Hoy hace casi exactamente un año que decidimos hacer un cambio importante en nuestro sitio y pusimos en marcha Livefyre Commenting System para sustituir los comentarios por defecto de WordPress. Fue un producto que nos enamoró desde el principio, y establecimos una gran relación con la gente de la empresa. Desafortunadamente, con nuestra reciente revisión, hemos tomado la decisión de separarnos de Livefyre. Muchos de nuestros usuarios nos han pedido que hagamos un artículo detallado sobre el nuevo diseño y los cambios. La pregunta más común que recibimos fue por qué cambiamos de Livefyre. En este artículo, le daremos algunas ideas sobre la decisión de cambiar de Livefyre y volver a los comentarios por defecto de WordPress.
Por qué nos enamoramos inicialmente de Livefyre
Livefyre ofrecía comentarios en tiempo real, “reducía” el Spam debido al requisito de registro, se integraba con los medios sociales y devolvía la conversación al sitio. Livefyre también permitía acceder con facebook, twitter, etc. También pensamos en reducir la carga del servidor. Todo esto suena muy bien, pero a medida que nuestro sitio crecía nos encontramos con algunos problemas / conflictos / incidencias.
¿Qué demonios pasaba?
1. Comentarios en tiempo real
Disfrutamos mucho de la característica de comentarios en tiempo real porque pudimos mantener conversaciones muy interesantes en nuestros comentarios. Fue la mejor experiencia de participación que hemos visto nunca en los comentarios. Sin embargo, los comentarios en tiempo real se volvieron más difíciles de moderar. Los spammers se dieron cuenta de que solo tenían que registrarse una vez para que se aprobaran todos sus comentarios en nuestro sitio.
Nota: Normalmente nunca publicaríamos el correo electrónico o la dirección IP de los usuarios. Se trata de un spammer, y creemos que es solo justo revelar su identidad.
Volviendo al tema. Así que nos encontramos limpiando muchos de estos comentarios con regularidad. Algunos incluso escapaban a nuestros ojos y permanecían durante meses hasta que un usuario lo veía y lo informaba como SPAM. Una de las razones por las que mantuvimos esta característica mientras moderábamos estos comentarios era que el enlace del usuario apuntaba a su perfil de livefyre en lugar de a su sitio web real. Así no estábamos enlazando a sitios de mal vecindario. Esto llegó a su fin cuando Livefyre decidió lanzar una nueva característica que permitía a los usuarios añadir sus propios enlaces a sitios web y no daba a los editores de sitios web NINGÚN CONTROL sobre esta opción. Empezamos a ver un aumento en los comentarios de Spam, por lo que rápidamente desactivamos la característica de tiempo real (que fue la principal cosa que nos atrajo a Livefyre en primer lugar).
2. Como SPAM
Una de las cosas que nos vendió la idea fue que el registro obligatorio reduciría el Spam. Pues eso era totalmente ERROR. Livefyre tiene una característica llamada Like. Que obviamente fue creada con grandes intenciones. Sin embargo, se está abusando mucho del sistema. Vamos a explicar el proceso. Cualquier usuario registrado en Livefyre puede darle a Me gusta a un comentario si está de acuerdo con lo que se dice. Cuando a un usuario le gusta un comentario, su avatar aparece a continuación del comentario con un enlace directo al sitio del usuario. Por no hablar de que es un backlink DO-FOLLOW. A continuación se muestra una captura de pantalla del propio blog de Livefyre donde se puede ver Like SPAM en obras.
En el ejemplo anterior, este spammer no es muy inteligente. Está usando el avatar por defecto de hombre misterioso. Los spammers de nuestro sitio eran más listos. Tenían sus logos como avatar. Así que se podía ver un montón de coloridos mini-iconos que estaban enlazados a sitios spam de SEO, sitios de ofertas de tarjetas de crédito, etc. Puede que algunos no crean que esto sea real, pero está ocurriendo. A continuación se muestra el perfil de uno de los usuarios que informamos a Livefyre hace casi un mes.
Hasta ahora no se ha tomado ninguna medida. El perfil del spammer sigue activo o al menos parece activo (porque es visible). Ahora bien, o bien a este tipo le encantan todos y cada uno de los comentarios que lee, o bien se trata de un spammer. Nosotros optamos por lo segundo. No nos creas, ve a comprobar el enlazar del sitio mencionado en su perfil, es un sitio web de una granja de adsense.
Ahora estás pensando que lo que hemos descrito arriba es malo. Lo peor es que no hay aviso de a quién le ha gustado qué en tu sitio web. No hay manera de saber quién está haciendo SPAM en tu sitio. La unica manera de saberlo es si un usuario te lo informa, o si accidentalmente vas a una de tus entradas mas antiguas y te das cuenta de esto.
Cuando descubrimos que éramos víctimas de Like SPAM en numerosos artículos a través del sitio (y probablemente más que no sabíamos), sabíamos que teníamos que cambiar de inmediato. Nos sentíamos indefensos y fuera de control. Una de las desventajas de no ser dueño de tu contenido.
