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We're developing a website that will try to have a lot of interesting quality content and hopefully will attract a big, vibrant community. So, we expect that our future users will comment a lot.

Time and resources for rolling our own solution are not an issue in this stage, but I'm wondering if in the long term this is the best idea, considering the trends.

The way I see it there a few solutions and I'd greatly appreciate it if you could chip in some advice on choosing the best or suggesting an entirely new one:

  • Rolling our own solution, tied to our member system (until now this is what we've used, it feels behind the times somehow + it might be hard to keep up feature-wise in the long run with something dedicated like Disqus)
  • Our own solution + Login with Facebook, Google, Yahoo etc (more convenient for users, but I feel that we're losing the user base)
  • Using something like Disqus or Facebook comments (convenient, feature rich and very easy to maintain, but total loss of control and questionable SEO, even though Google indexes Facebook comments and recently content generated by JS)
Christian Rau
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pandronic
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+1 for your conviction that user comments, even (or especially) negative comments, are crucial to your success. Bravo! to you.

Of course, an ideal forum is the one we're using now. There is a process advertised for making an SE-type forum for your site. It depends on generating enough interest right here on SE, but maybe it's worth a shot.

I have wondered for long if a WP-style blog could succeed as a forum-like vehicle if blog comments were not merely enabled but encouraged. Have you thought at all along those lines? I'd like to hear your thoughts if so. To me, Facebook is a giant pita: I hate the sucker. But I'm an FB noob and you've no doubt had more success than I in rasslin' that sumbitch into submission.

Edit: As to getting revisits: you notice that SE does this by "gamifying" the forum: awarding reputation and badges. Good, thoughtful post on the subject at Coding Horror

Pete Wilson
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  • Good, intelligent comments are essential for our success. They make people come back and offer a lot of content we'd never have the resources to provide. This are the lines along which we're thinking. I don't know about a SE-type forum ... seems a little overkill for what we had in mind and we also want to emphasize the editorial part equally to user comments. – pandronic Nov 29 '11 at 06:00