(POLL) Should we keep or dump Intense Debate for our comments?
Written by Karl L. Gechlik | AskTheAdmin.com on May 29, 2008 – 11:24 am -
It has now been about 4 months since we did our import from blogger to ID and replaced ALL of our comments with ID’s. There were issues immediately. The names of the commenter’s DID NOT come over. So all the comments look like they are from the same person… I was told by the good people over at ID that they would find a solution and get back to me. Their solution was to replace their importer and create one that actually imports the commenter’s names and stats.
Then I was told very politely that the new process won’t work for me because I was already imported. Even though I specifically requested a DB backup at several points. WAIT THERE IS MORE! They WERE able to go into my DB and MANUALLY fix the comments for 3 posts while I waited patiently. I have not had any update on this in months. Now that our impending migration to Wordpress is being held up by…
You guessed it Intense Flucking Debate. Don’t get me wrong I love what they want to do and how their service works but me losing ALL my ID comments when moving to WP is UNACCEPTABLE! I have spoken to the Jon, Josh and their new addition Michael to no avail. They are very polite but, polite ain’t getting me my comments back.
Granted we have A LOT of comments and know that for them to do this manually would take a LONG ASS time. But we offered to help script it. See the problem is post id’s. Wordpress does not import post ids and starts from scratch. If we can replace the postid’s in ID’s database with the newly created WP one’s (Via SQL Script) that should fix the problem. But they don’t want to exert themselves. Shouldn’t a company that is trying to win over the public be a little more apt to help us out?
So what do you think I should do? Be heard in the comments and the poll below:
_ThePissedOffAdmiN_
Tags: Geeky Goodness, How To
Posted in Uncategorized |
By Michael on May 29, 2008 | Reply
I think you should dump them for now, try to get all your comments back from blogger that were missing bec of ID. Also, they need to help you with exit strategy - has to be a way to export your current comments from ID back into wordpress and then later, when they get out of beta with it, MAYBE consider going back to them. But how many really Intense debates have their been on AskTheAdmin?
By AskTheAdmin on May 29, 2008 | Reply
I have exported my comments to XML from intense debate but that really is only good for reference now. Maybe later on their will be a generic importer for comments in WP or Hey maybe ID will actually help us out and correct these issues.!
There have been plenty of Intense Debates! Just don't know if ID had anything to do with contributing to them!
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By ccatlett1984 on May 29, 2008 | Reply
If you have an xml file, and you know the db structure of the table WP uses, it shouldnt be too hard to insert all the current entries, you'd have all the comments, but you would have to hand map the poster id to that users new account to have it reflected.
By ccatlett1984 on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Personally, I'd look for a WP addon that lets you store comments in the SQL DB.
By AskTheAdmin on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Thanks Ccatlett1984 - any interest in guest writing for AtA? You sound knowledgeable and passionate about technology. Exactly what we are looking for!
I am all ears if anyone knows of a plugin. As for hand mapping the poster ID - we are looking at thousands and thousands of entries! I am hoping ID decides to fix their little mess with me but if not I will attempt to import but looking online it is doubtful that it will work.
My initial idea was to change the WP postID's to be the same as bloggers but I was advised against changing postId's in the DB due to potential issues.
By Daniel Ha on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Hey Karl, I'm Daniel from Disqus. I don't mean to jump in on your circumstances, but I just wanted to make myself available.
We're trying just as hard to win the public and show people what we do. If you have any interest in trying out Disqus, we'd help you get all of this sorted today (importing and all).
I'll leave it at that. I hope everything works out for you in the end.
Best,
Daniel Ha
daniel@disqus.com
By AskTheAdmin on May 29, 2008 | Reply
You have definitely sparked my attention Daniel! I am sending you an email right now.
Warm geeky regards,
Karl G.
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By Deez Nutz on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Wow talk about customer support! & you aren't even a custy yet!
By Michael Koenig on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Karl, we love you having you on IntenseDebate. We've always valued your input and feedback. I hate seeing our relationship deteriorate.
We will be rolling out a brand new blogger exporter that will allow you to export your comments back to the native blogger system. That will be coming in the next couple of weeks. That's the first step.
From there we'll tackle migrating comments from Blogger to Wordpress. We stand by our commitment to continue to improve and lead the way in data migration. You've seen these improvements yourself over the past couple of months. I'd hate to lose your support half way through these developments. It's unfortunate that your blog was the one of the betas, but we've improved our QA and beta testing. As a result we've released new features that have been far more stable. It goes without question that these new migration features will be thoroughly tested before they come to you.
I understand your frustration, and I hope you can stick with us as we see these new features through.
