Nästan exakt ett år från idag bestämde vi oss för att göra en stor förändring på vår site och run Livefyre Commenting System för att ersätta standard WordPress comments. Det var en produkt som vi blev förälskade i från början, och vi etablerade en bra relation med människorna i företaget. I och med vår senaste översyn tog vi tyvärr beslutet att gå skilda vägar från Livefyre. Många av våra användare har bett oss att göra en detaljerad artikel om den nya designen och förändringarna. Den vanligaste frågan vi fick var varför vi bytte från Livefyre. I den här artikeln kommer vi att ge dig några insikter i beslutet att byta bort från Livefyre och återgå till standard WordPress comments.
Varför vi ursprungligen blev förälskade i Livefyre
Livefyre erbjöd kommentarer i realtid, ”minskade” skräppost på grund av registreringskravet, integrerades med sociala media och förde konversationen tillbaka till webbplatsen. Livefyre allow sign-on med Facebook, Twitter etc. också. Tanken på att minska belastningen på servern fanns också i bakhuvudet på oss. Allt detta låter bra, men när vår site växte såg vi att vi runnade in i några issues.
Vad i hela friden var det som hände?
1. Kommentarer i realtid
Vi gillade verkligen funktionen för kommentarer i realtid eftersom vi kunde ha några fantastiska chattliknande konversationer i våra kommentarer. Det var den bästa upplevelsen av engagement som vi någonsin har sett från comments. Realtidskommentarer blev dock svårare att granska. Spammare insåg att de bara var en enda registrering från att få alla sina kommentarer approve på vår site.
Note: Normalt skulle vi aldrig publicera email addresses eller IP-adresser till användare. Det här är en spammare och vi tycker att det är rättvist att avslöja deras identitet.
Tillbaka till poängen. Så vi fann oss själva städa upp många av dessa kommentarer på regelbunden basis. Vissa undgick till och med våra ögon och låg kvar i flera månader tills en användare såg dem och rapporterade dem som skräppost. En av anledningarna till att vi behöll den här funktionen när vi granskade dessa kommentarer var att användarens länk pekade på deras livefyre-profil snarare än deras faktiska website. Så vi länkade inte ut till webbplatser med dåligt grannskap. Detta tog slut när Livefyre bestämde sig för att lansera en utvald funktion som tillåter användare att add to sina egna links och ger website publicerare INGEN CONTROL över detta alternativ. Vi började se en ökning av skräppost kommentarer, så vi inaktiverade snabbt realtidsfunktionen (som var det viktigaste som lockade oss till Livefyre i första hand).
2. Gillar skräppost
En av de saker som sålde oss till idén var att obligatorisk registrering skulle minska skräppost. Det var helt FEL. Livefyre har en funktion som heter Likes. Vilket uppenbarligen skapades med stora avsikter. Systemet missbrukas dock kraftigt. Låt oss förklara processen. Alla registrerade livefyre användare kan gilla en comment om de håller med om vad som sägs. När en användare gillar en kommentar dyker deras avatar upp bredvid kommentaren med en direkt bakåtlänk till användarens webbplats. Eller ej, det är en DO-FOLLOW backlink. Under är en screenshot från Livefyres blogg själv där du kan se Like SPAM i verk.
I exemplet ovan är den här spammaren inte särskilt smart. Han använder standard mystery man avatar. Spammarna på vår site var smartare. De hade sina loggor som avatar. Så you would see a colorful bunch of mini-icons that were being linked to spammy sökmotorsoptimering sites, credit card offer sites etc. Vissa kanske ej tror att detta är på riktigt, men det händer. Under är en av användarnas profil som vi rapporterade till Livefyre för nästan en månad sedan.
Ingen action har vidtagits hittills. Spammarens profil är fortfarande aktiv eller verkar kl. aktiv (eftersom den är synlig). Antingen älskar den här killen verkligen varenda comment han läser, eller så är de en spammare. Vi väljer att tro på det senare. Tro oss inte, gå och kontrollera den site-länk som nämns i hans profil, det är en adsense farm website.
Nu tänker du att det vi beskrev ovan är dåligt. Det värsta är att det inte finns någon notification om vem som gillade vad på din website. Det finns inget sätt för dig att veta vem som skräppostar din webbplats. Det enda sättet att ta reda på det är om en användare rapporterar det till dig, eller om du av misstag går till ett av dina äldre inlägg och lägger märke till detta.
När vi fick reda på att vi var ett offer för Like SPAM på många artiklar på hela webbplatsen (och förmodligen mer som vi inte visste om), visste vi att vi var tvungna att byta direkt. Vi kände oss hjälplösa och utan control. En av nackdelarna med att ej äga your content.