3. Conversación social
La conversación social es una muy buena opción que Livefyre proporciona. Puedes elegir traer tus conversaciones de Twitter y Facebook al artículo. En teoría suena muy bien, pero aún tiene que perfeccionarse. Hemos visto muchos comentarios irrelevantes procedentes de Twitter. Es una buena idea, pero necesita más perfección y un filtro mejor. Probamos esta característica en nuestro sitio y no funcionó tan bien como debería.
4. Moderación
Cuando elegimos utilizar Livefyre, teníamos la impresión de que había una comunicación bidireccional entre Livefyre y tu base de datos de WordPress. Lo que significaría que puedes usar la moderación de WordPress para aprobar, borrar o responder a los comentarios. Pues eso no era cierto. Al principio nos pareció que funcionaba, pero hace poco nos salió el tiro por la culata. Actualizamos el plugin Livefyre, y de repente teníamos cientos de comentarios pendientes de moderación. Resultó que todos los comentarios que habíamos moderado ya estaban de vuelta (y marcados como pendientes). No estamos seguros de lo que ha pasado. Nos pusimos en contacto con el soporte de Livefyre y obtuvimos la respuesta:
Parece que estás intentando moderar comentarios desde el Escritorio de WordPress, lo cual no es compatible con Livefyre por el momento, es decir, los cambios en tu Escritorio no se sincronizarán con Livefyre.
Estamos seguros de que funcionaba en el pasado. No recuerdo qué actualización de versión fue, pero parece que estropeó las cosas. Hablé con un buen amigo Mitch Canter (@studionashvegas), y me dijo que también funcionaba en su sitio. Dijo que todavía funciona para él. Así que no estamos totalmente seguros de lo que salió mal, pero no obstante, nos quedamos con cientos de comentarios para ir a través y volver a moderar.
Nos dijeron que para que esto funcione, tenemos que moderar los comentarios utilizando el Panel de Moderación de Livefyre. Hubo varias razones por las que el panel de administración de Livefyre nos disgustó desde el principio.
- No hay moderación por lotes – Si quieres borrar varios comentarios o marcarlos como Spam, no hay manera de hacerlo fácilmente. Tienes que hacerlo individualmente. Este sigue siendo el problema incluso en su NUEVA interfaz.
- Moderación individual pobre – Simplemente borrar un comentario requiere 2 clics. Uno es la decisión de borrar, luego dar la razón para borrar. Esto puede resultar tedioso. Este sigue siendo el problema en su NUEVA interfaz.
- No hay control sobre los comentarios – Cuando tomamos la decisión de cambiar, no había ninguna opción para editar los comentarios de los usuarios. Esto hacía más difícil hacer cumplir las directrices de los comentarios. Por ejemplo, alguien deja un gran comentario, pero termina enlazando una firma (lo que no tiene permisos). Tenemos que aceptar el comentario tal cual o borrarlo. Esto está corregido en su nueva interfaz. Ahora puedes editar los comentarios.
- Responder es un DOLOR – Para un sitio como el nuestro, a menudo nos encontramos con la necesidad de responder a los comentarios. No hay una manera fácil de hacerlo. Verás el comentario en el panel de moderación de livefyre. Tienes que abrir el artículo donde puedes ver el comentario como pendiente. Aprobarlo, y luego responder desde allí. Esto hace que el panel de moderación de Livefyre sea prácticamente inútil. En la administración / escritorio de moderación de WordPress, hay una característica muy interesante llamada Responder y Aprobar. Así que usted puede responder al comentario sin tener que abrir una nueva pestaña / ventana para la entrada.
5. Problemas de formato
Hemos advertido que Livefyre estaba añadiendo CSS adicional como texto de comentarios para algunos usuarios. Tiene que ser algún tipo de conflicto / incidencia del usuario porque solo le ocurría a unos pocos, pero valoramos a todos nuestros usuarios. No estamos seguros de si se ha corregido o no.
Otra cosa que hemos notado es que añadir saltos de línea en los comentarios era una molestia. Así que tratamos de responder a alguien y pegar un enlazar. Sin embargo, el autoformateo de Livefyre los eliminaba. A veces incluso provocaba que los enlaces se rompieran, por lo que teníamos que añadir espacios extra entre el enlace y el texto posterior. El mayor problema era que cuando estás escribiendo, puedes usar Shift + Enter, y te mostrará que el salto de línea estaba ahí. Vea la imagen de abajo:
6. No es un compromiso justo
Cuando decidimos usar Livefyre, hicimos algunas concesiones. Renunciamos a algunas oportunidades para obtener otras características interesantes que Livefyre estaba proporcionando. Pero después de usar Livefyre durante un largo periodo de tiempo y ver las desventajas, sentimos que no hicimos un compromiso justo. Vamos a elaborar un poco.
Sin estilo personalizado
Éramos muy conscientes de esto cuando cambiamos a Livefyre. Cada vez que utilizas un script de terceros, pierdes el control sobre parte del estilo. Actualmente, el diseño de nuestros comentarios coincide con el tema, y tiene un aspecto precioso. Con Livefyre no teníamos tanto control sobre el aspecto. No tienen la opción de marca blanca disponible para el público en general. Sin embargo, creemos que este servicio está disponible para clientes de nivel empresarial.