Sincerely,
Michael
By ccatlett1984 on May 29, 2008 | Reply
I'd love to. I'll send you my email addy.
By AskTheAdmin on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Man I stuck up for you guys from the get go I blogged about you on MakeUseOf.com and now here I am feeling like the red headed step child.
But now that you let me into the loop of what's going on - I have a few questions.
Will that blogger import system be able to fix the original problems of stripped user names? Are you telling me that we will have all of our original comments and our ID comments pieced back together correctly in the near future? And then be able to match up the comments with the imported posts to Word press? Or is this short while going to be another 4 months of waiting?
By NinjaAdmin on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Wow do you guys think you can fix ID's fuck ups? I bet that would win over a whole bunch of bloggers! Can you guys get comments back into blogger or is that not possible?
By Nancy Cole on May 29, 2008 | Reply
First - if you want to grab comments, ratings, polls, scores from one place, see js-kit.com
Some of these are highlighted by the intuitive readers here, but for the record here are some “real” issues with Disqus:
1) proprietary login = lock-in: disqus has a proprietary login. this means that a blogger/web site encourages it’s users create an identity within disqus. If the site chooses to remove disqus in the future then all of the identities disappear. If the site uses other web services then it’s visitors will have multiple logins for one site. Both instances are a disaster.
2) Proprietary visitor profile: All of the data created in the disqus profile is locked into disqus. It cannot be accessed by other services or the visitor. Again, if the site adds other services then the visitor would have to re-upload the same data [avatar, name, etc]. This is a complete
waste of effort forced on the visitor - both the site and visitor cannot exit disqus without losing all of their profile data.
3) Monetization: Disqus is a for profit business. so where is the monetization model? Since disqus bloggers logins, visitor profile data, and community pages they are locked into a business model that is undefined. what if disqus starts showing ads on the community pages and the blogger disagrees? what if they start charging a monthly fee? What if they start a destination site around comments and charge the blogger for referral traffic [don't think this
can happen? ask the sites that started using the "free" powerreviews service and then had to compete with buzzillions, or bazarvoice, etc.] Without a clear path for earning money and simultaneously being locked-in means that sites take a big risk when deploying disqus.
Disqus has a model that does not appear to have the user’s interest in mind. Also, you will wind up with traffic diversion to disqus.com — your own comments will compete with your blog. This is the trouble with a destination sit.
Regardless of how much we like an innovation, we must look at the vision and direction behind it. JS-Kit uses OpenID and allows full disclosure and sharing of their monetization plan and scheme.
If you look at the innovation, service, ideology and long term merit of Disqus versus JS-Kit with any depth perception at all …the evaluation is quite pat.
http://onlinejournalismblog.wordpress.com/2008/05...“>
http://onlinejournalismblog.wordpress.com/2008/05...
/>
Cheers, Nancy
JS-Kit.com
By Nancy Cole on May 29, 2008 | Reply
First - if you want to grab comments, ratings, polls, scores from one place, see js-kit.com
Some of these are highlighted by the intuitive readers here, but for the record here are some “real” issues with Disqus:
1) proprietary login = lock-in: disqus has a proprietary login. this means that a blogger/web site encourages it’s users create an identity within disqus. If the site chooses to remove disqus in the future then all of the identities disappear. If the site uses other web services then it’s visitors will have multiple logins for one site. Both instances are a disaster.
2) Proprietary visitor profile: All of the data created in the disqus profile is locked into disqus. It cannot be accessed by other services or the visitor. Again, if the site adds other services then the visitor would have to re-upload the same data [avatar, name, etc]. This is a complete
waste of effort forced on the visitor - both the site and visitor cannot exit disqus without losing all of their profile data.
3) Monetization: Disqus is a for profit business. so where is the monetization model? Since disqus bloggers logins, visitor profile data, and community pages they are locked into a business model that is undefined. what if disqus starts showing ads on the community pages and the blogger disagrees? what if they start charging a monthly fee? What if they start a destination site around comments and charge the blogger for referral traffic [don't think this
can happen? ask the sites that started using the "free" powerreviews service and then had to compete with buzzillions, or bazarvoice, etc.] Without a clear path for earning money and simultaneously being locked-in means that sites take a big risk when deploying disqus.
Disqus has a model that does not appear to have the user’s interest in mind. Also, you will wind up with traffic diversion to disqus.com — your own comments will compete with your blog. This is the trouble with a destination sit.
Regardless of how much we like an innovation, we must look at the vision and direction behind it. JS-Kit uses OpenID and allows full disclosure and sharing of their monetization plan and scheme.
