Regular readers of Reclaimer already know – the Intense Debate commenting system has been back online here for a couple of days. Already, I’ve seen a noticeable spike in reader interactivity (even if not quite all of it has been specifically on-topic). Therefore, it looks like ID is here to stay this time.
Here’s what I’m really enjoying about Intense Debate:
- The aforementioned spike in reader comments. I don’t know if it’s do with the ID system directly, but Reclaimer #125 is already well over 80 comments (quite possibly a record). Between #124 and #125, we’ve logged nearly 200 comments this week! Pretty awesome stuff!
- The threaded commenting system has made it so much easier for me to interact with my readers on a comment-by-comment basis. Before, I needed to put a little tag next to each part of my replies to note who I was referring back, and then readers would have to scroll back up through to comments to try to find the comment of reference. This way, all the discussion threads stay together, making it easier to find and follow each subtopic.
- I love that I can resort the comments just by clicking ‘Latest Activity’ to see what discussion threads are the most recent. It makes it much easier to figure out what’s fresh.
- The rating system is something I’d like to see readers make more use of. It’s there to help identify who the regular commenters are and which ones are the highest quality contributors. I’ve made a point of regularly tagging those readers that contribute regularly (and that have ID accounts), and I’d like to see the rest of you guys taking part in this, as well. The rating system is there to push quality to the forefront.
If you haven’t created an ID account yet, please do so and get in on the action!
Hooray for ID, It's not so bad anymore!
Edit: Why does it say I posted 57 minutes ago?
I just did it!!!
There's a glitch with ID comment timestamps. It's a known bug, but so far there hasn't been a fix provided for it. (And for the record, it's only showing 8 minutes ago for me.)
Ya, I've been using different computers to post and the time glitch differs on each one.
Strangely enough, i think it has to do with the computer itself, because those different computers were all on the same network.
I get the time glitches even when posting from the same computer. It's something I hope the IDC folks resolve soon.
Sent from my iPhone
that would be nice.
I wonder if they can see our posts?
it's probobly says that because it has to connect to the intense debate mainframe (or something like that) to get a time stamp so its probobly just some form of lag, cause when you first tried this you said that it didn't store the info' on your server (i'm starting to hurt my own head here)
anyway, yay for ID
Yeah, that was another glitch they finally worked out. The comments sync just find now.
A minor bug is that the ID plugin only shows up if you click the "comments" link – on the comic link itself nothing happens.
and the aforementioned lag, which is really starting to get to me. As I type now it's barely finished the "comments" part of my reply.
That's weird on it not showing up. I've gone to the comments by clicking both links, and they show up just fine for me either way.
Really? Might have been a temporary thing then. Never mind.
Yeah, it's weird that different people experience different bugs depending on where they are and what systems/browsers they're using.
Here's a sign that IDC is doing its job – both last Wednesday and Friday's comics have now grossed over 100 comments apiece. That's pretty spectacular, in my opinion.
Ok, Jim can you help me out. For some reason my Gravatar is not showing up properly anymore. I think I have it linked but I am not sure if I missed something.
Go to edit your profile (http://www.intensedebate.com/editprofile)and select the 'Use my Gravatar' option. IDC has 'Use uploaded picture' selected by default.
Tried that but it says I do not have a Gravatar, although if I log into the gravatar website it says that I have a gravatar associated with that email address. It is appropriate for PG or better also. I am confuddled, what am I missing here.
Do I need to create and OpenID?
Do you have your Gravatar email addy entered in the field under the 'Use my Gravatar'?
Yep.
Wow.
Great news!
Thanks for updating on the Intense Debate.
Keep up posting the good works….......................... : )
What I'll do is submit a ticket to their support forums and see if I can't bring this one back up into their awareness again.
Sounds like the proper course of action.
To ask a stupid question, did you spell it correctly?
Very weird. Here's a couple of more things to try. Log into Gravatar.com and go to Manage. Highlight your email addy there and paste it back into your Gravatar settings on IDC, make certain you've got the radio button for the Gravatar setting selected, and save your IDC profile again. If that doesn't do the trick, then go back to your Gravatar Manage settings and click on 'Check this gravatar and make sure the image you've chosen to use with Gravatar shows up under PG, R, X (G should show the Mystery Man image if your Gravatar image is set for PG).
Oh, and make sure you only have one email address or that, if you have more than one, that you have the same one selected as primary as you are using for the Gravatar settings for IDC. (Just trying to think through all the possible issues you could be having here…)
Well, I couldn't get the Gravatar to work after going through what you recommended above. I just uploaded my image that I used. I will try and figure this out later but at least it kind of works. Thanks for the help Jim.
That's a reasonable solution. I've no idea why Gravatar won't talk to your IDC account. That's like the simplest service out there. Very strange…
Yep and as you well know they are only stupid if you don't ask. Just says there is no Gravatar. I just updated my quote and that worked. It's just not linking back to the Gravatar site as near as I can tell.