No Generación de clientes potenciales a partir de comentarios
Sabíamos que una vez que cambiáramos a Livefyre, perderíamos las oportunidades de generación de clientes potenciales del formulario de comentarios. Redirigíamos los comentarios para los usuarios que lo utilizaban por primera vez y ofrecíamos a los usuarios la posibilidad de suscribirse al boletín de noticias desde los comentarios. Hablamos con el equipo de Livefyre acerca de añadir esto. La conclusión fue que no hay una solución SIMPLE. La solución que propusieron fue que hay una API disponible que podemos utilizar para enganchar en su sistema y recoger correos electrónicos si el usuario marcó la casilla de verificación. No había forma posible de redirigir los comentarios.
El proceso de pensamiento de nuestro equipo fue un poco así:
Para poder utilizar esta plataforma y obtener las características que queremos, tenemos que crearla nosotros mismos. En cambio, existe un sistema de comentarios que funciona perfectamente y con el que es mucho más fácil trabajar. Hay muchos plugins disponibles. La decisión fue unánime.
Registro de terceros
De nuevo, éramos conscientes de esto cuando accedimos a usar Livefyre. Sabíamos que tendríamos que obligar a nuestros usuarios a registrarse en un servicio de terceros “Livefyre” para comentar en nuestro sitio. Creíamos que era por un bien mayor, porque así tendríamos conversaciones significativas y otras características añadidas. En todos los WordCamps a los que asistimos, siempre había algunos usuarios que se quejaban acerca del sistema de comentarios. Recibimos numerosos correos electrónicos de los usuarios acerca de esto también. La gente tenía problemas para comentar detrás de un cortafuegos, algunos simplemente sentían que su libertad de comentar en WPBeginner se había perdido. Sí, hace unos meses Livefyre añadió la característica de comentarios de invitados. Pero todavía anima a los usuarios a registrarse con Livefyre después. Esto de nuevo no era un compromiso justo. Defraudamos a nuestros usuarios. Muchos dejaron de comentar. Pocos comentaban por correo electrónico para hacernos saber si habíamos cometido un error, etc. Esto nos decepcionó mucho. Algunos de estos usuarios dijeron que estarían encantados de registrarse para comentar, si estuvieran accediendo a WPBeginner. Pero les estábamos obligando a registrarse con un tercero. Hablamos con Livefyre acerca de esto. Ellos tienen una API empresarial que te permitirá mantener tu propia base de usuarios. Todos los datos de los usuarios serían tuyos. Sin embargo, el proceso de integración no parecía tan sencillo. No recuerdo todo el asunto, pero básicamente tendríamos que crear una base de datos bbPress o BuddyPress separada para mantener a todos los usuarios. Parecía demasiado confuso. Decidimos no seguir adelante con eso.
En aquel momento, estas concesiones no parecían gran cosa comparadas con todas las características que Livefyre nos ofrecía. Sin embargo, con el paso del tiempo, pudimos ver una imagen más clara de nuestra experiencia.
¿Y ahora qué?
Bueno, hemos vuelto al sistema de comentarios integrado de WordPress. Algunos usuarios nos enviaron un correo electrónico preguntando qué estamos utilizando para añadir la opción de acceder con Twitter / Facebook que se ve a continuación. Estamos usando una combinación de dos plugins (del mismo autor @otto42) llamados Simple Twitter Connect y Simple Facebook Connect.
Actualización 12 de octubre de 2012: Nos deshicimos de ambas opciones de acceso / acceso de Twitter y FB principalmente porque vimos que la gente no estaba usando tanto. Deshacerse de ellos tiene un impacto significativo en los tiempos de carga. Preferimos tener el sitio más rápido para la mayoría 
Hemos conocido y hablado con numerosos usuarios a los que les encanta usar Livefyre. Aunque no era el más adecuado para nuestro sitio, eres más que bienvenido a probarlo por ti mismo. Nos gustaría conocer tu opinión sobre Livefyre. Si tienes alguna opinión, no dudes en comentar a continuación.
Syed Balkhi says
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Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
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Dirk says
I like how your comments are styled, nice work!
Chetan Bhasin says
Do they not have a spam policy on Livefyre, or is Akisment not working with Livefyre?
Well! I was testing Livefyre for a blog but then read this.
While I really like the social login and tagging feature on Livefyre, I can not risk my website to spam comments.
Dennis Marshall says
I just decided to use LifeFyre. I have it on another blog and it seems to be pretty stable. I’ll give it 90 days.. Great Post though.. I’ll be sure to link to you guys..
Steve Wilson says
I was gonna try Livefyre but then i read your post and ah… thanks buddy. I may have to stick with Disqus anyway. Oh what can you say about Disqus then?
Kathy Korman Frey says
I basically did this as well. Felt sort of “doe in headlights” after this post.
Scott says
What do you use for comment spam? akisment or what? thanks in advance…
Editorial Staff says
We use Akismet. But we also have Sucuri which takes care of a lot of spam and malicious requests.
Administrador
Danny Cruz says
I have a question. I’ve had Livefyre on my guitar site for a few years now, but I was recently considering getting rid of it. In doing the research to decide whether to remove it or not, a search led me here. Great piece by the way.
My question is… When you delete Livefyre, do you lose all the comments made through the system? Or do they somehow go into your WP comment interface?
