As you may have noticed over the past couple of weeks I have installed a new comment management system.  Since it is such a departure from the old system I thought I might explain why I’ve moved over to the new system and how to get the most out of it.

So what is Disqus?

Well it’s obviously a comment and moderation tool that you can install on your blog or I assume even just a static website.

The big thing about this comment system is that it is designed to develop communities around your site and to also develop a profile of yourself and comments/discussions that you get involved with all over the web.

From their website:

“Disqus is a startup founded in 2007 and based in San Francisco. We are passionate about building products that people love to use. Our investors include Union Square Ventures and Y Combinator.”

Why did I move over to Disqus?

The first thing that attracted me to Disqus was that it integrated with Twitter and Facebook really easily, which meant that I could share responses and comments over on my Twitter account which would in turn promote the conversation and encourage others to come over and take part.

There are also a number of websites that I do like to comment on that already use Disqus and since I generally talk a lot about the same kinds of things I wanted to put those awesome conversations that I have here onto my Disqus profile as well.

So how do YOU get the most out of it?

Well first of all you don’t need to do anything, you can continue on in exactly the same way you were before, name, email etc.  I haven’t set the commenting system on moderate or confirm or anything like that so your comments should show up straight away.  Your photo should generally still show up if you have a gravatar although I have noticed in some sizes it doesn’t recognise them so I don’t know what can be done there.

But there are a couple of other ways you can interact with the comments system if you are so inclined.

If you have a Twitter account you can log in to the comments system using your Twitter login and password.  This will link your comments with your Twitter profile and use your Twitter avatar as your photo.  Also anyone who might like what you saying may click your photo and check out your Twitter feed.  This is how I first started using the system and I actually got some followers from it, legitimate ones who I still talk to.

Likewise you can use your Facebook, OpenID or Yahoo account, I haven’t done that so I don’t know how easy it is but I assume it is exactly the same as the Twitter login.  No Google account yet?  Odd.

If you’ve got a couple of social media accounts that you would like to share your comments across it’s probably best to sign up for a free Disqus account anyway, this way you can manage all of your social media channels in one place and if you do go to more than one site that uses Disqus then you have an overview of everything you’re commenting on and replies.

Anything else?

• you can subscribe to the comments by email or RSS, that way you can monitor the discussion and wade back in if something catches your eye
• you can sort the comments as you see fit
• you can tag a comment that you really like or agree with
• you can really help me out by flagging any comments that you deem spam or inappropriate

But I really hate it.

Ah well, that’s hard because I’m really liking it at this stage.  There have been some teething problems (ouch don’t mention teeth), it broke the RSS feed for some people (though that’s supposed to be patched now) and a couple of regulars who I especially love have said that they didn’t like it so I’ve tried to make some changes in it to accommodate.

I guess at the end of the day I can always roll it back to the old way if the experiment is a complete failure, so far though I’ve seen more conversation from a wider group of people on here as well as over on Twitter so it’s doing what I hoped it would for the time being.

If there is something specific that really bugs you then let me know.

Otherwise please give it a go, set yourself up on it and try it out before abandoning me!

You need to stick around because I’ll be posting about Jurassic Park, games, Iron Man toys, Indiana Jones sequels, movie posters and my top five EVER films!!!