Problem With Facebook Comments Plugin

I read Alan’s blog post the other day, and while I hope it really isn’t his last post, I understand what he’s saying about the noise. Comments on my blog and others often spiral out of control, but it’s certainly not something isolated to the domain industry. It happens on just about every website that accepts comments.

There have been several times I’ve thought about installing a Facebook comments for WordPress plugin. I don’t think it will be the panacea for the problem, but I do believe it will cause another problem.

If I install Facebook comments so that people are held more accountable for what they write, I believe I will then lose all comments from before I installed the plugin. Four years of comments could be gone, and that wouldn’t be fair to anyone who took the time to comment. Further, if the plugin was installed but later removed, all of those comments would be gone, too.

Despite the fact that additional moderation on my part might make things stay more on track, I don’t want to begin censoring my blog. I appreciate the time it takes for people to comment, and I like the fact that people are comfortable sharing their opinion.

At some point in the near future, I may prohibit people from posting without identifying themselves since I am held accountable for everything I write, but I don’t necessarily want the responsibility of ensuring that everyone is who they say they are.

I’d love to hear some feedback from you on how to keep things more on track.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

17 COMMENTS

  1. You have to do what is comfortable – you don’t have to please others except ME.

    IF there is no Controversies,then it is BORING……….

    p/s I am identifying MYSELF…just click on “BullS”

    Hey, I miss your what you bought and sold and register the domains lately but anyway, I just reg JoblessFuture.com ,americanDowngrade. and americandowngraded.com–all have hits already.

  2. I use Disqus.com and they have a great integration with social sites such as Facebook. From the site: http://disqus.com/features/ “Social integration – Full integration with Facebook, Twitter, and more. Let people login, comment, and share using social services they already use and love.”

  3. Forgot to mention that you won’t lose your old comments as they are copied and preserved. Please read from the site for more about this feature. Good Luck!

  4. It’s probably not a bad idea to moderate to some extent. It can get rather embarrassing and certainly doesn’t help the industry’s already misunderstood image for newbies or anyone else if they happen to stumble upon your blog. Trolling definitely occurs in virtually every industry blog, however I have to say that domainers seem to be exceptionally sassy for whatever reason when it comes to their own opinions as well as personal attacks. I’m probably guilty of perhaps instigating a troll or two. I normally just try to call them out on their senseless, unproductive comments. Particularly if they are on some crazy rampage. In hindsight, I realize that that only furthers the problem. But I’ve honestly never understood why there are so many personal attacks in this particular industry. BS aside, it’s obvious that you have one of the best industry blogs online, and you may or may not be surprised just how many people look up to you for advice. Either way, I’m confident you’ll come to a good solution. Personally, I’m a daily visitor. Thanks for all the tips and industry insight thus far. I’m sure there are hundreds of others that appreciate it as much as I do.

  5. I would be careful with Disqus. I think there is a real problem with Disqus comments. I was using it over a year ago on all of my real estate sites and even had the spam filter working but what I discovered was that while comments would be marked as spam and not show up on the browser if you looked at the source code of your page you would still see the spam comments and they were simply just css as hidden. It was not worth it.

  6. Facebook comments look great, but nobody wants to lose existing comments. I used Discus for a while, but lost a lot of comments that way too. People were getting automatically marked as spam, and I got no notice of it.

    On one hand Facebook shows faces, so you get lots of nice social proof with FB comments. And fewer trolls.

    Yet, on the other hand, I worry about putting comments (or any of my content) in the hands of a third party.

  7. As a blog owner, I don’t use 3rd party plugins such as Disqus or Facebook for comments. I don’t like the thought of leaving my comment content in the hands of someone else and I don’t believe it really benefits blog owners as well as it does those 3rd parties.

    As a user, I won’t even comment on websites that have 3rd party plugins because I don’t want my social accounts tied to them ( I don’t like the thought that people know where I am commenting 24/7 – if I have a conflicting view or opinion, I don’t want my family or friends to take offense ).

    As far as accountability, anonymous cowards will always be anonymous cowards. Do they really post that often for you to justify leaving your hard earned content in someone else’s hands? And you are right; if you ever disable the plugin then your comments are gone.

    There are measures you can take: tracking IPs, putting a short notice before the comment form of what is appropriate for your blog, requiring an active and valid email address for first time commentors (without having to create an account), all which I’m almost certain is available for free via WordPress Plugins directory.

  8. I think your overall best bet is to stick with the default WordPress comment system.
    It seems to work well, and from what I’ve read, other self contained comment systems, like Disqus, have their own issues and problems.
    There are a bunch of anti-spam plugins, but that won’t help when you have humans posting stupid comments.
    I don’t think there’s any real substitution for moderation, and while using Facebook comments may help somewhat, I think it will cause less comments to be posted – I never like commenting with Facebook on any site, so I just don’t bother commenting on a site/article/post that uses Facebook comments.
    It may not be much of a loss if you don’t get to hear my “words of wisdom”, but you may lose some people that you may not want to lose…
    Good luck with however you decide to work things!

  9. Hi Elliot:

    Seldom do I get anything of worth from the comments made on a blog.

    I totally enjoy your blog but unless the Castello Brothers, or others of their experience and generosity, leave a solid comment, it is a waste of time.

    Not trying to be disrespectful of my fellow readers, but if you disengaged comments, I would be fine with it.

    It is especially annoying when your readers start attacking you or leaving comments that are meant to be funny but are not.

    Just my opinion.

  10. If it’s not broken don’t try to fix it. By and large I found the comment session on most domain blogs to be very helpful. I get a lot more insights on the comments than I do from the posts many times.

    Unless users start getting into personal attacks and many times the owner of the blog is equally guilty…I found it entertaining. So, it’s all good.

    Domain blogs have some of the best comment session in my opinion…they make it easy for guys like me to comment..and very little spam in my opinion. So you know the blog owner is doing his job. 🙂

  11. You recently mentioned your friends having no interest in your domain business and not using your own FB account for domain posts. Same here. But having options like Twitter or LinkedIn or Fb would allow commenters to choose a business related profile to comment.

  12. @ Priv

    If you’re afraid to comment using your real name, you shouldn’t comment at all. The opinion of ghosts aren’t held by me in high regard, especially I am on the record with every post and comment I make.

  13. “The opinion of ghosts aren’t held by me in high regard, especially I am on the record with every post and comment I make.”

    Apples and oranges, especially since you also make a living this way and you are creating a brand for yourself.

    There is absolutely nothing wrong with being anonymous, one can spot and appreciate a good argument or decent comment regardless. There is no black helicopter conspiracy, just some people just don’t want their name to pop up on Google 25 years from now next to a comment they may regret. That said, every site owner sets his /her own rules.

  14. “just some people just don’t want their name to pop up on Google 25 years from now next to a comment they may regret. ”

    @ Priv

    Totally understand, but if that was the case for me, I’d use the name “Elliot” and be done with it.

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