3. Social konvertering
Social konversation är ett mycket trevligt alternativ som Livefyre tillhandahåller. Du kan välja att föra in dina konverteringar från Twitter och Facebook tillbaka till artikeln. I teorin låter detta bra, men det har ännu inte blivit fulländat. Vi såg många irrelevanta kommentarer som kom från Twitter. Det är en bra idé, den behöver bara mer perfektion och ett bättre filtrera. Vi testade den här utvalda funktionen på vår site, och den fungerade ej så bra som den borde ha gjort.
4. Moderation
När vi valde att använda Livefyre fick vi intrycket att det fanns en tvåvägskommunikation mellan Livefyre och din WordPress-database. Vilket skulle innebära att du kan använda WordPress moderation för att approve, borttaget, eller svara på kommentarer. Men det var ej SANT. Det verkade fungera för oss i början, men på senare tid har det slagit tillbaka. Vi uppdaterade Livefyre plugin, och all plötsligt hade vi hundratals kommentarer som inväntade granskning. Det visade sig att alla kommentarer som vi redan hade granskat var tillbaka (och markerade som kommentar inväntar granskning). Jag är inte säker på vad som hände där. Vi kontaktade Livefyres support och fick detta response:
Det låter som om du försöker granska kommentarer från WordPress dashboard, som vi inte stöder för tillfället, dvs. ändringar i din dashboard kommer inte att synkroniseras med Livefyre.
Vi är säkra på att det fungerade tidigare. Minns inte vilken versionsuppgradering det var, men det verkade röra till saker och ting. Pratade med en god vän Mitch Canter (@studionashvegas), och han sa att det fungerade på hans site också. Han sa att det fortfarande fungerar för honom. Så vi är inte helt säkra på vad som gick fel, men ändå, vi satt kvar med hundratals kommentarer att gå igenom och granska igen.
Vi fick veta att för att detta ska fungera måste vi granska kommentarerna med hjälp av Livefyre Moderation Panel. Det fanns en hel del anledningar till varför vi absolut inte gillade Livefyres administrationspanel från början.
- Ingen massmoderation – Om du vill ta bort flera kommentarer eller markera dem som skräppost finns det inget sätt att göra det enkelt. You have to do it individually. Detta är fortfarande problemet även i deras NEW-gränssnitt.
- Dålig enskild moderation – Att helt enkelt ta bort en comment kräver 2 clicks. Det ena är beslutet att ta bort och sedan ge anledningen till att ta bort. Detta kan bli tråkigt. Detta är fortfarande problemet i deras NEW-gränssnitt.
- Ingen control över kommentarer – När vi tog beslutet att byta fanns det inget alternativ att edit användarens kommentar. Detta gjorde det svårare att genomdriva riktlinjer för kommentarer. Till exempel lämnar någon en bra kommentar, men avslutar en signaturlänk (som vi inte har behörighet). Vi måste antingen godkänna kommentaren som den är eller ta bort den. Detta är fixat i deras nya gränssnitt. Du kan nu edit kommentarer.
- Reply-To är en PAIN – För en site som vår, finner vi ofta ett behov av att svara på kommentarer. Det finns inget enkelt sätt att göra detta. Du kommer att se kommentaren i livefyre moderation panel. Du måste öppna artikeln där du kan se kommentaren som inväntar granskning. Approve det, och sedan svara därifrån. Detta gör Livefyre moderation panel ganska mycket värdelös. I WordPress back-end moderation finns det en riktigt cool funktion som heter Reply and Approve. Så du kan svara på kommentaren utan att någonsin öppna en ny tab/ett nytt fönster för posten.
5. Problem med format
Vi noterade att Livefyre lade till ytterligare CSS som kommentarer för vissa användare. Det måste vara någon sorts issue på användarsidan eftersom det bara hände en handfull, men vi värdesätter alla våra användare. Jag är inte säker på om detta har fixats eller ej.
En annan sak vi noterade var att det var svårt att lägga till radbrytningar i din comment. Så vi skulle försöka svara på någon och klistra in en länk. Men Livefyres automatiska format skulle bli av med dem. Ibland orsakade det till och med att länkarna bröts, så vi var tvungna att add to extra mellanslag mellan länken och texten efter den. Det största problemet var att när du skriver, kan du använda Shift + Enter, och det kommer att visa dig att radbrytningen var där. Se bilden under:
6. Eller ej en rättvis kompromiss
När vi bestämde oss för att använda Livefyre gjorde vi några kompromisser. Vi gav upp några möjligheter att få andra coola funktioner som Livefyre tillhandahöll. Men efter att ha använt Livefyre under en längre period och sett nackdelarna kände vi att vi inte gjorde en rättvis kompromiss. Låt oss utveckla det lite.