Editorial Staff says
Livefyre comments are stored in your WordPress database, so they will still be there even when you disable Livefyre. The only thing that gets messed up is the conversation threading.
Administrador
Linda S says
Ah. now I see this. Thank you. I’ve made a long comment elsewhere that all free Livefyre “community comments” users will need to get off of this plugin now thanks to Adobe’s purchase.
Spencer Edgington says
I like Disqus better …
Steve Wilson says
Me too, i used for all my commenting because its pleasant to the eye and its very easy to track my comments with.
Jalil Asaria says
You might want to have a look at Viafoura.
Full disclosure I work for them. But we actually displace livefyre for the ver reasons you pointed out.
PolarStar says
Hi, Which plugins are you using to personalize the default comment section you have now? I mean the notify me of followup and subscribe to WPBeginner below? Also I like that people on this web use their photos. Is it only because they have Gravatar accounts?
Thanks, Polar
Editorial Staff says
You can see how our comment system works here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/blueprint/comments/
As for photos, yes it is through gravatar.
Administrador
PolarStar says
Thank your fore the reply!
himagain says
Hi there!
Actually, I’ve left a couple of replies above.
But aside from getting confirmation here about dumping livefye, it helps to know that I was not alone.
BUT – it still for an unknown reason means I cannot comment on Sites running Livefyre – despite the fact that I am a member!
AND am going to look into knocking off this Theme, later!
Cheers!
Shashi says
Good information about the advantages and disadvantages of Livefyre. Thanks for your time to mention all of them.
Chris says
I didn’t like it either, the new Disqus is much better for that matter. And hey can you share how to make the social media share icons scroll down along with the post? Like you have it here?
Paul Shapiro says
I got freaked out on my blog when I saw spammers liking comments on my posts, but I checked and the links are now “nofollow”. FYI.
Editorial Staff says
Must have been a recent change that they made. However even with a nofollow link, sending traffic to spammers is not ideal. Your competitor can easily click like on all comments on your post, and they will get clicks. Would you like to send traffic to your competitors?
Administrador
mre says
Anyone know of an OPEN SOURCE commenting system?
Editorial Staff says
Yup, the built-in commenting system.
Administrador
MRE says
My bad, I was commenting from my phone, not realizing this was a WordPress blog about WordPress. I meant a 3rd party, open-source code API comment system – like what Chromium is to Chrome or Linux is to Mac.
I want to use on a Scriptogram blog.
Mrinal says
Just saved me. I was going to install it. Thank you.
MichaelADeBose says
Great post. I’ll be putting up a blog soon and your post gave me some things to consider. It’s funny because I am experiencing an issue with Disqus where regardless of using Twitter sign-in or their interface and clicking that my comments on whichever site be sent to my Twitter feed, it has not been happening. For me that is important, first and foremost because it is a feature that is provided and so you would expect it to work. It’s not worked in over a week and despite interacting with some of Disqus staff, its still not working.
Getting ready to put up my own blog, between your post and my own experience, its clear that people are quite enthusiastic about comments and apparently for quite a few different reasons. It’s clear to me that I really need to weigh the options. From my sad Disqus experience, I am imminently aware that my commenter’s comments after they leave my site are as important to me as when they are on my site and I need a commenting system that both myself and my commenters can trust to do what its supposed to as its advertised. Then to your point I also need something that functions with the level of control I want, within a reasonable envelope of effort. I’m still looking for the answer, but you’ve helped me articulate for myself much more focused questions. Thanks.
Brendan says
Just curious what your thoughts were on Livefyre’s StreamHub… it’s an enterprise system they offer. I’m concerned about the Do Follow on the likes you had mentioned along. However, I am able to modify comments from people who leave links in their comment. I will stick with Livefyre for at least a few months as our comments have increased 400%! Cheers.
Editorial Staff says
StreamHub is a new technology they added after we switched away. So we cannot comment on those features.
Administrador
Robert le Grange says
I like this topic a lot, every time I catch a good read (this is one of best) I get sucked into the hunt for the perfect solution. It appears this one is solid.
One thing I would like to see happen is when a sign-in via twitter is completed that the page is jumped to the input box, otherwise lots of scrolling especially on this popular post.
What about Google sign-in integration?
Editorial Staff says
We haven’t integrated Google, but we might consider in the future.
Administrador
Elijah says
Now you’ve just talked me out of installing Livefyre. Good read.
Arul says
I was thinking about going with livefyre for the exact reasons.I simply love real time comments. Not creates a flaming argument like those and to me I thought the drawbacks are very little until I read this and now I using your own comments blueprint :). Slightly shameful in copying your entire commenting layout.
Tony Greene says
Valid points for your dismissal of the awesomeness that is Livefyre. It’s not for everyone as you point out.
By the way, it looks like your twitter token is failing and the facebook button has failed to load properly.
Not a good look if you’re trying to keep the conversation going…
Editorial Staff says
Yup, its a great product just not for everyone. It was in the list of to-do to get rid of both FB and Twitter connect options. Finally got rid of them.
Administrador
Amber Hewitt says
May I ask why you got rid of the social network sign-ins? I was thinking of adding them to my site.
Editorial Staff says
Mainly because people weren’t using it as much. Almost everyone was using the name/email method. Very few were using social connect. Keeping social connect buttons on the page meant numerous additional HTTP requests and slower page load time. We decided to improve our page load time by a few seconds by getting rid of those options that people weren’t really using.
