12 ms·

Try Out the New Disqus 2012

92 points by radagaisus 14y ago

rdl 14y ago
Wow, this actually looks like something better than either old disqus or fb comments. I'm tempted to finally get around to setting up a blog again to try it out. (I had kind of given up on the idea of a blog comment network once disqus semi-stagnated, and fb comments became more common). I'm amazed at how much worthwhile comment (albeit with a horrible SNR) is still trapped in phpBB forum sites, blog comments, and other basically painful to access places. Within startups and technology, generally quora or hn or stack overflow or blogs themselves seem adequate, but whenever I search for info about my car, firearms, legal, DIY, etc., it feels like a bad version of 2003. There's still no good solution to the "local newspaper comment quality problem", though.
- citricsquid 14y ago
  > is still trapped in phpBB forum sites I really don't agree with that. Standard internet forums have a very important role in internet community, they can't just be replaced by blogs. If you approach forums as just a source of information then sure, they could be replaced by a blog because "why not put all the information I want in blog posts?" but internet forums are so much more than just a source of information. They're about sharing, community and discovery, if you only ever use forums because google search results contain links to them then your opinion is very skewed.
  - rdl 14y ago
    I like forums and community discussion, I just don't like the forum software widely used. phpBB and similar are a colossal step backward from what we had before (USENET). HN is better software than any forum-type software I've seen, but isn't used anywhere else. Reddit might be the second best, but despite trying many times, I really can't get into it, even with subreddits.
    - Jimmie 14y ago
      phpBB bugs me too. I have two problems with using HN or reddit to fill the void though. Posts drop off the front page after a day. I've never seen a way to prevent this happening, there really needs to be a way to sort by "most recent comments" on the post pages. The comment threading would need a small overhaul so it isn't mostly nested anymore. So the first response to a comment stays flat and the second response braches to a new comment node. Comment threads only growing to 8 comments deep before "continuing on a new page" is a bummer, this would keep almost all the discussion on a single one.
      - rdl 14y ago
        This is the product I wish Google would build, rather than a shitty Facebook knockoff. Google Groups has gone through two major iterations, and is now basically useless. People might not want Google to have their personal information (I'd say people probably trust Facebook more than Google with "sharing social information" -- this isn't entirely rational), but forum posts are basically things you want to have public. It's got a "community management" piece which Google probably couldn't get right, but they could provide tools to people/groups to run forums. The big plus for users would be aggregating content (RSS++), anti-spam, etc. Facebook Groups is probably the best "small group sharing info" tool right now, and it's inherently non-indexed.
        Jimmie 14y ago
        I wouldn't want it integrated with current sites though. I'd like it self-hostable and with separate account signups. "Login with facebook/gmail" is ok but for some people that's a privacy barrier that they won't cross.
      - drivebyacct2 14y ago
        I have long longed-for a reddit styled forum. Threaded, lightweight comments (kill "signatures", whoever thought that was a good idea), with the same sort of new-post-bumps-topic forum style. It looks like Disqus is part of the way there, depending on their API you could maybe even hack together this functionality without having to write much of this yourself.
- codinghorror 14y ago
  Agree completely. I can't say much more other than, uh, "stay tuned".
  - rdl 14y ago
    Wow, if you kill the expert-sexchange of forum software, you'll be 2 for 2. Thanks in advance!
bhauer 14y ago
Does it support SSL yet? Last I checked (admittedly, about 6 months ago), it seemed Disqus could not be used at full-SSL sites.
- thetylerhayes 14y ago
  Yup we've supported SSL for almost that long now actually ;) Just change the http:// http:// prefix to https:// https:// in the universal code (e.g., https://yourforumshortname.disqus.com/embed.js https://yourforumshortname.disqus.com/embed.js) and you're good to go. Works with all our files: embed.js, count.js, everything except media attachments (which we're working on). Give it a shot. If it doesn't work holler our way at http://disqus.com/support http://disqus.com/support. Happy to lend a hand. UPDATE: Caveat: I'm referring to the current version of Disqus, not Disqus 2012. SSL support for 2012 is on our radar.
  - knewter 14y ago
    In general, wouldn't you just support leaving the protocol out and changing the universal code embed to just `://yourforumshortname.disqus.com/embed.js`? Isn't this best-practices these days, as it covers both cases best?
    - natrius 14y ago
      You can drop the colon. I'm not even sure if it would work with the colon.
    - bentlegen 14y ago
      I can assure you that our problem isn't that we don't know how to redirect users to the correct URL :)
lux 14y ago
I didn't see a link, but I'd be interested to know if and how the integration changes for sites implementing the new Disqus. In any case, looks really good!
- zeeg 14y ago
  There's no changes required by publishers (users implementing Disqus). It works with the same embed code as before.
  - lux 14y ago
    That's pretty awesome! And great for developers that have integrated Disqus into their software too.
  - saurik 14y ago
    Interesting; I has assumed as much from "The new Disqus integrates in a way that is naturally discoverable by Google — out of the box, without any extra work." <- this did not require any changes on the user end?
    - richbradshaw 14y ago
      I wondered this... I'd actually planned to use the API to embed the comments, but haven't had time to implement yet.
toddmorey 14y ago
The video mentions that they use a technique to include comments that provides proper SEO (and feels natural to Google). Any information on what they've done? I remember previously, they had a WordPress plugin that brought Disqus comments back to your site for SEO purposes.
- zeeg 14y ago
  We'll be talking more about this in the future. For now it's mostly in prototype/draft form, but we have confirmed that it is supported.
- heyitsnick 14y ago