Ingen Custom Styling
Vi var väl medvetna om detta när vi bytte till Livefyre. Varje gång du använder ett tredjepartsskript förlorar du control över en del av stylingen. För närvarande matchar vår design av comments temat, och det ser beautiful ut. Med Livefyre hade vi inte lika mycket control över utseendet. De har inte alternativet vitmärkning tillgängligt för allmänheten. Vi tror dock att den här tjänsten tillhandahålls för kunder på företagsnivå.
Ingen generering av leads från comments
Vi visste att när vi bytte till Livefyre skulle vi förlora möjligheterna att generera leads från formuläret för kommentarer. Vi gjorde redirect av kommentarer för förstagångsanvändare samt gav användarna möjlighet att prenumerera på nyhetsbrevet från kommentarerna. Vi pratade med Livefyre-teamet om att lägga till detta. Längst ner var att det inte finns någon SIMPLE-lösning. Lösningen de föreslog var att det finns ett API tillgängligt som vi kan använda för att åtgärds-hooka in i deras system och samla email om användaren kontrollerade checkboxen. Det fanns inget möjligt sätt att göra comment redirect.
Vårt teams tankeprocess gick ungefär så här:
För att vi ska kunna använda den här plattformen och få de funktioner vi vill ha, måste vi bygga den själva. Medan det finns ett perfekt bra system för kommentarer på plats som är mycket lättare att arbeta med. Det finns gott om tillägg som redan är available. Tja, beslutet var enhälligt.
Registrering av tredje part
Återigen var vi medvetna om detta när vi registrerade oss för att använda Livefyre. Vi visste att vi skulle behöva kräva att våra användare registrerar sig med en tredje parts tjänst ”Livefyre” för att kommentera på vår webbplats. Vi trodde att det var för det större goda eftersom vi kommer att ha meningsfull konversation och andra utvalda funktioner. På alla WordCamps vi deltog i kom alltid några användare fram och klagade på systemet för kommentarer. Vi fick också många email från användare om det. Folk hade problem med att kommentera bakom en firewall, vissa människor kände bara att deras frihet att kommentera WPBeginner gick förlorad. Ja, för några månader sedan addade Livefyre gästkommentarer som en utvald funktion. Men det uppmuntrar fortfarande användare att registrera sig med Livefyre efteråt. Detta var återigen inte en rättvis kompromiss. Vi svek våra användare. Många av dem slutade att kommentera. Få skulle kommentera via email för att låta oss veta om vi gjorde ett misstag etc. Detta var verkligen en besvikelse för oss. Några av dessa användare sa att de gärna skulle registrera sig för att kommentera om de registrerade sig för WPBeginner. Men vi gjorde det obligatoriskt för dem att registrera sig hos en tredje part. Vi pratade med Livefyre om detta. De har ett API för företag som låter dig behålla din egen bas av användare. All data om användarna skulle vara yours. Integrationsprocessen verkade dock inte lika rak vidarebefordran. Minns inte hela saken, men i grund och botten skulle vi behöva skapa en separat bbPress- eller BuddyPress-databas för att hålla alla användare. Det lät bara för förvirrande. Vi valde att ej gå vidare med det.
Vid den tiden lät dessa kompromisser inte som en stor sak jämfört med alla de coola funktioner som vi fick med Livefyre. Men allteftersom tiden gick kunde vi se en tydligare bild av vår erfarenhet.
Så vad händer nu?
Vi har bytt tillbaka till det built-in-systemet för comments i WordPress. Några användare mailade oss och frågade vad vi använder för att lägga till alternativet logga in med Twitter / Facebook som du ser under. Vi använder en kombination av två tillägg (av samma författare @otto42) som anropas Simple Twitter Connect och Simple Facebook Connect.
Update 12 oktober 2012: Vi gjorde oss av med både Twitter login och FB login alternativen främst för att vi såg att folk inte använde det så mycket. Att göra sig av med dem har en betydande inverkan på laddningstiderna. Vi vill hellre ha sajten snabbare för majoriteten 
Vi har träffat och pratat med många användare som älskar att använda Livefyre. Även om det inte var rätt för vår site är du mer än välkommen att prova det själv. Vi gillar att höra yours tankar om Livefyre. Om du har en åsikt är du välkommen att gratis kommentera under.
Syed Balkhi
Hey WPBeginner readers,
Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
You can get more details about the contest from here.
