I tried Disqus a few years ago.  Didn’t work out for me.  So when @LeoLaporte talked it up on This Week in Tech while discussing blogs vs Twitter I decided to give it another try, even though he was actually recommending JS-Kit Echo.

A few weeks earlier I tried out IntenseDebate, which was buggy as all hell so the idea of a fresh start with a more established system was a great feeling.

The switch wasn’t so easy.  ZERO of my comments imported into Disqus, despite increasing my MySQL memory.  Disqus is pretty good about checking on things through Twitter however.  I tweeted my frustration and posted a formal complaint on their customer service system and within a few hours I had a response.

But over a week passed and nothing was resolved.  Eventually, @giannii was able to take my emailed WordPress database and upload it to Disqus for whatever they had to do at that point.

But only a handful of nearly 1,700 comments actually imported! All added up over the past year or two, only 14 comments made it in!  And that is still the case (beyond what have been added since October 21 by way of new comments to the blog).

I got a tweet from @Giannii that @Disqus would take a look at the problem last week. But another problem sprung up!  Missing old comments was one thing but missing comments that were new?

Unacceptable.  One person commented on my blog about being blacklisted by Disqus.  Hello, what?! I’m sorry but did I hear that someone can be permanently blacklisted? I can understand this for robot spammers but this was a human with a cogent argument. Their comment can show up in my WordPress comments through the dashboard but not actually on my site?  Even if what he/she is posting is relavent, which in this case it certainly was?

What about someone that posted a comment earlier in the day, which was given the “thumbs up”, and when he comes back to post a reply his comment disappears?  This was the case for @Vortex_Bits.  He left a reply to my reply on his comment.  I value his opinion greatly and considering the fact that this was a sort of debate between the two of us, not posting his comment makes ME appear as childish, sending his comment to the abyss.

On my WordPress Dashboard his comment shows up, I can even view the comment in WordPress’s editor.

So WordPress says it’s approved.  It shows up in the dashboard but it’s missing from Disqus and the blog entirely?! Doesn’t Disqus advertise the sociability of their service to create conversation within your site and the internet?  A conversation that permeates through what we typically understand as individual networks?

Unless Disqus can actually fix this by this time Saturday I’m quitting Disqus, recommending to all my friends, readers and followers that they do the same and trying out the third player in the game, JS-Kit Echo.  I love the idea of Disqus.  They have been really nice and helpful and even as late as early this week promised to look into fixing my problems. However, in the end, it is the results that matter.  You can be super nice over email, twitter and the like but if your service can’t deliver the results, I’ve gotta say see-ya-later.

If Disqus is able to fix this, and I have my nearly 1,700 old comments imported into the service and the ignored new comments published, I will sing their worthy praises.  I’m one of those people who is actually willing to pay for a service.  I’d pay for Disqus but not if it is this buggy, as bad or worse than IntenseDebate.  At least ID managed to show all my comments.  JS-Kit Echo is only $12/year, that’s looking awfully tempting.

I’d love to get your thoughts on this.  Horror stories or success stories.  Though, good luck getting them to actually post.  :-\