

Try Out the New Disqus 2012 - radagaisus
http://blog.disqus.com/post/22325598158/try-out-disqus-2012

======
rdl
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
> 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
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
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
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
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.

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bdr
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
This just looks like Reddit with avatars though.

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rogerbinns
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
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.

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heyitsnick
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
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.

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chrislloyd
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.ht...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/05/twitter-brings-you-closer.html)

------
SnowLprd
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!

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lux
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
There's no changes required by publishers (users implementing Disqus). It
works with the same embed code as before.

~~~
saurik
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
I wondered this... I'd actually planned to use the API to embed the comments,
but haven't had time to implement yet.

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northisup
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
gevent?

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bhauer
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
Yup we've supported SSL for almost that long now actually ;)

Just change the <http://> prefix to <https://> in the universal code (e.g.,
<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>. 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
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?

~~~
bentlegen
I can assure you that our problem isn't that we don't know how to redirect
users to the correct URL :)

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toddmorey
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
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.

------
revorad
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.

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

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resplin
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
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
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.

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

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polshaw
Finally, collapsible comment threads! awesome.

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

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adeelv
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.