Start sharing your thoughts below to stand a chance to win!
Lev
Thanks for sharing.
Tommy
Good article.
WPBeginner Staff
None yet.
Steve Borgman
I’ve had a problem in that all my livefyre comments are now gone and did not transfer over to Disqus on my site. Any recommendations for what I should do to get them to transfer over to Disqus?
K Stone
Will the comments post automatically to the social media account chosen? Thanks.
Kris
Are you finding any downside to disqus?
zack
Seems this uses Discuss, not default Wordpress any more.
Zac
It seems like the summary for most of your points was ”there was a perfectly viable solution to this, but it sounded too hard or confusing,” which is not really an excuse at all when you are working on a technical project. If it is too hard for your engineers, you need better engineers.
forcedalias
Livefyre has been buggy for me on both Firefox and Chrome (both up-to-date) on multiple sites.
I’ve never had a problem with Disqus — it’s always worked.
Sandeep Kumar
Sir I am very confused about the plugin for commenting on my blog. I was going for livefyre but after reading your article. I will not use this. So what I use for commenting????
WPBeginner Support
At WPBeginner we use the default WordPress commenting system.
Administratör
Michael Podboreski
I am starting to learn that defaults – are defaults for a reason.
Lorenzo
The only thing I don’t like about Disqus is that it’s limited to FB, Twitter, and G+ users. I wish they would also include other platforms
Dogguie
Que tal Disqus?
Brian
So, what about using ajax in comments? Which services make use of ajax?
Chris
Not trying to bash or anything but, just so you know, you can easly edit Livefyre’s CSS by adding ” !important ” to all its statements. I.E. background-color: #2d2d2d !important; and so on
Jack
Hey Bro,
I am a new blogger and i was confused with livefyre or disqus. After reading your experience, i will definitely use livefyre on my blog.
WPBeginner Support
Jack, seems like you didn’t read the article. Our experience with Livefyre was not good.
Administratör
Tim Arthur
Great post. I hope to leverage these login options in the future on our site
Glenn Younger
Thank you so much for this article! My two websites were spammed so badly, and so filled with various strains of freezer-virus (I made that name up because I got frozen out of my own sites and couldn’t even access the dashboard), that I have to build both again from scratch.
Naturally, I decided to do it ”right’ this time (of course I’m still a rookie despite the 200 pages lost on one of my sites). I have put hours of research into how I want to do the comment section. Do I use disqus? Livefyre? Comment Luv? The list goes on. I was leaning towards Livefyre and now I see that isn’t the way to go. BUT, the best part about this article is I discovered your website WPBeginner. Fingers crossed that it will help me move up from a rookie site builder to (I hope) a competent one. For that, I’m giving you a double thank-you.
Angel Rodriguez
I played with livefyre sometime ago, then switched out to ”Social” by mailchimp. That plugin was pretty good, but it doesn’t like my current template. The great thing about social is that it actually pulls in every post on twitter and facebook that is made and includes the url of your post. It’s pretty cool, but also pulls over some garbage as well.
Currently I’m on livefyre, but it’s not importing or tagging users as I hoped it would, which really is the main motivation for me to have it. Most of my dialogue happens on FB and twitter, so I enjoy bringing over the conversation, even if it’s just static data that doesn’t necessarily interact with the site itself.
I’ve also been considering disqus, I do enjoy using that one, but it doesn’t interact with my social media well. I’m considering going back to ”social” and trying to tweak the template myself.
Neil Ferree
I like to adding Google+ comments with CommentLuv in most of my sites these days.
Angel Rodriguez
How are you doing that Neil?
GD
I really still can’t decide.
Disqus looks the best but not if you can lose your comments when they go down.
Peter
Disqus sucks, because it required a double registration – firstly to a social media than to disqus – this can uncourage a lot of people…
Matthew Barnes
Also I found that Disquis can slow down your site. I saw Disquis on some very popular blogs, and sometimes Disquis would fail to load. Fail to load, with no comments. Thumbs down on Disquis for me
Mark McIntyre
The slow load / failure to load is the main reason I switched from Disqus to LIvefyre.
Antano Solar John
Thank you. Very well written article. I am glad I read this instead of switching to livefyre. I had an intuition that it wasn’t going to work for me.
Greg
Anyone using Jetpack comments?
Connor Gurney
Essentially it is just the WordPress comments with a comment form that uses Ajax and social sign in options. Clever idea, however.
To answer the question, yes, I am.
Mayur
I have not used WordPress Native Commenting system but, I used Disqus & Livefyre & as a UX point of view I found Disqus is much better than Livefyre.