  from the comment thread on the blog post, one of the devs responded to the Q "So I guess this uses Google's AJAX/JavaScript crawler feature?" with "That's right. Content is still not in the page HTML, but it'll be compatible with the new crawler."
chrislloyd 14y ago
If you want to play around with this live, I noticed it's been running on AVC for a week or so: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/05/twitter-brings-you-closer.html http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/05/twitter-brings-you-closer.ht...
bdr 14y ago
Disqus has never gotten enough credit for their design. People forget how crappy comments used to look. When Disqus came out, everyone eventually copied their design. With Disqus 2012, I think that's going to happen again. They are leading the way.
- codexon 14y ago
  This just looks like Reddit with avatars though.
revorad 14y ago
I love Disqus. They are one of the few startups building seemingly unsexy but solid fundamental tech. I just hope they have a solid business and don't get bought by BigCo for talent or fear of competition.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
northisup 14y ago
If you are interested in how we do the realertime notifications stay tuned for a blog post (and talk at EuroPython). Hint it isn't node.js.
- scorpion032 14y ago
  gevent?
rwmj 14y ago
Will it remove the unnecessary scare-warning about third party cookies?
resplin 14y ago
Is Disqus more friendly to screen readers / impaired users? In the past its reliance on Javascript has made it painful for accessibility software, but the SEO improvements might have made things nicer now. This is the big objection to deploying Disqus on our site.
- samp 14y ago
  We've gotten positive feedback from early testers who use screen readers. Let us know if there are still gaps. Accessibility is a priority for us.
  - terrahawkes 14y ago
    Accessibility isn't just about screen readers. Example user flow illustrating brokenness: 1. Open Firefox. 2. Disable JS. 3. Go to: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/05/twitter-brings-you-closer.html 4. Follow the "View the entire comment thread." link: http://avc.disqus.com/?url=http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/05/twitter-brings-you-closer.html 5. The "Please login to view this page" dialog is missing any visible keyboard focus for hyperlink controls. http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/#visible-focus 6. The dialog includes a "Use OpenID?" link that doesn't lead anywhere. Not supporting some functionality without JS is regrettable and sometimes unavoidable; leaving broken controls in the DOM is just that: _broken_. Feature detect and add controls to the DOM when the necessary functionality is available. 7. Follow the "Go home" link: http://disqus.com/ 8. No visible keyboard focus on the Disqus homepage either. 9. Click "Sign Up". 10. Click "Create commenter account". 11. There are big buttons in the page ("Facebook", "Twitter", "Google") that do nothing. As a web developer who cares about frontend code and UI quality, this sort of thing is enough to put me off integrating with Disqus. Which is a shame, as I think commenting-as-a-service is a great idea.
SnowLprd 14y ago
Quite honestly, I was skeptical about these changes upon first looking at the Community tab in the screenshot. Then I scrolled down to the end of the post, where you can actually see the new comment system in action. It does indeed seem like a significant improvement, including the new Community tab. In a day and age when it seems a lot of companies make UI changes that are actually a step backward, bravo to Disqus for the enhancements. Well done!
polshaw 14y ago
Finally, collapsible comment threads! awesome. Now, only HN needs to fall in line and all comment-thread-hijacking problems will be gone!
adeelv 14y ago
looks pretty good - I am of the belief that anonymous comment posting should not have a place on the internet simple because of the poor quality of conversation it leads to. Would have been nice if they had innovated in this desperately need area of real IDs for comments. Image all the shitty comments that will disappear when people have to back them with real name id.
rogerbinns 14y ago
My biggest annoyance with Disqus is that you can't tell in advance what requirements it will make in terms of signing in. Some sites have openid and some don't, some are okay with anonymous comments and some aren't. Usually you have to type some junk, hit post and then find out what you'll be allowed to use and give up, or comment as appropriate. Sometimes I forget, write an insightful comment and then find I can't actually post it.
- danielha 14y ago
  Yeah, this is actually one of the biggest things we wanted to address with the new version: the inconsistency for end-users. Disqus is quite configurable, but it caused a number of barriers that was detrimental for the websites themselves. We're trying to go with guided, designed experiences that makes it attractive to participate — not punishing.
beedogs 14y ago
Nice, now all the racist crap at the bottom of Drudge-linked articles will look like YouTube comments instead of Yahoo! comments.
heyitsnick 14y ago
The new changes look excellent and i'm excited to roll them out on our site. Unfortunately, however great it is won't stop us from planning to migrate away from disqus and on to a custom-built system. The simple reason is the prohibitive pricing for pro features. Down the road we will need control over authentication, so that we can roll in more interactivity on our website (premium content, interactive and community features). Disqus offers this feature for pro users, but at $300/month its just not feasible. As a media site that hopes for small 4-figure revenue monthly, $300 is just way outside our budget for a third-party service like this. It would need to be more like $30/m to be in the ballpark really. I guess we aren't the people they are targeting, but i hope Disqus considers a much lower tier with single sign-on and without some of the other pro features (we aren't interested in analytics, can live without realtime, theme editor, priority support). I wonder how many other "pro-bloggers" and "small businesses" (2 things listed under 'who is this for') are alienated with the high pricing.
- therandomguy 14y ago
  Exactly the reason why I couldn't use it on my site. I would gladly pay the $300/month after the site generates decent revenue. But it is a huge barrier to entry for small projects. I wish they had a plan where you pay nothing for single-sign-on till you hit 5K or so comments every week.
- ro_gupta 14y ago
  Can you ping us at biz@disqus -- would love to discuss and see how we can help. Thanks.

