Being Random

From my other blog, tumblr essays.

Disqus is a comments system that’s new to a lot of people, so I thought I should initially take the time to run those of you who fit the profile through it to make you comfortable with and proficient at using it rather than having to rectify each instance of Disqus difficulties later on.

What is Disqus?

Disqus, pronounced discuss, is a service for blog comments. Disqus enables bloggers to make the conversations on their blogs more interactive and manageable. Our distributed comment system connects readers across blog communities, while empowering publishers in promoting their content. In short, using Disqus is a better way for people to participate in conversations initially started by blog posts. Check out how Disqus enhances the discussion on your blog.

How does Disqus work?

Like your average blog comments system. With a few extra perks.
I’ve compiled a little guide below:

Sort comments

What? … You can sort the order of the comments to your own whim:
By Oldest, Newest, Hot and Best.
How? … By pressing the above ‘OPTIONS’ button.
Please … Only reply when the Oldest or Newest setting is on, however, as this will mess up the structure and strived-for chronological and sequential nature of the comments.

Rate comments

How? … Comments can be rated using the arrows next to the display picture.
Why? … Rating comments can, amongst other things, remove said comments - and even the person behind the comment himself from the blog due to his clout.
Please … Only to use the ↓ rating for strictly inappropriate comments - not ones you formally disagree with in a discussion. Disqus allows the explicit feature flag as inappropriate, but I’ve chosen not to include this due to redundancy. The grounds for the ↑ rating are more subjective.
Undo your rating … by clicking the selected rating.
You can’t rate a comment, if … one of these conditions are met:

(1)It is your comment.
(2)The comment is a direct reply to you.
(3)You are not a verified user.
(4)Your clout is below a moderator-chosen threshold.

Editing your comment

You are able to edit your comment constantly, until someone replies to it. If you want to delete it, edit your comment to [DELETED], and I will delete it for you.

Advice and guidelines

Remember to reply to the proper post; if you reply to the blog post, type in the default field; if you wish to reply to a comment, use the reply field appearing by pressing the ‘reply’ below that comment.

Do I really need to create a user?

Nope, you can settle on commenting as an unverified user, if you don’t mind the couple of seconds it takes to claim your unverified profile one or creating a full profile. Though you won’t be able to have a profile, rate comments and deter and reward users, or be able to follow the comments of users you like.

Or, use the brand new OpenID compatibility on the Disqus login page to log in using your username from services such as Google, Facebook, Hotmail - just to name a couple. At the moment, the feature isn’t integrated into the comments interface on the blogs themselves - yet.

Does Disqus support tags?

Some, yes. See below for a list I made after testing what popular and useful commenting tags Disqus supported.

Tags working

<blockquote> - Quotes, and indents, a long excerpt.
<hr /> Creates a horizontal line/rule.
<a href=”[link]”>[name]</a>
<b>
<i>
<u>

Tags not working

<li> - Creates a list.
<sub> - Subscripted text.
<sup> - Superscripted text.
<q> - Quotes a short excerpt.
<big> - Makes the text big. Duh.
<small> - Makes the text small. Duh again.
<del> - Strikes text (as the deprecated <strike>).

<samp>
<cite>
<kbd>
<tt>

Web and mail addresses posted without any formatting are automatically converted.

Last update: June 28 2008
Disqus guide©tumblr essays. Only replicate with granted permission