Adil
so whats a best comments system?huh
WPBeginner Support
Right now we are using default WordPress comments system, it works well on all our sites.
Administratör
Kevin Bolger
But you have to scroll to the bottom to find the post new comment box. Surely that should be above the rest of the comments?
Faris
I am using Disqus on my two sites (one personal / one professional) and I like it. Was considering switching to LiveFyre for the more social aspect, but after reading this article I definitely won’t be!
Matt Kettlewell
Great job on writing an article so long ago that’s still relevant, useful and pulling in new comments and conversation!
I, like most reading your article, are looking for that perfect commenting system.
One that allows Facebook & twitter comments to become part of the discussion.
One that allows logins through the social media vendor of your choice.
And to eliminate spam comments 100% ( or at least 95% )…
And to allow custom styling
And not slow things down
And allow integration with newsletters and local functionality/API integration…
we all want this perfect commenting system, but it just doesn’t exist ( unfortunately ).
I keep wanting to use LiveFyre or Discus, or Intense Debate, but none of them are perfect, and in the end, decided to use the WordPress commenting system as well.
I have my sneaking suspicions that in the near future ( by end of 2014 ), we’ll have a nearly complete solution. There are good frameworks that just need a few extras integrated.
I do, however, view these upgrades as a premium feature that will help monetize the base company, where what we see today will remain free, and the complete integration package will be paid.
I for one would gladly pay to have it all!
Daneil
Hi
I am also using WordPress comments with my child theme. The one thing I do’t like is the inability to go back an make edits once you have posted. -esp for those of us who have bad spelling! Are there plugins which will allow this on WordPress comments or do I need to evaluate Discus et al. .Maybe there is a review of all of them out there?
Editorial Staff
Yes, you can use this plugin:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-comment-editing/
Administratör
Bryan
Is this the way the default WordPress comment board looks?
mAsT3RpEE | Walter Otsyula
Thanks for this. I was wondering weather to choose livefyre or disqus. Do you also have a review of disqus? I hate the native system (spam even worse). It uses javascript to load comments so I think that should stop most bots (I’m just guessing). Users can flag comments (I think, just installed it).
Can you also explain the obsession with backlinks outgoing links google rank etc? I thought the point was to make a website and leave the search engine geeks to tinker with their ai’s intelligence. If google’s bot is so easy to fool why do we all search using it.
Fortunately for me I’m still new and my site uses free hosting. So right now a low ranking is what I’m looking for. If my rank goes to high my dns provider might park my domain -_-. Any advice on keeping a ranking low?
Thanks in advance.
allergicvegetarian
I researched LiveFyre and decided not to use it as I wasn’t totally impressed. I just had a gut feeling that it wouldn’t work for me. I do want to be accessible to all people regardless of who they are. Discus is what I’m using currently anyways, and do recognize that this won’t work for those who need yellow background and bold black text. I do use Akismet too. Spammers will always be there, and they will always get in. Can’t stop that easily.
Spam: I found that banning IPs from certain countries, using the backend, has really helped a lot. However, the pro spammers are really good at hacking IP addresses. A Ukrainian fool, is so good, that he has hacked into a Netherland’s IP address. I had to ban registration out right, and manually register people. This was NOT on a WP account though, it was eFiction. My other blog by ?b-evolution? something like that, had tons of spam. I stopped allowing comments. My WP blog, using WP commenting, gets less spam so far, but you can almost gauge how good your SEO is, by the amount of spam you get. The more spam, the better your SEO (does not apply to forums, only blogs).
If you go to stopforumspam dot org, they have all the IP addresses and other data of spammers. Bottom line is though, no matter what you do, short of disallowing commenting, you are going to have the spammers.
Social Media: I found that commenting on a post is more necessary if its a how-to article and someone needs help. Otherwise, most things can be discussed in a forum. There, you can have 1 thread in 1 board that is exclusively for people who want an account. Then, if they are approved, you can set them up. And, leave the commenting as disallowed on all the articles. I may end up doing this on my recipe blog (WIP, no link given). The only drawback of a forum is that people lose interest quickly but the spammers don’t. I think this is largely due to our ”instant gratification expectation” culture we’ve become.
(Not clicking notify me, but will check back.)
Sebastian
Very very helpful. thank you guys
Tim
Good article and case study. I use Livefyre and find it disappointing that I can’t style how I want without heartache involved (I understand code – CSS/HTML, etc.) but styling Livefyre for my site was a pain. I gave up in the end, and I can tell you that my ”digital” defeats are few!
Vishal Verma
Livefyre=slow down your blog+some comment are always missing
Dirtysouthrep79
Nailed it. Slow as hell and auto mod won’t let simple benign messages through.