92 points by radagaisus 14y ago

rdl 14y ago

Wow, this actually looks like something better than either old disqus or fb comments. I'm tempted to finally get around to setting up a blog again to try it out. (I had kind of given up on the idea of a blog comment network once disqus semi-stagnated, and fb comments became more common). I'm amazed at how much worthwhile comment (albeit with a horrible SNR) is still trapped in phpBB forum sites, blog comments, and other basically painful to access places. Within startups and technology, generally quora or hn or stack overflow or blogs themselves seem adequate, but whenever I search for info about my car, firearms, legal, DIY, etc., it feels like a bad version of 2003. There's still no good solution to the "local newspaper comment quality problem", though.

citricsquid 14y ago
> is still trapped in phpBB forum sites I really don't agree with that. Standard internet forums have a very important role in internet community, they can't just be replaced by blogs. If you approach forums as just a source of information then sure, they could be replaced by a blog because "why not put all the information I want in blog posts?" but internet forums are so much more than just a source of information. They're about sharing, community and discovery, if you only ever use forums because google search results contain links to them then your opinion is very skewed.
- rdl 14y ago
  I like forums and community discussion, I just don't like the forum software widely used. phpBB and similar are a colossal step backward from what we had before (USENET). HN is better software than any forum-type software I've seen, but isn't used anywhere else. Reddit might be the second best, but despite trying many times, I really can't get into it, even with subreddits.
  - Jimmie 14y ago
    phpBB bugs me too. I have two problems with using HN or reddit to fill the void though. Posts drop off the front page after a day. I've never seen a way to prevent this happening, there really needs to be a way to sort by "most recent comments" on the post pages. The comment threading would need a small overhaul so it isn't mostly nested anymore. So the first response to a comment stays flat and the second response braches to a new comment node. Comment threads only growing to 8 comments deep before "continuing on a new page" is a bummer, this would keep almost all the discussion on a single one.
    - rdl 14y ago
      This is the product I wish Google would build, rather than a shitty Facebook knockoff. Google Groups has gone through two major iterations, and is now basically useless. People might not want Google to have their personal information (I'd say people probably trust Facebook more than Google with "sharing social information" -- this isn't entirely rational), but forum posts are basically things you want to have public. It's got a "community management" piece which Google probably couldn't get right, but they could provide tools to people/groups to run forums. The big plus for users would be aggregating content (RSS++), anti-spam, etc. Facebook Groups is probably the best "small group sharing info" tool right now, and it's inherently non-indexed.
      - Jimmie 14y ago
        I wouldn't want it integrated with current sites though. I'd like it self-hostable and with separate account signups. "Login with facebook/gmail" is ok but for some people that's a privacy barrier that they won't cross.
    - drivebyacct2 14y ago
      I have long longed-for a reddit styled forum. Threaded, lightweight comments (kill "signatures", whoever thought that was a good idea), with the same sort of new-post-bumps-topic forum style. It looks like Disqus is part of the way there, depending on their API you could maybe even hack together this functionality without having to write much of this yourself.
codinghorror 14y ago
Agree completely. I can't say much more other than, uh, "stay tuned".
- rdl 14y ago
  Wow, if you kill the expert-sexchange of forum software, you'll be 2 for 2. Thanks in advance!

