We're going to be moving all our game comments, profile comments, MMO comments and editorial comments over to Disqus as early as this Friday. Because of this, I wanted to give you a FAQ to help solve any mysteries on the process...
What about Merits?
Merits will not live on our website in the same way, they can't be tied directly into the Disqus system which means they will no longer be comment-based. A simple Merit system will be created on our launch Friday that will grow more robust with time - allowing moderators/admins to merit people directly. Later e-mail notifications will be added to this as well.
You can also "Feature" a comment in Disqus, so that could also be awarded with your merit.
What about non-AG armatars?
A big concession we had to make with the Disqus system is that a Disqus account trumps our normal user accounts. This means users can name themselves whatever they like, and associate any armatar they like to their profile.
There will be alterations in our rules that discuss impersonation of other users, especially Moderators/Admins that will result in permanent bans. Also utilizing any exclusive armatars will result in a warning and possible further punishment.
Guest Accounts?
Guest accounts will be killed on site, and your real account warned. Guest accounts are not allowed on our Disqus comments.
Colored text for Knights/Admins/Moderators?
Not available right now in Disqus. You'll notice our accounts have "Moderator" next to our names. This text may change, but it means that person has moderator powers over Disqus comments.
What about total comment count?
This should be worked on before launch as well, nobody should lose their comment counts, just add on to their total.
What about old comments?
Still unknown the degree we'll be transferring over old comments. I'd love to hear your opinions though. This obviously is very tedious work, but I think me and @boppins agree that certain games (or comments) should make it over.
Personally I don't like the new format as much, but I only don't like it on profiles. On games I think it is a great system to have. You can now just respond to people's comments there instead of trying to use @Username and hoping they look back an happen to stumble across your comment. You could also just like someone's comment to show that you support their viewpoint instead of having to post I agree or something like that or vice versa for a dislike. Now on user profiles, I don't believe any of that is beneficial. Usually profiles are just used for conversation so I will not usually like or dislike comments. Sure having a convo all on one 'thread' is OK, but I believe that the old way of just posting on the persons profile was also just as effective. It's not that the old system is better, but I don't see a benefit of the new system there. Also AG has less control over it seeing how it is a third party site. So in review, I like the disqus commenting system on games because it seems to add something, however I don't feel as though anything is added by putting it on profiles while losing control.
I am commenting lots sorry if this is... "spammy" so much good content.
Personally I don't like the new format as much, but I only don't like it on profiles.
I really don't like it that much on people either. Now you can have "friends" and followers... and the Reply system is kinda weird. I think it is like a miniature twitter... I don't like it on profiles... One conversation can be HUGE! and go on forever.
Here are some things I noticed about the Disqus commenting system:
1) Only up-votes are totaled. You can also hover over the up-vote button to see who has up-voted a comment. The hover doesn't work on down-votes.
2) The @username thing requires a space to display properly. Fortunately, as daleks pointed out, the @ tag is no longer required since you can simply reply.
3) Comments you have up-voted have a green up-vote button. Comments you have down-voted have a reddish pink down-vote button.
So do we reply directly to comments on our page, or should we post on the other person's page, like we did before disqus was here?
I don't know about you, but I'm going to post on the person's page because I tried doing the reply thing with Blackbelt and it seems a bit messy and squeezed together.