Carlos Mendoza says
What is the system of comments that you are using right now!
Editorial Staff says
It is default WordPress comments. You can see our blueprint link in the sidebar that will show you how we created our comments.
Administrador
Carla says
I am looking for a setup where discussions can happen in real time. I like Go To Meeting but I want it to be more of a commenting platform vs. a chat room platform. This is also going to be behind a membership setup and later transcripts will be added for others to read.
Does anyone have any ideas on this type of setup within WordPress?
Editorial Staff says
Behind a membership site, I think that Livefyre may be worth a try (specially if it is paid membership) because then you will weed out a lot of SPAM. Also consider looking at the P2 theme.
Administrador
Reasonably Good says
Hi, we’re having similar debates over commenting systems & have discounted using Disqus & livefyre due to lack of control/ownership of discussions.
Can i ask if you’ve looked at IntenseDebate? It’s main attraction to us is that comments are hosted on your own DB and seem to work in tandem with WP’s own comment system. In fact, according to Mashable, Automatic (WP’s owners) have bought IntenseDebate so it should sync in really well.
It appears to offer the FB & Twitter integration most people want and offers a growing list of 3rd party add ons too.
Would like to hear your take on it if you’ve given it the once over.
Editorial Staff says
We used intense debate briefly on a client’s site. Even livefyre and Disqus hosts keeps a backup of your comments in your database (which makes it easy to switch back). Yes its true that Automattic bought Intense Debate. It seems though that they are more focused on JetPack comments now. We probably would not use another third party commenting system anytime soon.
Administrador
Oliver Nielsen says
I recently killed Jetpack on my site, as I hate the default on-status of the modules. No control with what’s activated and what isn’t, after updating Jetpack.
So I came here to read peoples experiences with Livefyre and Disqus. I’ve had terrible experiences with IntenseDebate a few years ago, so I’m very wary about trying those two alternatives.
Daniel Green says
I’d been using Livefyre for a while now, but in the past week my spam comments sky rocketed to 70 odd in the space of a couple of days.. and not just a sentence or two but huge paragraphs of nonsense. Then I found out that for some reason the plugin had just stopped working all together. (I couldnt login OR post as guest). The fact is though, ever since using LF the only comments I ever received were Spam.
Previous to this I tried Comment_Luv, but this just turned out to be a blogging Circle-Jerk. People would only comment on other Com Luv enabled sites, just to get those special backlinks. This also rendered commenting on blogs without the plugin useless, or at least far less appealing.
So now I’m trying Disqus. For one thing, you get access to moderation through the WP-admin panel (via a secondary login), so you dont have to leave WP. The 2012 update also seems quite appealing. You have the option to sign in via the usual twitter, facebook and google, but you can also just leave your name email and website, similar to standard WP comments.
Editorial Staff says
Yeah one of the reasons why we disable links on our site is because we don’t want users to comment on the site just for the sake of backlinks. If you want to say something and add value to the content, you will do so regardless of the link or not. In the future, we may work out some sort of loyalty based program, but that is not the priority at the moment.
Administrador
Meghan Krane says
I’m Meghan with Livefyre. Did you ever contact our customer support regarding your spam issues? Had you contacted us we would have looked into this immediately and worked to resolve the situation. We haven’t received any customer complaints from anyone in our network about paragraphs of spam in Livefyre comments, and we definitely want to investigate this matter further. We weren’t able to locate you anywhere in our database, would you mind sharing the URL of your site with us?
himagain says
@meghan HAHAHA! You couldn’t find anyone here??
I’ve been going nutz trying to get ANYTHING to work on YOUR Site.
On several of my key contact Sites I can no longer post messages.
It has taken quite a lot of frustrated detective work to realise it is YOUR system causing my problems.
A really dumb message comes up as I try to post and it doesn’t matter whether I try to bypass Livefyre or not I get:
“It seems you’re attempting to post malformed content.”
I AM registered in your operation.
I cannot get ANY response from your Website Support at all.
Try to place a support message and it will bomb you out with a script error of its own:
“You haven’t selected a topic” – Ihad – twice!
Typed in a long supprt report and to add insult to injury -the above error simply alsowipes your message!
Email didn’t work either.
SO there is a good reason that you aren’t getting complaints – we can’t post them!
Amber Hewitt says
I found this article while researching WordPress commenting systems. I was going to pick Disqus or Livefyre, but after reading your article, I’ll try the built-in WordPress commenting system with a few plugins. I looked up Otto42’s plugins to download and found one by Otto42 that solves a different problem I have!
Thank you!
Rourke Decker says
Just a little tip: The verbiage under Add a Comment should read, “We’re glad you have chosen to leave a comment.”
I am giving serious thought to removing Livefyre from my own site (the main reason why I found your article). The problem is I would probably also lose the majority of my readership. They come to my site for the real-time interaction that Livefyre offers, which is lacking in the default WordPress commenting system.
A wonderful compromise would be for the Livefyre plugin not to entirely hijack the commenting system, allowing people who don’t want to sign up for Livefyre (or who are behind corporate firewalls, which has been a big problem for my readers) to leave comments through the default interface. That would be the best of both worlds.