bhauer 14y ago

Does it support SSL yet? Last I checked (admittedly, about 6 months ago), it seemed Disqus could not be used at full-SSL sites.

thetylerhayes 14y ago
Yup we've supported SSL for almost that long now actually ;) Just change the http:// http:// prefix to https:// https:// in the universal code (e.g., https://yourforumshortname.disqus.com/embed.js https://yourforumshortname.disqus.com/embed.js) and you're good to go. Works with all our files: embed.js, count.js, everything except media attachments (which we're working on). Give it a shot. If it doesn't work holler our way at http://disqus.com/support http://disqus.com/support. Happy to lend a hand. UPDATE: Caveat: I'm referring to the current version of Disqus, not Disqus 2012. SSL support for 2012 is on our radar.
- knewter 14y ago
  In general, wouldn't you just support leaving the protocol out and changing the universal code embed to just `://yourforumshortname.disqus.com/embed.js`? Isn't this best-practices these days, as it covers both cases best?
  - natrius 14y ago
    You can drop the colon. I'm not even sure if it would work with the colon.
  - bentlegen 14y ago
    I can assure you that our problem isn't that we don't know how to redirect users to the correct URL :)

lux 14y ago

I didn't see a link, but I'd be interested to know if and how the integration changes for sites implementing the new Disqus. In any case, looks really good!

zeeg 14y ago
There's no changes required by publishers (users implementing Disqus). It works with the same embed code as before.
- lux 14y ago
  That's pretty awesome! And great for developers that have integrated Disqus into their software too.
- saurik 14y ago
  Interesting; I has assumed as much from "The new Disqus integrates in a way that is naturally discoverable by Google — out of the box, without any extra work." <- this did not require any changes on the user end?
  - richbradshaw 14y ago
    I wondered this... I'd actually planned to use the API to embed the comments, but haven't had time to implement yet.

toddmorey 14y ago

The video mentions that they use a technique to include comments that provides proper SEO (and feels natural to Google). Any information on what they've done? I remember previously, they had a WordPress plugin that brought Disqus comments back to your site for SEO purposes.

zeeg 14y ago
We'll be talking more about this in the future. For now it's mostly in prototype/draft form, but we have confirmed that it is supported.
heyitsnick 14y ago
from the comment thread on the blog post, one of the devs responded to the Q "So I guess this uses Google's AJAX/JavaScript crawler feature?" with "That's right. Content is still not in the page HTML, but it'll be compatible with the new crawler."

chrislloyd 14y ago

If you want to play around with this live, I noticed it's been running on AVC for a week or so: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/05/twitter-brings-you-closer.html http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/05/twitter-brings-you-closer.ht...

bdr 14y ago

Disqus has never gotten enough credit for their design. People forget how crappy comments used to look. When Disqus came out, everyone eventually copied their design. With Disqus 2012, I think that's going to happen again. They are leading the way.

codexon 14y ago
This just looks like Reddit with avatars though.

revorad 14y ago

I love Disqus. They are one of the few startups building seemingly unsexy but solid fundamental tech. I just hope they have a solid business and don't get bought by BigCo for talent or fear of competition.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

northisup 14y ago

If you are interested in how we do the realertime notifications stay tuned for a blog post (and talk at EuroPython). Hint it isn't node.js.

scorpion032 14y ago
gevent?

