Il y a presque un an jour pour jour, nous avons décidé d’apporter un changement majeur à notre site et avons lancé le système de commentaires Livefyre pour remplacer les commentaires par défaut de WordPress. Nous sommes tombés amoureux de ce produit dès le départ, et nous avons établi de bonnes relations avec les gens de l’entreprise. Malheureusement, avec notre récente refonte, nous avons pris la décision de nous séparer de Livefyre. Beaucoup de nos utilisateurs/utilisatrices nous ont demandé de faire un article détaillé sur le nouveau design et les modifications. La question la plus fréquente est de savoir pourquoi nous avons abandonné Livefyre. Dans cet article, nous allons vous donner un aperçu de la décision d’abandonner Livefyre et de revenir aux commentaires par défaut de WordPress.
Pourquoi sommes-nous tombés amoureux de Livefyre ?
Livefyre offrait des commentaires en temps réel, réduisait les indésirables grâce à l’inscription obligatoire, s’intégrait aux réseaux sociaux et ramenait la conversation sur le site. Livefyre vous permettait de vous connecter avec Facebook, Twitter, etc. L’idée de réduire la charge du serveur était également présente dans notre esprit. Tout cela semble très bien, mais au fur et à mesure que notre site grandissait, nous avons rencontré quelques problèmes.
Que s’est-il passé ?
1. Commentaires en temps réel
Nous avons beaucoup apprécié la fonctionnalité de commentaires en temps réel, car nous avons pu avoir des discussions très intéressantes dans nos commentaires. C’était la meilleure expérience d’engagement que nous ayons jamais vue dans les commentaires. Cependant, les commentaires en temps réel sont devenus plus difficiles à modérer. Les spammeurs ont compris qu’il leur suffisait d’une seule Inscription pour que tous leurs commentaires soient approuvés sur notre site.
Note : Normalement, nous ne publierions jamais les e-mails ou les adresses IP des utilisateurs/utilisatrices. Il s’agit ici d’un spammeur, et nous estimons qu’il est uniquement juste de révéler son identité.
Revenons à nos moutons. Nous nous sommes donc trouvés à nettoyer régulièrement un grand nombre de ces commentaires. Certains échappaient même à notre vigilance et restaient en place pendant des mois jusqu’à ce qu’un utilisateur/utilisatrice les voie et les signale comme indésirables. L’une des raisons pour lesquelles nous avons maintenu cette fonctionnalité tout en modérant ces commentaires est que le lien de l’utilisateur pointait vers son profil livefyre plutôt que vers son site. Ainsi, nous ne faisions pas de liens vers des sites de mauvais voisinage. Cela a pris fin lorsque Livefyre a décidé de lancer une nouvelle fonctionnalité qui permettait aux utilisateurs/utilisatrices d’ajouter leurs propres liens de site web et qui ne donnait AUCUN CONTRÔLE aux éditeurs de site sur cette option. Nous avons commencé à voir une augmentation des commentaires indésirables, nous avons donc rapidement désactivé la fonctionnalité en temps réel (qui était la principale chose qui nous avait attiré vers Livefyre en premier lieu).
2. Comme le SPAM
L’une des choses qui nous a convaincus de l’intérêt de Livefyre était que l’inscription nécessaire réduirait le nombre d’indésirables. C’était totalement faux. Livefyre dispose d’une fonctionnalité appelée Like. Cette fonction a été créée avec d’excellentes intentions. Cependant, le système fait l’objet de nombreux abus. Expliquons le processus. Tout utilisateur inscrit à Livefyre peut aimer un commentaire s’il est d’accord avec ce qui y est dit. Lorsqu’un utilisateur/utilisatrice aime un commentaire, son avatar s’affiche à côté du commentaire avec un lien direct vers le site de l’utilisateur/utilisatrice. Sans oublier qu’il s’agit d’un lien DO-FOLLOW. Vous trouverez ci-dessous une capture d’écran du blog de Livefyre où vous pouvez voir Like SPAM en action.
