Disqus Update: Please Sign Up!

We're still ironing out all of the kinks with the Disqus comments system but we think that overall it's been an improvement on our old system. It's certainly eased the load on our server, and hopefully some of you have enjoyed the new features it brings.

One of our main reasons for installing Disqus was for the improved comment moderation it brings, so with that in mind next week we're planning on moving to Phase Two and requiring that only comments made by people who are signed in will appear immediately. Comments by people who aren't signed in, or who haven't commented before, will be automatically held for moderation. This will give us a bit more control over comments, while also hopefully encouraging a few more readers to give Disqus a whirl.

You can sign up and/or find out more at Disqus. (You'll also still be able to sign in using a Twitter, Yahoo! or OpenID account.)

New Comments System: Introducing Disqus

THIS POST IS WAS STICKY- MORE RECENT POSTS APPEAR BELOW.

You may have noticed that we've changed our commenting system this weekend. There are still a few kinks to iron out but overall the switch seems to have worked so I wanted to explain some of the many benefits Disqus comments will bring.

What are the benefits for you?:

1. A much improved commenting system. In the past we've installed various features designed to improve our blog comments, such as the ability to edit mistakes after you've posted, or the option to receive others' replies via email. Inevitably, system upgrades and changes to our website caused problems with these plugins and stopped them working. Now, all of this is handled by Disqus. You should be able to edit your comments, receive replies to email, reply to these replies by email, and if you wish subscribe to a post's comments by RSS. You can also show your appreciation for another person's comment by anonymously clicking 'Like'. By the same token, if you feel a comment is offensive or spammy you can easily flag it for review.


2. True ownership of your comments. Before, all of your comments were stored on our site only. Now, if you sign up to Disqus you'll have your own Disqus profile where any comment you make on any site which uses Disqus is stored. Here's mine.


3. An identity on EA. Instead of just a name and icon, you can now upload an avatar to your Disqus profile. You can also share things such as information about yourself, links to your own website/ Twitter page and so on. Disqus also includes social features- for example if you give it your Twitter details you'll have the option to tweet your comments.

There's much more information about all of this over at Disqus.

What are the benefits for us?:

1. Greater protection from trolls and flamers. If you're signed up to Disqus it will be more difficult for someone to imitate you on EA (thankfully a very rare occurrence, but one that can ruin an entire discussion when it happens). It will also be more obvious when someone is posting multiple times under multiple names.


2. Easing the load on our server. Because Disqus hosts the comments and serves them up on our site we save on disk space and bandwidth which, slowly but surely, saves us money.


3. It's one less headache when we move to our new site. Not only will we have all had a chance to get used to Disqus, but we're hoping that it will solve the problems we've had in moving comments over to our new site.

To summarise: please consider signing up for Disqus. Once you do this you can claim your comments from our pre-Disqus days.

For the time being you'll be able to comment on the site as a guest (giving just your name and an email address, as in the old days). However in a couple of weeks we may switch to pre-moderating all guest comments- this will mean that the only way to have your comments appear immediately on site will be to be signed in. (If you don't want to sign up to Disqus and create a profile you can also sign in via a Twitter, OpenID or Yahoo account, though this will mean you won't be able to use some of Disqus' best features.)

Thanks to everyone for putting up with a few bugs on the site this weekend and in the coming days as we get everything up to speed- hopefully it's been for the best.