If you look at the innovation, service, ideology and long term merit of Disqus versus JS-Kit with any depth perception at all …the evaluation is quite pat.
http://onlinejournalismblog.wordpress.com/2008/05...“>
http://onlinejournalismblog.wordpress.com/2008/05...
/>
Cheers, Nancy
JS-Kit.com
By Michael Koenig on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Karl, I sincerely apologize if you felt neglected. That's not our intention. In terms of letting you in the loop, I hope you can understand why we try to keep certain plans on the DL. I let these slip because we're pretty far along with certain stages.
Here's the honest nitty gritty so far (no BS and sorry if this is long) -
1.) When you initially imported your comments with that first beta importer, all of the comments were flagged in our system to differentiate between comments that were imported on your blog vs. comments that were made in IntenseDebate. Once we release our new blogger importer, we can go through and delete all of your previously imported comments (that were flagged) from IntenseDebate, and then we can re-import all of them. They will appear as they should (with the correct user names) - they will be pieced back together correctly. I can't deliver an ETA as rolling this out is contingent on a number things. But it will be soon (and by that I mean much less than 4 months).
2.) In regards to migrating from WP to Blogger, it's a whole different beast. This is dependent on the release of the new importer (described above). We will also be releasing a new exporter for blogger that will put your comments back into Blogger's proprietary comment system. We'll need that up and running before we can look at platform migration compatibility. Honestly, I have no idea what this process will be like (or if we'll be able to make it any smoother). You're the first to request it. Jon's probably got something brewing up in his head and isn't ready to blow our minds yet. (No pressure on Jon of course!).
I am confident that IntenseDebate will provide you with the best shot at migrating your comments from blogger to wordpress. Like I said, we're serious about leading the way in data migration, and we'll continue to be innovative.
By El Di Pablo on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Wordpress already has a comment section similar to ID, and it is more stable. Perhaps it is time to dump them. I for one will keep them, as http://www.bauer-power.net “>http://www.bauer-power.net isn't planning on leaving blogger any time soon.
By El Di Pablo on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Wordpress already has a comment section similar to ID, and it is more stable. Perhaps it is time to dump them. I for one will keep them, as http://www.bauer-power.net “>http://www.bauer-power.net isn't planning on leaving blogger any time soon.
By Michael Koenig on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Check out my comments below. IntenseDebate will have an blogger exporter that will put your comments back into blogger's proprietary system relatively soon.
By jeremy on May 29, 2008 | Reply
if you want something done right, do it yourself.
get rid of intense debate and handle comments w/ whatever blog software you're using.
By Daniel Ha on May 29, 2008 | Reply
You just stated that we don't have a model, and then you say our model doesn't have a user's interest in mind? Which is it?
a) Disqus uses OpenID
b) We don't lock in data
c) Just because we don't charge for a service doesn't mean we're doing suspicious things with data. Absurd.
The fact that we don't actively look to generate revenue at the moment is not a reflection on our business or personal morals. JS-Kit should look to ease up on the trolling. It reflects poorly on your company.
By Michael on May 29, 2008 | Reply
I'm not sure the issue here is software releases, it might be the lack of attention in the support department. I wouldnt want to wait for a software release to fix a fairly major error on my site. But thats just my opinion.
By Michael on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Wow, these are the kind of debates I live for. Long live threaded comments! Looks like we have a bonafide intense debate here.
By AskTheAdmin on May 29, 2008 | Reply
Arguments aside..
I didn't hear back after your initial email. What would be Disqus's game plan to fix this. I am interested in hearing how and what you would do.
By The Noid on May 29, 2008 | Reply
I think a fight to the death with star trek music in the background is in order to declare a winner in the comment system battle.
Word up
By AskTheAdmin on May 30, 2008 | Reply
We have a new addition to the AtA family that thinks he has a solution for migrating everything over to WP. He is requesting a sql dump of our tables. See the note below:
CCatlett1984 said "…Then for the ID comments, could you please see if you can get a sql dump of them, and send me the table structure (i don't need the tables, just the structure page from phpmyadmin would work great, they should be able to give you that no problem)…"
With that we should be able to migrate everything into a clean wordpress state and reinstall ID from there.
Either way we want to move to our new Wordpress home as soon as possible.
I don't want to leave but if disqus is able to get this cleaned up earlier we will have to move on.
I am just happy to be getting some answers now, Michael.
By OMFGuGotPwned! on May 30, 2008 | Reply
"JS-Kit should look to ease up on the trolling. It reflects poorly on your company."
LMFAO! JS-Kit got Pwned!!! I think the three companies should fight it out as well.
By NinjaAdmin on May 30, 2008 | Reply
So has Disqus or JSKIT propose a solution yet?