Editorial Staff says
Fixed the verbiage.
As for real-time comments, you can see how P2 theme allows for real-time comment notifications. Require user to register on your own site, and go that route.
Administrador
Rourke Decker says
But it still requires refreshing the page to see the new comments, right? That’s why we went to Livefyre in the first place — to obviate the need for refreshing constantly.
Editorial Staff says
Well, unfortunately no one has gone ahead to turn this technique into a plugin yet:
http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/05/09/building-real-time-commenting-system/
Joey says
This works very well: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-ajaxify-comments/
Andy Bailey says
Excellent article, I really enjoyed reading this and the points you made about no custom styling and the disadvantages of 3rd party registration issues were interesting.
And its an interesting thing to remove the URL field to combat spam, do you find that your legitimate comments have decreased because of this?
I made the commentluv plugin and I think I can integrate a sort of halfway measure in to the premium version if removing the URL field is working for you… How about only enabling it if a user has made a certain amount of approved comments?
I could set the plugin to recognise the email address and if it was a user who had left the right amount of comments, it could reveal the URL field.
What do you think? I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts…
Editorial Staff says
Andy, I don’t think legitimate comments went down because of no URL field. We have seen an increase in comments since taking out Livefyre. A lot of the users who stopped commenting (because of registration) are now back. We did see a SIGNIFICANT increase in SPAM comments, but Akismet is doing a really good job at filtering those.
I’m looking at it from this perspective. If you were going to comment to add value, you will comment regardless of the link. Worried about identity? Your gravatar is there, people can still identify you. We don’t want comments like “Great article”. Often folks leave those type of comments because they are commenting for incentive (backlink).
Your suggestion of the loyalty reward is a good idea. I’ve been thinking of ways to add some sort of reward system in WPBeginner (still in early thought phase). Still not sure how I want us to approach that. I think your idea is very solid, and a lot of folks can benefit from it.
One thing I want to do though is NOT add a link input field for everyone. It should only appear to those with the right email. For example, once a user hits an XXX amount of comments, an automated email gets sent out. The user can choose to display their Twitter. After they hit XXX, then we let them have their website URL. I hope I’m making sense. Also it would be cool to detect user’s email and show up badges next to their name.
Administrador
himagain says
Just butting in here: ME TOO!
I’d be interested in your proposal there -and I don’t even know the commentluv package… yet.
Paul says
This is very interesting, I currently use Disqus on my site and since their recent upgrade, which I believe has added a lot of features which livefyre has. Since the upgrade I’ve not really like the experience you get with it and thinking of moving back to the WordPress comments.
Since reading this article it has made up my mind to remove Disqus and go back to using the WordPress comment system and get control back.
Joey says
Interesting. Let’s see how and when Livefyre handles these issues.
I’m unable to integrate FB and twitter connect the exact same way you guys have. Can you explain how that was done?
Also, any chance of an advanced article on making themes with genesis?
Editorial Staff says
Not sure what you mean by not able to integrate it like how we have. Are you talking about styling? If so, then we simply styled the div those two buttons are wrapped. That is just CSS. To add that separator, you may have to edit your comment form. Our theme is a custom Genesis Child theme and we had to do that. There are no immediate plans of showing “how-to” build a theme. Because there are so many levels of users. Not sure at what point we start teaching WordPress theme development vs. HTML / CSS.
Administrador
Emily says
That sounds like a pain. I wasn’t around during the Livefyre comments but compared to the screenshots, the new comments also fit the site a lot better. I almost went for them just for the connect with Twitter and Facebook features, but because you posted links to completely separate plugins for that, I’m not even going to try Livefyre and instead go straight for the two other plugins, which look great.
Andreas says
Do you know the “Social” plugin by Mailchimp? I think it improves the commenting system a lot and keeps all the comments “inhouse”.
Editorial Staff says
Yes we are aware of that. Just didn’t like the UI.
Administrador
Faris says
Why don’t you guys use the Official Facebook for WordPress plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook/
Editorial Staff says
First because it JUST came out. Second, because it doesn’t have the Facebook Connect for default comments. It has Facebook Comments which is what we don’t want.
Administrador
Gautam Doddamani says
and thirdly it creates a conflict with the fb open graph meta tags…wpbeginner is already using it in his header files…if we activate that plugin graph protocols may become broken
Albert Albs says
Thanks for the update. Yes seen some spamming over the comment author profiles with LiveFyre system. Your decision is correct. I would suggest adding Comment Author URL form with No-Follow attribute to encourage decent commentators. And use Akismat spam plugin. That is it. 80% Problem solved.
Also as I said earlier, I’m not getting any comment notification, even after selecting the “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” option.
Also check out: Today Jetpack shipped Comment system for self-hosted WordPress blogs. I will mention you in the Google+ Post.
Gautam Doddamani says
albert, website field is already external nofollow by default in wordpress…as wpbeginner stated in one of the comments..dey r using it to further help reduce spammers.
and about the notification problem have you ticked the box and then added your comment? if so u should be getting notificiations!!
i dont use jetpack..but wil try it today..thanx for the update..jetpack is growing a lot these days..apart from ATD and sharedaddy implementation i believe all other plugins are not so useful in it.
