Disqus Switch and Disappearing Comments

Okay all, sorry for the confusion. The old wordpress software apparently became too clunky as Patheos grew, so every blog is being switched over to the disqus commenting system.

The Awesome Stuff:

• Conversations should be easier to follow now, and you can now “like” comments by up voting them—something some of you have wanted for some time. You can also flag comments as inappropriate, which helps me ensure that everyone follows my comment policy.
• You can edit your comments, another thing you all have been clamoring for!
• The “You’re Posting Too Fast” issue will now be a thing of the past.

The Sucky Part:

• The last few days’ worth of comments have disappeared. They will reappear over the weekend. It’s just that they had to do an import of all of my comments at some point, and there was a gap between that and starting the new system, and they are now doing an import of the comments that were posted in that gap. I love my comments here and that makes me just as sad as you, but bear with it and they should reappear in good time.

The Not Complicated Stuff:

• You can still comment as a guest if you like, providing only a name and email address. I’ve asked Patheos to enable this option because I want to make it as easy as possible for people to comment, and I know some people may not like registering, especially those who comment less frequently.

The Complicated Stuff:

• If you are a regular commenter, I would ask that you register and login with disqus (or with your facebook, twitter, or google account) rather than simply commenting as a guest. This will make it simpler to know who is who among frequent commenters, it it will allow people to see other comments you’ve made previously, etc. If you don’t already have a disqus account, you will need to register, but it’s super easy—I simply clicked “register with disqus” and then entered my username and my email address.

Some Additional Details:

• Because my email address is connected to my gravatar image, it put that up as my avatar. If you find that this is a problem, you could enter an old email address or create an email address specifically for commenting, or change the gravatar associated with that email address, etc.
• The new system should keep you logged in on your regular computer, but if you have accidentally logged in with a username you don’t like you can easily log out by clicking the gear button to the right under the comment box.
• If you look at your disqus profile (under the gear button), you can merge your new disqus account with any comments you have posted on my blog using the email you used to register for disqus. I did this and would recommend it, for the sake of continuity.

Please use this thread for trouble shooting and discussion of the change. Realize, though, that I can’t change it back to the wordpress commenting system. The new system is here for good, and should fix the previous commenting problems. I imagine there are some tweaks I could do, though to be honest I’m still figuring out how this commenting system works on my end, so I’m new to it too.

Sorry for the confusion, and I hope the new system works out well!

Post edited to explain the enabling of guest commenting.