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.
Probably not, but there's not really much of a difference between the disqus comments I've seen on a few flash games and our old current comments. Plus I'm ready for a change.
I'm talking to the team, we're going to keep a link to your classic profile comments in case you guys have history in there you may need. This is all going to be going live tomorrow though, so prepare!
1 The entire log is on the same page, requiring the bothersome little "load more" tab to stretch it further. If looking for an early post, this will become quite tedious.
2 People are liable to abuse the site's avatar options to cause confusion and discord. Unless there is a way to screen this beforehand, AG will become significantly more vulnerable to malicious behaviour.
3 If, for any reason, the disqus servers go offline at any point, the results could be quite detrimental. Not knowing the details of this transition, I cannot be more specific.
4 A myriad of problems may arise if any non-user that has a disqus account can comment on anyone's profile. Popular moderators and administrators would have more junk to sift through. Short-tempered users are liable to become aggravated by chronic "eanut gallery" commentary. Any non-user commiting rule violations will need to be dealt with by this third party's terms.
5 The edit and/or delete functions will be used to conceal evidence of harassment. Even if authorities have a backlog of all comments, a victimized user may feel helpless without the knowledge that the evidence exists.
When you say "Guest accounts will be killed on site", do you mean automatically upon creation, or manually on sight? If the latter, make that issue 6.
Does disqus screen names and uploaded avatars effectively for a PG13 site? If not, that will be issue 7.
I use both internet explorer and chrome on windows 8 depending on which icon I click first, but you are saying that I should just use chrome from now on?
