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A quick Google search shows a number of different options for comment plugins: alt text

Is there a "best" way to handle comments? I realize it will vary from site to site, but I'm looking for the best way to handle them on a "typical" site - no special requirements here. Is it worth using something like Disqus or another plugin or third party service, or should I stick with the built in comment handling?

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What do you mean by "handle" comments? What about the default WordPress admin interface for comments is lacking? What extended features are you looking for? – EAMann♦ Sep 24 '10 at 15:33
Not looking for any particular features. I have noticed more and more WP sites using Disqus, so I'm curious about it and other comment management solutions. Nothing lacking in the default interface for me (for now). – tnorthcutt Sep 24 '10 at 16:23

4 Answers

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I've personally stayed away from any external or 3rd party system. Many times commenters are apprehensive about using "another" account or service, esp with recent privacy issues with Facebook, etc. Also, many add bloat and delay page load to run their own scripts, etc and can be harder to style to fit within an existing theme. I would look to use the existing WP comment function, plus Askimet and some .htaccess rules to block out spam.

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Personal opinion on things to stay away from:

  • Akismet, it has terrible surges of false positives and operates as black box;
  • external comment systems, they are solution in search of a problem.

I started with native WP tools alone. Blacklist is great, but takes some maintenance.

Since spam grows with time later I ended up building my own anti-spam plugin (combination of learning blacklist and simple pattern recognition). As of now I get over 10k spam comments a month and have to deal with 15-25 a day manually ( ~95% effectiveness).

Basic trade-off is the more you let computer decide the higher possibility of legit comment getting nuked.

So you need to find your own set of tools that provides:

  • amount of control that you are comfortable with
  • for the amount of spam you get
  • and how willing you are to risk occasional false positive
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Personally, I love Intense Debate for my own blogs and for my company's blogs. There are several reasons:

  1. It's an Automattic product, AKA, the people behind WordPress
  2. Its plugin works perfectly for syncing WP comments
  3. It automatically works with Facebook and Twitter in a really sweet way
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What do you mean by "syncing WP comments? – tnorthcutt Sep 26 '10 at 5:44
IntenseDebate does all the comments on their end, but they also sync the comments with your database. Thus, if you remove IntenseDebate, you don't lose all of your comments. – Dan Gayle Sep 27 '10 at 16:00
I see, that makes perfect sense. – tnorthcutt Sep 29 '10 at 13:43
up vote 0 down vote

I used Intende Debate in the past, then i migrate my site to new host i had some problems and i'm deleting my account. Had a lot of troubles with this service. Now i'm using Disqus

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