Rourke Decker
I am guessing this is the fault of user error or wrong settings, then. We have never experienced anything like this. If messages are getting caught up in the spam filter, it’s usually because similar messages have been flagged or deleted by moderators. Check into that first.
Gracy
Thanks for the great article. I was looking for a commenting system for my website and I was leaning towards using Livefyre. BUT now I am lil confused. I might just go for WP default commenting system.
Carlos
Hi
Great post, just I’m looking for a comment script for some of my clients.
What do you think about Disqus for comments?
Regards
Carlos
Editorial Staff
We personally wouldn’t use a third party commenting system unless our site is getting thousands of comments every minute.
Administratör
Sue Kearney
I’ve been back to default WP comments for maybe a month now, and I don’t see any significant increase (or decrease for that matter) in spam.
I’m really happy with this choice, and how pretty I’ve been able to make the comments section look (thanks to tips I’ve shamelessly copied from wpbeginner, thanks for your generosity and transparency!).
Love and light,
Sue
Editorial Staff
We do all we can to help Sue
Administratör
thomas wooldridge
i was checking out livefyre and looking for opinions and found this site.. I got tired of the spam on the default WP comments.
Added disqus and so far so good..
David Chantry
I think that the default comments is the best comments.
Adam
I am using third-party comment systems for a few blogs instead of the default Wordpress comment system mainly because of the amount of spam the default WP receives. Even using Akismet we would still get tons of spam. So one blog we’re using Disqus and the other we’re using LiveFyre and we don’t get much spam at all, if any. The number of comments though is now lower, but that could be because of the content. But if I had to choose, I like Disqus more than LiveFyre or the default WP comment system.
skopp
What font is this, for comments?
Editorial Staff
Using the combination of Google Fonts: Oswald for Names and Lora for comment text.
Administratör
skopp
Hi… I keep getting mailed about new comments here, so felt I have to chip in with my 20c as well. If you really want it done right, as with anything, you…?
Yup. Do it yourself. I’m not saying start your own Livefyre or Disqus (unless you want to). But the next best thing – better than even builtin WP comments – is Github Gists – as comments.Go as Open Source as you can. But Disqus is okay – I use it. I just hate the ”around the web” feature.
Sara Soueidan
You can stop that feature from the admin panel.
Bava
Thanks for the genuine review after trying out. I was about to use livefyre because of it’s appealing features. I think it’s always better to stick with the default wordpress commenting system.
John
I agree with the comments here. Let’s see.
Steve Demmitt
I recently had a similar problem with the Disqus commenting system. But the main reason for my switch had to do with slow server issues on their end. Comments would not post at a quick enough rate. I switched back to my old system and couldn’t be happier. I’m sure there are benefits to a commenting system like Disqus and Livefyre but for most sites I would say the stock commenting system does the job well.
Rourke Decker
Before anyone gets the wrong impression, I want to emphasize that am not badmouthing Livefyre. I have the utmost respect for them as an organization. They have always treated us extremely well; their customer service is professional, competent, and courteous — second to none, really. I think Livefyre is a great product produced by a great organization. I think it would be a great fit for many sites. I am just struggling with disillusionment at the frequency with which the conversations on our articles have nothing to do with the articles themselves, and that is obviously not the fault of Livefyre.
Maybe I simply have unrealistic expectations when I hope that a sports site could trigger relevant conversations that lasted more than a few minutes. That is entirely possible.
Sue Kearney
I disabled Livefyre today! Too much aggravation with the comment counter not matching the actual comment count, and even more important, some of my readers didn’t want to have to create LF accounts. I finally gave up.
Your article was very helpful, I’m using the native WP comments for now.
Thanks!
Love and light,
Sue
Rourke Decker
I have had Livefyre installed on my website since April 2012 and could probably count on two hands the total number of spam comments we’ve seen. I would be willing to wager that 99% of the spam people are complaining about is trackback spam. If you’re tired of rooting out trackback spam from your moderation queue, simply turn off trackbacks in your Wordpress Dashboard. Problem solved.
Editorial Staff
No. The spam we referred to in this article is about Like Spam where livefyre users will like all comments to get their favicon show up next to the comment. Those favicon would link to their site which gives spammers even more incentive to like just about every comment with their company profile.
Also, you don’t see these likes as easily on your site because there is no tab in your dashboard that shows comment likes. We only noticed this because several of our users reported it.
Administratör
Rourke Decker
I know that you were referring to ”like spam” in your article. I was mainly addressing the comments made by other people in this thread. We have experienced fewer than 10 instances of spam, almost all spambots shilling e-readers for Amazon.com, and it was easily taken care of with the ban button.