Dans l’exemple ci-dessus, ce spammeur n’est pas très malin. Il utilise l’avatar par défaut de l’homme mystérieux. Les spammeurs de notre site étaient plus intelligents. Ils utilisaient leurs logos comme avatar. Ainsi, vous pouviez voir un tas de mini-icônes colorés qui étaient liés à des sites de référencement spammy, des sites d’offres de cartes de crédit, etc. Certains ne croiront peut-être pas que c’est une réalité, mais c’est pourtant bien ce qui se passe. Voici le profil de l’une des utilisatrices/utilisatrices que nous avons signalé à Livefyre il y a près d’un mois.
Aucune mesure n’a été prise jusqu’à présent. Le profil du spammeur est toujours activé ou du moins semble actif (parce qu’il est visible). Soit ce type aime vraiment chaque commentaire qu’il lit, soit il s’agit d’un spammeur. Nous choisissons la seconde hypothèse. Si vous ne nous croyez pas, allez voir le lien du site mentionné dans son profil, il s’agit d’un site de ferme adsense.
Vous pensez maintenant que ce que nous avons décrit ci-dessus est mauvais. Le pire, c’est qu’il n’y a pas de notification de qui a aimé quoi sur votre site. Il n’y a aucun moyen pour vous de savoir qui est indésirable sur votre site. Le seul moyen de le trouver est qu’un compte vous le signale ou que vous alliez accidentellement sur l’une de vos publications plus anciennes et que vous le remarquiez.
Lorsque nous avons trouvé que nous étions victimes de Like SPAM sur de nombreux articles du site (et probablement d’autres que nous ne connaissions pas), nous avons su que nous devions changer immédiatement. Nous nous sommes sentis impuissants et hors de contrôle. C’est l’un des inconvénients de ne pas être propriétaire de son contenu.
3. Conversation sociale
La conversation sociale est une option très facultative proposée par Livefyre. Vous pouvez choisir d’intégrer vos conversations de Twitter et Facebook dans l’article. En théorie, cela semble très bien, mais il reste encore à perfectionner cette option. Nous avons vu beaucoup de commentaires non pertinents provenant de Twitter. C’est une bonne idée, mais elle a besoin d’être perfectionnée et d’un meilleur filtre. Nous avons essayé cette fonctionnalité sur notre site et elle n’a pas fonctionné aussi bien qu’elle l’aurait dû.
4. La modération
Lorsque nous avons choisi d’utiliser Livefyre, nous avions l’impression qu’il y avait une communication bidirectionnelle entre Livefyre et votre base de données WordPress. Ce qui signifierait que vous pouvez utiliser la modération de WordPress pour approuver, supprimer ou répondre aux commentaires. Ce n’était pas VRAI. Cela semblait fonctionner pour nous au début, mais récemment cela s’est retourné contre nous. Nous avons mis à jour l’extension Livefyre, et tout d’un coup nous avons eu des centaines de commentaires en attente de modération. Il s’est avéré que tous les commentaires que nous avions déjà modérés étaient de retour (et marqués comme étant en attente). Je ne sais pas trop ce qui s’est passé. Nous avons contacté le support de Livefyre et avons obtenu la réponse :
Il semble que vous essayez de modérer des commentaires à partir du Tableau de bord WordPress, ce que nous ne supportons pas pour le moment, c’est-à-dire que les modifications effectuées dans votre tableau de bord ne seront pas synchronisées avec Livefyre.
Nous sommes confiants que cela fonctionnait dans le passé. Nous ne nous souvenons pas de quelle version mise à niveau il s’agissait, mais cela semblait tout chambouler. J’ai discuté avec un bon ami, Mitch Canter (@studionashvegas), et il m’a dit que cela fonctionnait aussi sur son site. Il a dit que cela fonctionnait toujours pour lui. Nous ne sommes donc pas tout à fait sûrs de ce qui a mal tourné, mais néanmoins, nous nous sommes retrouvés avec des centaines de commentaires à parcourir et à re-modérer.
On nous a dit que pour que cela fonctionne, nous devions modérer les commentaires à l’aide du panneau de modération Livefyre. Il y a plusieurs raisons pour lesquelles nous n’avons absolument pas aimé le panneau d’administration de Livefyre dès le départ.
- Aucune modération en masse – Si vous voulez supprimer plusieurs commentaires ou les marquer comme indésirables, il n’y a aucun moyen de le faire facilement. Vous devez le faire individuellement. Ce problème persiste même dans leur NOUVELLE interface.
