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Back to the future with comments on The Batavian

By Howard B. Owens

We tried the Facebook comment plug-in and while it achieved the goal of increasing the number of comments on the site, it was also riddled with spam.

So we tried Disqus and many people find it confusing and difficult to use. I had complaints about an inability to login and with my personal account (instead of the moderator's account), I couldn't log in.

So now we're going back to our old, content management system's built-in comment tool.

Doing so does bring back a feature that was popular with frequent commenters when we used it before -- the "latest comments" box on the left side of the page.  

As I said when we switched to Disqus a few weeks ago: 

The rules remain the same:

  • You must post using a real name (no business names, no alias).
  • No personal attacks.  No name-calling.
  • No profanity.
  • No comments ridiculing, mocking, or insulting other people because of who they are.
  • No misinformation/false information.

We expect community conversations to be productive and respectful.  If you want to spout invective and "alternate facts," that's why Facebook exists (though we also police comments on The Batavian's Facebook page).

Dave Olsen

No comments ridiculing, mocking, or insulting other people because of who they are.
No misinformation/false information.

oh sure, take all the fun out of it

Nov 10, 2021, 9:30am Permalink
Michael Peet

Howard, now that we're back to using this comments system are you gonna make the comments visible on the home page just like the last time you used this comments system or do we still gotta click on the article to see the comments. Either option is fine with me. Just curious.

Nov 10, 2021, 2:42pm Permalink
Howard B. Owens

Michael, if you mean being able to read comments under the story on the home page like it was with the comment plugin from Facebook, that was a key feature of Facebook not available from any other comment system. So, no, that will not happen.

Nov 10, 2021, 4:03pm Permalink

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