rwmj 14y ago

Will it remove the unnecessary scare-warning about third party cookies?

resplin 14y ago

Is Disqus more friendly to screen readers / impaired users? In the past its reliance on Javascript has made it painful for accessibility software, but the SEO improvements might have made things nicer now. This is the big objection to deploying Disqus on our site.

samp 14y ago
We've gotten positive feedback from early testers who use screen readers. Let us know if there are still gaps. Accessibility is a priority for us.
- terrahawkes 14y ago
  Accessibility isn't just about screen readers. Example user flow illustrating brokenness: 1. Open Firefox. 2. Disable JS. 3. Go to: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/05/twitter-brings-you-closer.html 4. Follow the "View the entire comment thread." link: http://avc.disqus.com/?url=http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/05/twitter-brings-you-closer.html 5. The "Please login to view this page" dialog is missing any visible keyboard focus for hyperlink controls. http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/#visible-focus 6. The dialog includes a "Use OpenID?" link that doesn't lead anywhere. Not supporting some functionality without JS is regrettable and sometimes unavoidable; leaving broken controls in the DOM is just that: _broken_. Feature detect and add controls to the DOM when the necessary functionality is available. 7. Follow the "Go home" link: http://disqus.com/ 8. No visible keyboard focus on the Disqus homepage either. 9. Click "Sign Up". 10. Click "Create commenter account". 11. There are big buttons in the page ("Facebook", "Twitter", "Google") that do nothing. As a web developer who cares about frontend code and UI quality, this sort of thing is enough to put me off integrating with Disqus. Which is a shame, as I think commenting-as-a-service is a great idea.

SnowLprd 14y ago

Quite honestly, I was skeptical about these changes upon first looking at the Community tab in the screenshot. Then I scrolled down to the end of the post, where you can actually see the new comment system in action. It does indeed seem like a significant improvement, including the new Community tab. In a day and age when it seems a lot of companies make UI changes that are actually a step backward, bravo to Disqus for the enhancements. Well done!

polshaw 14y ago

Finally, collapsible comment threads! awesome. Now, only HN needs to fall in line and all comment-thread-hijacking problems will be gone!

adeelv 14y ago

looks pretty good - I am of the belief that anonymous comment posting should not have a place on the internet simple because of the poor quality of conversation it leads to. Would have been nice if they had innovated in this desperately need area of real IDs for comments. Image all the shitty comments that will disappear when people have to back them with real name id.

rogerbinns 14y ago

My biggest annoyance with Disqus is that you can't tell in advance what requirements it will make in terms of signing in. Some sites have openid and some don't, some are okay with anonymous comments and some aren't. Usually you have to type some junk, hit post and then find out what you'll be allowed to use and give up, or comment as appropriate. Sometimes I forget, write an insightful comment and then find I can't actually post it.

danielha 14y ago
Yeah, this is actually one of the biggest things we wanted to address with the new version: the inconsistency for end-users. Disqus is quite configurable, but it caused a number of barriers that was detrimental for the websites themselves. We're trying to go with guided, designed experiences that makes it attractive to participate — not punishing.

beedogs 14y ago

Nice, now all the racist crap at the bottom of Drudge-linked articles will look like YouTube comments instead of Yahoo! comments.

heyitsnick 14y ago

The new changes look excellent and i'm excited to roll them out on our site. Unfortunately, however great it is won't stop us from planning to migrate away from disqus and on to a custom-built system. The simple reason is the prohibitive pricing for pro features. Down the road we will need control over authentication, so that we can roll in more interactivity on our website (premium content, interactive and community features). Disqus offers this feature for pro users, but at $300/month its just not feasible. As a media site that hopes for small 4-figure revenue monthly, $300 is just way outside our budget for a third-party service like this. It would need to be more like $30/m to be in the ballpark really. I guess we aren't the people they are targeting, but i hope Disqus considers a much lower tier with single sign-on and without some of the other pro features (we aren't interested in analytics, can live without realtime, theme editor, priority support). I wonder how many other "pro-bloggers" and "small businesses" (2 things listed under 'who is this for') are alienated with the high pricing.

therandomguy 14y ago
Exactly the reason why I couldn't use it on my site. I would gladly pay the $300/month after the site generates decent revenue. But it is a huge barrier to entry for small projects. I wish they had a plan where you pay nothing for single-sign-on till you hit 5K or so comments every week.
ro_gupta 14y ago
Can you ping us at biz@disqus -- would love to discuss and see how we can help. Thanks.