{"id":2610,"date":"2017-03-09T20:59:42","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T01:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ragesw.com\/blog\/?p=2610"},"modified":"2018-04-10T02:13:45","modified_gmt":"2018-04-10T07:13:45","slug":"everweb-blogging-which-comment-engine-should-i-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ragesw.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/09\/everweb-blogging-which-comment-engine-should-i-use\/","title":{"rendered":"EverWeb Blogging: Which Comment Engine Should I Use?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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EverWeb’s blogging feature has the option to include a comment engine so your visitors can add their own comments to your blog posts. \u00a0Typically, only users registered with the comment engine provider can add comments which are displayed in chronological order after the blog post itself. As the blog ‘administer’ you will usually be responsible for overseeing, or ‘Moderating’, the Comments Section.<\/p>\n

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Do You Need To Use A Comment Engine?<\/h2>\n

The first question you should ask yourself is ‘Do I need to use a comment engine at all?’ It’s often a question that is\u00a0overlooked as it is generally assumed that if you have a blog, you have a Comments Section. There are great reasons to use a comment engine: It helps engage your audience with what you are doing, it fosters debate which may help you develop your products and services and it tells your audience that your website is live and active! The downside,\u00a0however,\u00a0is that you have to administer the comments, answer questions and respond to any issues or complaints that may arise. Additionally, you also have to police the comments section for spam and for potential abuse. Moderating can be a stressful business.<\/p>\n

So, there are pros and cons to having a comment engine for your site. If you are happy to go ahead, the next task is to decide which comment engine best suits your needs.<\/p>\n

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Selecting Your Comment Engine<\/h2>\n

EverWeb<\/a> gives you the choice of Disqus or Facebook Comments. These are the two most popular comment engines out there although there are others.\u00a0It is up to you to decide on which engine to use, The decision should be based mainly around the audience that you have, or want to attract, to your website and its blog.<\/p>\n

Disqus and Facebook Comments essentially do the same thing and both have their strengths and weaknesses. Essentially there are a number of questions that will determine which Comment Engine is best for you.<\/p>\n

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  1. Where is my target audience? If you have\u00a0a great Facebook presence, FaceBook Comments may be better for you. If your\u00a0\u00a0audience is largely non-Facebook users then Disqus may be better.<\/li>\n
  2. How do the Moderation features stack up? As administrator of the Comments Section, you will probably be the one to ‘moderate’ the comments that come in. Responding to comments may require timely action. Policing the comments may be important if your comments section gets spammed, or trolled or if abusive language is used. These tasks require management, so you will want your comment engine to have the tools you need, when you need to use them<\/li>\n
  3. User friendliness. Typically comment engines will ask you to register first before you\u00a0can post your comments. Once registered, the user will typically use a\u00a0‘handle’ by which they will be known when commenting. The user will then need to log in to the comment section of your website to leave a comment. In all, it is important that your user’s experience of logging in, commenting, replying, sharing and so on, are easy and quick to do. Make sure that the user experience matches your goals for your blog.<\/li>\n
  4. Ease of set up and management. Both Facebook Comments and Disqus have their own tools to set up and manage their comment engine. FaceBook does this through a ‘Developer App ID’ whilst Disqus uses a ‘Shortname’ handle, both of which are created when you first setup your account. The two approaches to set up and management of your commenting environment are different yet achieve the same result. It is worth while taking some time to explore both tools from a management perspective before choosing the\u00a0one suits your needs best.<\/li>\n
  5. Ease of administration. As the Moderator of your blog, you will want administatration tasks to be as easy as possible. Check that the comment engine you intend to use does what you want in this respect e.g. Do you want to be notified when a comment is logged, do you want to vet comments before they ‘go live’ in your comments section (e.g. To filter out spam) etc.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    Disqus and FaceBook Comments Compared<\/h2>\n

    I\u00a0noted earlier that the two comment engines have many features in common. However, there are some definite distinctions to be noted, which are\u00a0outlined below. Remember that both products are often updated so this list is subject to change!<\/p>\n

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    Disqus<\/h3>\n

    Disqus<\/a>\u00a0has the following distinguishing features:<\/p>\n