On our site, we have never — not once — experienced ”like spam,” and I can say this with complete assurance because there is a weird culture of competition among our readers to collect the most likes, so all likes are closely monitored.
We are considering removing Livefyre for other reasons — it reduces both the quality and longevity of conversations on an article, guaranteeing the conversation dies as soon as the next article is published — but spam has never been an issue for us.
Editorial Staff
Thanks for sharing your input Rourke. Would be really interested in learning about your experience, and what you mean by ”it reduces the quality and longevity of conversations”. Perhaps via a comment, or we can talk it out via email
-Syed
Rourke Decker
The problem with real-time commenting like Livefyre is that it turns your commenting stream into a chat room; in essence, your site, no matter how serious it may be, devolves into nothing more than a social networking hangout. Our author work very hard on our articles — some of them take many hours of research to write — but we’re lucky if even one percent of the comments people make have anything to do with the article at all. Livefyre has a lot of features that make commenting a lot of fun, but those end up being a distraction from the article.
For example, readers love the media embedding features, but all that means is that the vast majority of our comments are just people posting funny pictures and videos instead of talking about the article. This has the negative side effect of drastically increasing resource consumption and slowing down page-load times. I have seen my articles taking up well over 100 MB of RAM in a Chrome tab.
Because they’re hooked on the real-time instant gratification, as opposed to having to refresh to see new comments, readers migrate to the next article as soon as it’s published, completely ignoring the old article. Not that it matters, considering they’re not talking about the old article anyway. Comments that come hours or days later are ignored as an unintended side effect of the fact that Livefyre sends out an email notifying you of new comments, which means people quickly turn that feature off. As a result, people who discover our articles later through Google or other means don’t feel welcomed and engaged, leave a single comment, and never come back. If Livefyre had a feature allowing notifications to be sent out only for articles that were, say, at least one week old, then we could respond to these late comments, keep the conversation going, and hopefully engage some new readers. As it stands, I only accidentally discover these comments if I happen to be checking back on an old article.
By contrast, I have seen sites on which articles are still receiving meaningful comments six years after the article was written, and some of those comments are longer and more in depth than the article itself! Look at this article: it was last updated in October 2012, but it’s still sparking discussion. That is what I would like for our site. Unfortunately, our articles just die as soon as the next one is published, because they’re little more than a chat room anyway.
I want my site to have staying power. I want it to be seen as a reputable source of information on our topic. I am seriously tempted to disable Livefyre and go back to the default WP commenting system, while installing a chat room that people can use for all their silly pictures, videos, and off-topic nonsense chatter. Something else I have considered is creating a mirror of my site that does not have Livefyre and loading our more important articles there. I don’t care so much if people chatter off topic on the morning links articles. But I want the statistical articles that takes days, sometimes weeks, of research to write to be provoking conversation five years ago. And I just don’t see that happening with Livefyre, at least not as long as everyone turns off new-comment notifications to avoid their email inbox being flooded.
Editorial Staff
Thanks for sharing that Rourke. Really appreciate the insights. Yes there is that issue of alienating your audience, but creating a live chatroom might be a good solution to keeping things relevant on the articles while still giving your audience a place to goof around. I think you are in the same boat that I found myself in. All the features that attracted me to livefyre at first ended up being the reason for me leaving the platform.
Do keep me in the loop of your decision. Feel free to send an email or tweet whenever you think I could be of any help.
-Syed
Sue Kearney
I was going to ask the same thing Syed asked. I’d love to hear more about reducing the quality and longevity of conversations.
I’m on my first day post-Livefyre. And I’m basing my comments styling on what you have here, Syed, should be fully formed by Monday.
Thanks!
Editorial Staff
Sweet. Keep me in the loop Sue. I think the article we wrote today about styling the comment form might help a bit in terms of plugins for checkboxes that we have. Let me know if I could be of any help.
-Syed
Rourke Decker
Holy typos, Batman. ”Our authors” . . . ”five years from now.”
I forgot to add that I have a feeling I will alienate the majority of my readership if I disable Livefyre. They’re so used to using the site purely as a social hangout that they might not come back if they have to refresh to see new comments. If that happens, I might well lose a significant proportion of my writers too. It’s a risk I am weighing and one I hesitate to make, because it might mean starting over at square one trying to build up a readership. On the other hand, it’s extremely demotivating to spend so much time writing meaningful content, only to have no one even engage it — or worse, openly poo-poo it. Part of me thinks I’d rather have 10 comments contributing to the conversation and spurring new ideas than a thousand off-topic one liners and memes, most of which have been repeated ad nauseam already.