- Modération individuelle médiocre – La simple suppression d’un commentaire nécessite deux clics. Il faut d’abord décider de supprimer, puis donner la raison de la suppression. Cela peut devenir fastidieux. Ce problème persiste dans la NOUVELLE interface.
- Aucun contrôle sur les commentaires – Lorsque nous avons pris la décision de changer d’interface, il n’y avait pas d’option pour modifier les commentaires des utilisateurs/utilisatrices. Il était donc plus difficile de faire respecter les règles en matière de commentaires. Par exemple, quelqu’un laisse un excellent commentaire, mais y ajoute un lien de signature (ce que nous ne permettons pas). Nous devions soit accepter le commentaire tel quel, soit le supprimer. Ce problème est corrigé dans la nouvelle interface. Vous pouvez désormais modifier les commentaires.
- Répondre est une DOULEUR – Pour un site comme le nôtre, nous trouvons souvent nécessaire de répondre aux commentaires. Il n’y a pas de moyen facile de le faire. Vous verrez le commentaire dans le panneau de modération de livefyre. Vous devez ouvrir l’article pour voir que le commentaire est en attente. Approuvez-le, puis répondez à partir de là. Cela rend le panneau de modération de Livefyre pratiquement inutile. Dans l’interface d’administration de WordPress, il y a une fonctionnalité très intéressante appelée Répondre et approuver. Ainsi, vous pouvez répondre au commentaire sans jamais ouvrir un nouvel onglet ou une nouvelle fenêtre pour la publication.
5. Problèmes de formatage
Nous avons notifié que Livefyre ajoutait des CSS supplémentaires dans le texte des commentaires pour certains utilisateurs/utilisatrices. Il doit s’agir d’une sorte de problème lié aux utilisateurs/utilisatrices car cela arrivait uniquement à une poignée d’entre eux, mais nous accordons de l’importance à tous nos utilisateurs/utilisatrices. Confirmez-vous que ce problème a été corrigé ou non.
Une autre chose que nous avons notifiée est que l’ajout de sauts de ligne dans les commentaires était une véritable plaie. Nous essayions donc de répondre à quelqu’un et de coller un lien. Cependant, le formatage automatique de Livefyre se débarrassait de ces sauts de ligne. Parfois, les liens étaient même cassés, de sorte que nous devions ajouter des espaces supplémentaires entre le lien et le texte qui suivait. Le plus gros problème est que lorsque vous tapez, vous pouvez utiliser Shift + Saisir, et cela vous affichera que le saut de ligne était là. Voir l’image ci-dessous :
6. Un compromis inéquitable
Lorsque nous avons décidé d’utiliser Livefyre, nous avons fait quelques compromis. Nous avons renoncé à certaines opportunités pour obtenir d’autres fonctionnalités intéressantes que Livefyre offrait. Mais après avoir utilisé Livefyre pendant une longue période et en avoir vu les inconvénients, nous avons eu le sentiment de ne pas avoir fait un compromis équitable. Permettez-nous d’élaborer un peu plus.
Aucun client/cliente de personnalisation
Nous en étions bien conscients lorsque nous avons opté pour Livefyre. Chaque fois que vous utilisez un script tiers, vous perdez le contrôle sur une partie du style. Actuellement, la conception de nos commentaires correspond au thème, et c’est magnifique. Avec Livefyre, nous n’avions pas autant de contrôle sur l’apparence. L’option de marque blanche n’est pas disponible pour le grand public. Cependant, nous pensons que ce service est proposé aux clients/clientes des entreprises.
Aucune génération de prospects à partir des commentaires
Nous savions qu’en passant à Livefyre, nous perdrions les opportunités de génération de prospects à partir du formulaire de commentaires. Nous redirigions les commentaires pour les nouveaux utilisateurs et donnions aux utilisateurs/utilisatrices la possibilité de s’abonner à la lettre d’information à partir des commentaires. Nous avons discuté avec l’équipe de Livefyre de la possibilité d’ajouter cette fonctionnalité. En fin de compte, il n’y a pas de solution SIMPLE. La solution proposée est qu’il existe une API que nous pouvons utiliser pour crocheter leur système et collecter des e-mails si l’utilisateur a coché la case. Il n’y avait aucun moyen possible de faire une redirection des commentaires.
