Thread

Hi everyone,

I was introduced to EE about a year ago and build a couple of sites with it since then for clients. None of them required the use of the comments system and now that I’m creating a site/blog for myself, it’s time to start using it for the first time.

I’ve set up my comments form and comments entries etc, but now that the site is not live yet, I thought it would be best to gather some information before it’s too late to make drastic changes.

It would be great if some of you could share some experiences. For example:
- Would you recommend using CAPTCHA? And if so, the build in CAPTCHA or a third party extension such as reCAPTCHA?
- Do you use the comment preview feature? If so, do you require your visitors to preview the comment before they are able to submit it or are they allowed to make the decision themselves? Does it help with comment spam since an extra step is needed?
- Do you use any AJAX enhancements? Such as live preview?
- What about third party comment systems such as disqus.com?

Any input is greatly appreciated!

The visual CAPTCHAs are basically useless I think.  It’s too easy for the bots to figure out the CAPTCHA and submit the comment anyway.  If you go that way try one of the modifications on it that use simple questions instead.  I’ve had much better luck with those actually stopping spam bots.  Or you could always require registration.

I’ve also used Disqus which isn’t bad at all, especially if you don’t need it to do anything special and don’t need it to interface with your EE accounts in any way.  However, if you do need those things be prepared for some setup time.  Disqus is also not the most stable platform ever.  It has load issues fairly often though I imagine they are working to improve that all of the time.

Also comment previews don’t require AJAX at all.  It’s easier and faster to simply have the preview write the live preview to the page immediately instead of using a HTTP request to do it.

Jamie

Thanks Jamie,

You are right about the live preview not needing AJAX, my mistake.
I’ve seen Disqus on quite a few sites lately. I’ll definitely keep an eye on it, but I think I’m going to use the EE comment system. Good thing you mentioned Disqus isn’t too stable, I would hate to find that out after spending much time integrating it.

I’ve played with the EE comments for a couple of hours today and so far I have this set up:
- Submit comment form on an entry page with a “Preview Comment” button.
- When the “Preview Comment” button is clicked, the form is being submitted into a fancybox overlay. The fancybox has the comment preview and a “Submit Comment” button.
- When the “Submit Comment” button is clicked, the fancybox overlay closes and the entry page is being refreshed with the new comment.

I’m not sure if I’ll go this way, but it looks pretty slick 😊 I’ll probably add the simple question in the fancy box then.

Thanks again for the valueable input!
Leon

Just a side note, you may want to re-evaluate the comment approach over time. As your site becomes more popular, you will be targeted by link spammers (whether you use the captchas, registration, or use a plugin like Low No Spam, which leverages Akismet). Depending on your needs (e.g., whether you require registration on your site, whether you don’t mind having a third party “own” the comments), you may want to consider 3rd party commenting systems that offer a lot of “sexy” features. Echo, Disqus, IntenseDebate, Facebook, etc.

We started with the basic EE functionality and had to migrate to more advanced systems simply due to the amount of spam we were getting (several hundred a day).

Yes, good point ajlny, while I’ve created this thread to see if I can come up with the best approach while the site is still in development, re-evaluating the comment approach over time is probably unavoidable.

I’ve had to deal with spam in many ways (ran a forum for a couple of years, received hundreds of spam emails daily, used comments on one site which wasn’t build with EE), so I know it will only be a matter of time before spammer find their way to my new EE site, unfortunately.

I’ll definitely try Low No Spam as well, thanks!

Leon

Thanks Mandarax,

I have to admit I’m not a huge FB fan, but it does look like a nice solution! It has the benefit that many visitors already have a facebook account so they can easily leave comments without having to register at your own site (which I can imagine will cut down the number of comments drastically). Never thought of using FB that way, thanks for the suggestion, I’ll take it into consideration!

I’d suggest using the captcha as a first deterrent and combining it with Low’s Nospam:
http://loweblog.com/software/low-nospam/
That should go a long way to combatting comment spam. It’s a pain in the backside, that’s for sure.