Meghan Krane
Hi Rourke,
I’d love to talk with you more about the changes that you want to make on your site and brainstorm a bit about ways that you can adjust Livefyre to better meet the needs of your community. We’re always open to feedback about how we can improve our tools. I’d really like to speak with you, whatever your decision ends up being, so that I can share your thoughts and feedback with the Livefyre team. I’ll be getting in touch shortly.
Best regards,
Meghan
Director of Community at Livefyre.
Gemma Wild
I was under the impression Livefyre completely replaces the default WordPress system but this doesn’t seem to be the case for me.
I’m using the current Livefyre (4.0.3) on my WordPress blog and am receiving regular spam comments directly through the WordPress commenting system, not via Livefyre.
I realise spammers can be quite clever and find ’back ways’ in but this does defeat the purpose of incorporating an external commenting system.
Did you guys ever experience this or did your spam come through Livefyre?
Editorial Staff
In our case, SPAM came through livefyre.
Administratör
Meghan Krane
Hi Gemma, I’m Meghan, Director of Community at Livefyre. Our Comments 3 plugin does replace the default WordPress comment system. One of the features of Comments 3 is that we write all of the comments that we process through Livefyre back to your WordPress comment database, so that you always have access to all of your comments in one place.
If Comments 3 is installed correctly all comments on your site will be processed through Livefyre, our spam filter, and any moderation rules you have set up. You can track all incoming comments from the Livefyre admin panel. If you are seeing comments on your posts that are not appearing in your Livefyre admin please send us an email at support[at]Livefyre.com and we can investigate and get that sorted out for you.
Robert
I noticed you don’t use Disqus, LiverFyre or any 3rd-party commenting system now. Is there a reason for that? Are native wordpress comments just plain better?
Editorial Staff
Hey Robert,
We decided not to use any third-party commenting system because we wanted to have the freedom to do things our way. For example, if we want to allow users to subscribe to our newsletter from the comments, or redirect first-time commenters to a new page, etc. We can do that. We also wanted control over how comments were displayed. The native WordPress comments are the most flexible, and in our opinion the best solution for most sites.
If you are running a site that is getting tens of thousands of comments a day, then comments will become a hassle for your server to manage. In those cases, people utilize 3rd-party commenting systems to off-load server resources.
Administratör
Sue Kearney
Hi, thanks for a helpful article. Tell me, please, did you still have all your comments on your site, and visible, when you disabled LF? I’m afraid I’ll lose everything!
Thanks,
Sue
Editorial Staff
All your comments will stay on your WordPress install.
Administratör
Adamo "Aerendir" Crespi
Hi guys,
i came on this article serching for an article about your comment system: i’m a new WordPress User, coming from the Joomla! world.
Very interesting article, especially for the opinions about LiveFyre: it is now used by Mashable and i searched for info about it some days ago, and now, serendipitously, i’ve found the bad opinions i were searching for.
Anyway, i’ve yet decided to use the default WordPress’ comment system but a question is going around and around in my head: what about the ”Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” and the ”Subscribe to WPBeginner Updates (Weekly Email)” checkboxes? Which plugins are you using? And how do you synch the newsletter subscription here in the comments with MailChimp?
Best regards guys, your is a very helpful blog, and not only for its contents!
Editorial Staff
Hey Adamo,
Thanks for the comment. Yes, some larger sites like Mashable and TC are starting to use Livefyre, but we believe that’s the enterprise version with custom user database. Every thing that we use on the site can be seen on our blueprint page: https://www.wpbeginner.com/blueprint/
Here is the page about comment section specifically
https://www.wpbeginner.com/blueprint/comments/
Administratör
Kathy Korman Frey
Hi folks – I was recently impressed by LiveFyre because it kept hooking me back into a discussion via Twitter. Someone mentioned me in a comment by my Twitter handle, I was compelled to reply – whereas normally I think that post would have been buried in utter obscurity.
This is so key for me. On our site, we have Disqus. We have great content and no one comments, yet we have a very active Twitter following. I thought LiveFyre might be great for this.
I figured it might be between CommentLuv and LiveFyre, now, I am not sure and feel as if creepy crawlies will get into my site with LifeFyre, and our comment threading will be compromised when / if we switch.
So – after reading this, I plan to have another cup of coffee and do nothing. ”Is doing nothing an option” is one of my favorite tips for busy women who follow our project…and, now I will be doing it myself. Gracias!
Justin
Thanks for the follow-up post – I’ve been evaluating comment systems and having a hard time deciding. It seems there is no perfect solution