Tuesday, July 27, 2010

So what the heck is this Intense Debate comments thing?

Go to IntenseDebateNow let me first say I am an out and out comments whore! And it’s ok; chances are you are too! I have to say of late it’s been a bit one sided but I am catching up honest!

The problem is I am, for reasons unknown to me, plagued with Russian and other Eastern European comments on various body part enlargements, free software, pictures of celebrities and so on, dozens a day!

My comments have always been monitored but I have never censored them; good bad and ugly I have published them. That being said life is too short to monitor them so I have decided to change things and rather than turn them off completely I borrowed an idea I saw on Frayed Laces called Intense Debate, it allows me to easily respond to individual comments either in the comment section or via email and it also allows you to respond to other comments.

Comments can be threaded so you can carry on your own mini conversations about topics within the comment section and you can subscribe to email alerts if someone directly replies to your comment. If you're on Twitter, you can also choose an option to simultaneously send a tweet when you comment on a post.

The main difference is that you need to login. You can either sign in as a guest, create an intense debate profile, or use your Open ID account. I created a Intense Debate profile and stay logged in and it works seamlessly, you even get a reputation score which increase the more you use it…know any Type A competitor types? If you already use Google or Blogger, you have an Open ID account. Click here for info on how to use it.

I think it’s a change for the better but I am always open to feedback so leave me a comment. Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Oh and if you suffer from the Russian Spamia you might want to check it out too!