of the shallow-level comment that prompted them, not the whole. Turning of subthreading would solve this.

    You’re wrong about [being able to edit] AND [not having to sign in to comment], in the sense that if you don’t sign in with one of those privacy-reaming social media sites (such as Disqus) you are not allowed to edit your comment. The edit option simply hasn’t appeared for me after I sign in the old way.

    Note that to “preserve your comment history” you must register with Disqus, which I am not convinced is not evil (in the old “Don’t be evil” Google sense). Tangent: Google is now evil, tho’ they’re trying not to be too evil too quickly. Yes, I use Google products.

    tldr:

    I *believe* this site has the option to turn *off* this subthreading which is encouraging us all to create fractal ziggurats of digression. Like this one. Turning off subthreads would help a lot.

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