Albert Albs says
Hi Gautam, Thanks for the inputs regarding Comment Author URL field.
About Notification problem: Yes. I clicked that check box (“Notify me of followup comments via email”). And your reply to my comment also did not come as a notification.
I manually checked this post for any reply and commenting now.
B/w All the time I logined using my Twitter account.
Keith Davis says
Sorry for second comment guys – only just noticed that you are running on Genesis.
Nice one boys.
What about a post on why you went over to Genesis… or did I miss that one?
Editorial Staff says
That will be coming soon
Administrador
Gautam Doddamani says
yes syed i have a lot of confusion about geneis and thesis…dont know which framework is the best…and the pros and cons of each one of em. really want your opinion on these guys..wil be waiting for ur post
Jenna Langer says
Hey there, Jenna from Livefyre here. Syed, we’ve spoken about this in person, and on the phone, and of course we’re sad to see you go. A lot of the issues you were having are covered in our new Admin Dashboard (i.e. bulk actions, edit comments) and others will be fixed in the new Livefyre Comments 3 (i.e. formatting of comments, like spam, easier custom styling which is currently supported via CSS).
We’re taking all your feedback to continue to add more features to our platform, and thanks for taking the time to share it with us.
Editorial Staff says
Hey Jenna, I was sad to switch away as well. I had a great time hanging out with the Livefyre crew in person. Had a pleasure working with you guys on your blog redesign. Nothing about this decision was personal. David, Amanda, Muhammad, and I discussed this thoroughly. I know that Livefyre is still a very young platform. I know you guys are working hard every day into improving the platform and making users happy. I probably would have never authorized this write up if the users didn’t ask for it. Because I had already talked to you about this via email, over the phone, and in person at BWENY. Upon the redesign, we got a lot of emails, FB messages, twitter DMs regarding the new features we added. Some users wanted to know why we switched away from Livefyre. We decided to do the article once we saw a comment on our original Livefyre article (where the user asked, why are you not using it anymore). I felt that we cannot ignore that comment. It was almost impossible to explain everything to detail in one comment. This was the reason why we did this post.
Like I said over our phone call and our in-person meeting, I am always happy to review and give feedback to improve a product (specially for friends).
Administrador
Brad Dalton says
I installed the Livefyre plugin and it duplicated over 1000 spam comments into approved spam comments that took me days to remove without removing the entire comments from my site.
I eventually worked out a way to remove them using a database request but it was a giant mess.
That was 6 months ago and they still haven’t come up with a fix.
Keith Davis says
Hi Guys
I’ve been wondering about using Livefyre so this post has come just right for me.
Appreciate you taking the time to put the various points together and a great case you’ve made for not using LF.
Might try the facebook and twitter connect plugins – nice to integrate the social media side in to the comments.
John Bolyard says
I tried LIvefyre on a few clients websites but we got a lot of feedback about the third party registration.
Good article – I was considering trying Livefyre again but I don’t think it would be worth it.
Chris Rouse says
First time commenting here, but I’ve been reading for a few months. All I can say is “Thank you for abandoning Livefyre.” Another blog I read recently switched from Disqus and I haven’t been able to comment since then. This post is literally the first time I knew that I had to make a Livefyre account to leave a comment on that blog. I don’t see the point of creating another account to leave an occasional comment when Disqus and WordPress both allow logging in with my Twitter account.
Bob R says
Can I ask you a question? Why did you strip off the website field in the commenting form? Just noticed I cannot click on any of your reader’s name to see what they were up to…
Editorial Staff says
As for removing the website field, the main reason is SPAM. All comment links are external nofollow. However, this doesn’t really prevent SPAM. By getting rid of the website field altogether, it gives spammers no reason to comment on our site. They can still put links in the content of their comment, but Akismet is pretty good at detecting that.
Now users should comment only if they wish to add value to the article. We do understand that this sort of takes away from user’s web identity. We are still trying to figure out how to rectify that situation. Some suggestions are adding a twitter field, so usernames link to the twitter profile. But no decision has been made yet.
Administrador
Gautam Doddamani says
personally i think livefyre is really not even worth to try..hehe you should definitely suggest this article to the guys at the THENEXTWEB…dey r using d same commenting platform.
one more question i wanted to ask you guys was..why did u remove the Website field in the comment section?? is it because when someone specifies his/her own site we are passing a dofollow link?
and another thing is i believe otto’s facebook and twitter connect adds a lot of plugin files slowing down the blog load time…is it still worth it?
also do you think DISQUS is a good commenting platform? they have recently released the DISQUS 2012 version and i am currently using it…and it reduces a lot of plugins. i really want your opinions on this!
Thanks in advance
Editorial Staff says
Gautam, from what I have heard TNW has their own user database. So when you register there, it is different from your Livefyre account. They have also integrated Livefyre with reward based system.
As for removing the website field, the main reason is SPAM. All comment links are external nofollow. However, this doesn’t really prevent SPAM. By getting rid of the website field altogether, it gives spammers no reason to comment on our site. They can still put links in the content of their comment, but Akismet is pretty good at detecting that.