Le processus de réflexion de notre équipe s’est déroulé un peu comme suit :
Afin de pouvoir utiliser cette plateforme et obtenir les fonctionnalités que nous souhaitons, nous devons la développer nous-mêmes. Alors qu’il y a un système de commentaires parfaitement bon en place avec lequel il est beaucoup plus facile de travailler. Il y a déjà beaucoup d’extensions disponibles. La décision a été prise à l’unanimité.
Inscription par des tiers
Là encore, nous étions conscients de ce problème lorsque nous nous sommes engagés à utiliser Livefyre. Nous savions que nous allions devoir demander à nos utilisateurs/utilisatrices de s’inscrire auprès d’un service tiers « Livefyre » pour commenter sur notre site. Nous pensions que c’était pour le bien de tous, car nous aurions des conversations significatives et d’autres fonctionnalités ajoutées. Lors de tous les WordCamps auxquels nous avons participé, quelques utilisateurs/utilisatrices sont venus se plaindre du système de commentaires. Nous avons également reçu de nombreux e-mails d’utilisateurs/utilisatrices à ce sujet. Les gens avaient des difficultés à commenter derrière un pare-feu, d’autres avaient simplement l’impression que leur liberté de commenter sur WPBeginner était perdue. Ajouté à cela, il y a quelques mois, Livefyre a ajouté la possibilité de commenter en tant que fonctionnalité. Mais il encourage toujours les utilisateurs/utilisatrices à s’inscrire auprès de Livefyre par la suite. Encore une fois, ce n’était pas un compromis équitable. Nous avons laissé tomber nos utilisateurs/utilisatrices. Beaucoup d’entre eux ont cessé de commenter. Peu d’entre eux commentaient par e-mail pour nous faire savoir si nous avions fait une erreur, etc. Nous avons été très déçus. Certains de ces utilisateurs/utilisatrices ont dit qu’ils s’inscriraient volontiers pour commenter s’ils s’inscrivaient sur WPBeginner. Mais nous leur étions nécessaires pour s’inscrire auprès d’une tierce partie. Nous en avons discuté avec Livefyre. Ils ont une API d’entreprise qui vous permettra de conserver votre propre base d’utilisateurs. Toutes les données des utilisateurs/utilisatrices vous appartiendraient. Cependant, le processus d’intégration ne semblait pas aussi simple. Je ne me souviens pas de tout, mais en gros, nous devrions créer une base de données bbPress ou BuddyPress séparée pour contenir tous les utilisateurs/utilisatrices. Cela semblait trop confus. Nous avons choisi de ne pas aller de l’avant.
À l’époque, ces compromis ne semblaient pas être une grosse affaire comparés à toutes les fonctionnalités intéressantes que nous obtenions avec Livefyre. Cependant, au fil du temps, notre expérience nous a permis d’y voir plus clair.
Et maintenant ?
Nous sommes revenus au système de commentaires intégré de WordPress. Quelques utilisateurs/utilisatrices nous ont envoyé un e-mail pour nous demander ce que nous utilisions pour ajouter l’option de connexion avec Twitter / Facebook que vous voyez ci-dessous. Nous utilisons une combinaison de deux extensions (du même auteur/autrice @otto42) appelées Simple Twitter Connect et Simple Facebook Connect.
Mise à jour 12 octobre 2012 : Nous nous sommes débarrassés des deux options de connexion Twitter et FB principalement parce que nous avons vu que les gens ne l’utilisaient pas autant. Se débarrasser de ces options a un impact significatif sur les temps de chargement. Nous préférons que le site soit plus rapide pour la majorité 
Nous avons rencontré et discuté avec de nombreuses utilisatrices/utilisateurs qui adorent utiliser Livefyre. Bien qu’il n’ait pas été adapté à notre site, vous êtes plus que bienvenus pour l’essayer vous-même. Nous aimerions connaître votre avis sur Livefyre. Si vous avez une opinion, n’hésitez pas à la commenter ci-dessous.
Syed Balkhi says
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!
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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?
Administrateur
mre says
Anyone know of an OPEN SOURCE commenting system?
Editorial Staff says
Yup, the built-in commenting system.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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
Administrateur
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).
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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?
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur
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.
Administrateur