By now many of you have noticed that I’ve disabled the plugin for Disqus. It is unlikely that I will activate again, but than again anything is possible. Let me be clear that I actually think the service is very useful for moderating comments and promoting community and I appreciate the control it gives users over their comments throughout the blogosphere. On top of that the customer service is first rate. I highly recommend Disqus to those of you who are looking for advanced comment moderation features. The one problem that persisted and that I could not get over is the problem that I have with all WordPress plugins: Plugins place the blogger in a dependency relationship with a third-party site. I am willing to wager that the downtime with Disqus is no more frequent than with most plugins, but when it comes to comments I want an instant response. Readers should not have to wonder whether a blog’s comment system is working properly on any given visit. Perhaps I am overreacting, but I have a suspicion that a bad experience or even a few bad experiences, will turn off a reader from commenting in the future.
The other change to the site is the inclusion of a widget for Civil War Memory’s Facebook page, which you can join if you are on FB. Once in a while it acts up, but for now I am willing to deal with it. I am using it to communicate with “fans” of the blog and to share information that will not make it to the blog. I am pleased that the number of fans continues to grow. Please feel free to post your own notes, which will then appear in the feed on my blog. You can post news items, events, and even your own Civil War related blog posts if you so desire. All I ask is that your links loosely relate to the content of my blog. Of course, I reserve the right to control the feed as well as membership.
Hallelujah, Kevin. I was forever having to log back in with Disqus, it was a real PITA.
I had a feeling you would be happy.