I don’t think Otto would add anything that is not necessary into the plugin. SFC and STC does have a lot of options. But he only loads those if you activate all. For us, we are only using like one feature from each of his plugins. The load time slowdown is mostly because it reaches out to the FB and Twitter API. If you have stats to prove otherwise, we would be happy to look at those.
Never tried Disqus. One lesson we learned with this was to keep our comments in-house if we want full control.
Administrador
Gautam Doddamani says
wao…seriously dats a very gud logic…spammers are always looking for a way to give exposure to their sites through any and all means, and now as there is no website field, only genuine commenters will spend their time commenting!
yes as for otto’s plugin..i have personally used it! yea i know, only if we activate a specific module, those particular files will be loaded..but don’t you think signing in to facebook is rather time consuming? and not to mention users already have to bypass a third party app (not yours) to actually start commenting.
i personally prefer the seo facebook comment plugin…fb users can directly comment if they are already signed into their facebook account or are visiting your post from a facebook url …they have no need to sign in…also this system is being used by techcrunch.
disqus is really worth it…i am speaking this from experience…my spam has reduced a lot and i am honestly using only one single plugin for comments. no need for akismet (in-built spam system), no need for subscribe to comments plugin or mailchimp (in-built subscribe via email/rss system), social sharing is fully supported, seo is completely organic, if there are links present in the comment dey directly goto pending or spam folder, commenters r recognized thru there unique disqus profiles and not der websites, liking (upvoting) a comment doesnt show which user upvoted a comment (unlike livefyre), and lot many other features.
Bob R says
I think you’ve done the right thing. You are not the ones that decided the WP commenting system is the safest and the best option. I couldn’t comment on WP Beginner from work as we are behind some firewall that made Livefyre “dead” – I could put nothing in the comment box.
New design of wpbeginner looks great. Is this a Genesis child theme? eleven40 modified?
Editorial Staff says
Yes we are glad to have you back commenting here. WPBeginner’s design is NOT a child theme of eleven40. It is a custom child theme of Genesis though
Administrador
Rev. Voodoo says
I read your site all the time in my google reader. But I’d given up coming to the site. I couldn’t comment on Livefyre … I’m stuck using IE at work, and it just plain wouldn’t work! I’m glad you posted this article, or I never would have known I could come and leave comments again!
Editorial Staff says
Thanks for dropping by. Yes, we did notice a drop in comments from a lot of regular users like yourself.
Administrador
Tony Greene says
I found a plugin that merges with the Livefyre comments to keep lead generation going. However, the comment redirect plugin from Yoast failed to do this.
Shikeb Ali says
It is funny that I received an email from Disqus that they are starting real-time comments and new voting features. I was really looking into it, almost about to implement it on my blog.
But now, I think will give it a second thought. ‘Cause I hate spammers too and I don’t want to spend my half day deleting spam comments.
Gautam Doddamani says
shikeb disqus hav really improved their overall spam system..you dont even need aksimet now..all the comments whether they are coming from a registered or an unregistered user shud go through your moderation before it becomes approved.
and further they have made smart improvements wherein if you put a link in your comment it automatically goes into the spam folder or becomes pending until you manually approve it.
Ankur says
I personally like default wordpress comment system. its simple and straight forward.
Acc to my experience, newbie are more comfortable with simple commenting system whereas people who comment more like disqus etc. Moreover, default comment system improves site loading time.
Gautam Doddamani says
i totally agree with you ankur…no external javascripts, no iframes, etc will definitely increase the site load and also if we get a lot of comments we can go one step further and cache all the gravatars which will make loading a page superfast
Zhen says
Having the same problem about the syncing thing and even new comments would take hours before showing up in WP dashboard. Would really hope Livefyre to work those problems out in their upcoming version.
Paul H says
I’ve played with different comment systems. I liked the Facebook comments until I remembered Facebook is blocked or difficult to access in a handful of countries. You wouldn’t notice comments from China or Vietnam dropping off – but going to those countries and not being able to read parts of your own site is frustrating.
I now prefer commenting where everything works within WordPress. Nothing worse than part of a page not loading – unless it’s the whole page not loading.
Tony Greene says
What kind of value would you see coming from the commentary of countries like China or Vietnam?
Editorial Staff says
WOW. So are you suggesting that the voices and opinions of people living in China and Vietnam are not important?
Administrador
Ahmad Awais says
Well, I was waiting for this post, buh I shifted myself and found the original commenting system way better to customize and get subscribers.
Working with the Twitter Connect and Fb Connect , are you going to write about it or not?
Editorial Staff says
Yes there might be an article on that. The process is very simple. Its merely putting in the information in the two plugins that we mentioned. Then activating the specific feature.
Administrador
Shad says
Should change this article to “6 Reasons Why We Switched Away from Livefyre” and fix the numbering.
Editorial Staff says
Ah what a huge oversight. Fixed.
Administrador
Russ Henneberry says
Hey guys,
I have found LiveFyre to be very frustrating when I leave a comment. I have thrown up my hands a number of times trying to leave comments on sites that use the plug-in.
I think you made the right choice.
Russ
Lee Schuenemeyer says
Won’t forcing Facebook comments fix most of these errors?
Editorial Staff says
Not exactly. We will be limited to a specific platform. We would require our users to once again signup with a third party. We won’t be able to do any of the lead generation. We won’t be able to customize the look.
Administrador