DISQUS

Daniel Ha · 1 year ago

I don't think there was an issue with notifications last night. But there was a database issue this morning that resulted in errors for some.

We'll update the blog with more information. Sorry about there being no updates for the first 30 minutes. I was asleep.

Matt Shaulis · 1 year ago

I think you just found out that there was an issue with notifications last night. ;) But then again... I'm no PR expert... but I would think that "the notification issue from last night will be looked in to, thanks for the heads up, Louis."

Outages aside (we all have them), I think you guys are doing great. Great product, great users... I am really excited to witness the evolution of this product!

Daniel Ha · 1 year ago

Thanks for the support.

I don't like forming responses as if coming from PR. But yes, I do appreciate the report and we have looked into it. No issues found yet but I'll update once I find out more.

Louis Gray · 1 year ago

Matt, don't pick on Daniel. He was tired and just woke up. Looks like Disqus is up and going again, which is awesome. But yes, I'm still seeing a lack of notifications, including those from this post.

Matt Shaulis · 1 year ago

Me? I picked on Daniel? hehehe... let's not forget what blog post these comments live under and all the great things i said in my comment. ;) lol. I was just teasing him, ribbing him a little... nothing like getting blasted in the face first thing on a Friday morning. I know that feeling too well. :)

p.s. I am getting notified of all my replies. :-P

kf6nvr · 1 year ago

Louis and Daniel:

This sounds a lot like what happened to me a week or so ago. From all of my points of view, Disqus was completely down and the rest of the net was fine. No one else noticed this and no record of it was recorded, other than a couple of tweets about it.

Goofy.

As an aside, uptime issues don't outweigh all of the benefits I personally get from Disqus. It's a great service and removes a ton of the comment issues I've had in the past.

JC John Sese Cuneta (謝施洗) · 1 year ago

Yep, noticed that myself, but nah it is fine hehe. I'd start packing up my comments if they don't experience spikes, downtimes, and problems. Too perfect to be true. :p And besides the point, it means no one is using it :p

Phil Glockner · 1 year ago

Apparently, comments are back. Hopefully an official update from Disqus is forthcoming!

Matt Shaulis · 1 year ago

I like Disqus... I like Intense Debate as well (ID has some really sweet stats regarding your commenting habits that frequent commenters would appreciate) ... I hope instances like this will remind people that no single service can serve as the epicenter of the solution to what has been dubbed "comment fragmentation".

I restate my belief that an open specification for sharing comments between services and back to the blog is the only way to go. Services like Disqus will experience downtime here and there, it's only natural. But the notion that, for example, FriendFeed working with Disqus will solve everyone's woes and get every social media comment back to the blog that is being talked about is baffling. I hope this brief outage will at least remind folks, as far as "comment fragmentation" goes, not to put all their eggs in one basket.

Shey · 1 year ago

How soon can we expect Shyftr comments to integrate with blogs and FriendFeed?

Matt Shaulis · 1 year ago

This is the kind of question I like to hear! :) We are working on getting a workgroup going with the goals of coming to terms on an open specification for "passing" comments around the social landscape (per the behest of the user, of course).

We would like to enable our users to send their Shyftr comments to FriendFeed or any other life-streaming service, the blog where the article being commented on originated, twitter or any other micro-blogging service, etc...

We started these efforts very recently and are rather eager to start getting some participation from other service providers who believe in the benefit of having an industry standard identification scheme for giving and receiving user comments. We have already got some participation and we, as an open workgroup, are eager for more! The more diverse representation the workgroup has the more thorough the solution will be, plain and simple.

I do encourage participation from every angle... I think, together, we can all come to terms on a solution that works and benefits everyone. It is important to me that the methods become open for use by everyone to encourage the fastest and widest possible adoption.

I would rather put my efforts toward this concept than developing a proprietary API to shoot comments back to blogs and integrate with FriendFeed, Twitter, and other vastly different APIs on a one by one basis. Such a system would be under the constant threat of changes in blog software and service providers' alterations to their own public APIs. A standard would alleviate this threat by establishing a unwavering modus operandi for all of us to follow, giving the users the most flexibility in deciding where they want their comments to go.

If anyone is interested in participating in the discussion about this, then please check out the wiki ( http://wiki.open-comments.org ) and start discussing your ideas, concerns, and suggestions on the forum ( http://forum.open-comments.org ). Again, this is a new workgroup and at the moment we are interested in getting participation form a diverse group of people to ensure than any agreed upon specification will benefit everyone and not favor a particular service or group of services.

Dave Stanley · 1 year ago

Shey, we want to let comments travel back to blogs and other services like FriendFeed. Although, I can't say when this will happen. It's not an issue of whether or not we support the portability of comments. We support data portability, especially letting comments get pulled back to the blog. That being said, it's unfair to assume that the solution is about finding a platform to support. If we said today that we supported Disqus, that only means it's beneficial for a finite number of people that use Disqus. Everyone that uses Intense Debate, Wordpress Sezwho, and any other competing platform that pops up in the future would be left out in the cold. The answer to data portability of discussions should not be about supporting and integrating with 3rd party solutions. It should be about creating an open standard where everyone that has a vested interest can take advantage. A standard that everyone can use. A standard that doesn't require web services to tackle APIs from multiple platforms. A standard that doesn't require bloggers to rely on 3rd party solutions if they don't want to. Everyone that wants should have a right to participate in the data portability of comments. If we have an open standard in place, everyone will be able to support this standard without feeling tied into a specific solution. Discussion's are and will continue to be woven into the fabric of social media. Establishing an open standard for handling, sharing, and passing off these discussions to others is a no brainer in my mind.

Shey · 1 year ago

You're right, having a common standard only makes sense. But until then, I think teaming up now with a Disqus or IntenseDebate is better than the status quo.

Matt Shaulis · 1 year ago

For us to team up with Disqus/ID would only pressure more bloggers who might not want to install Disqus/ID. We are not interested in creating an atmosphere of pressure on the bloggers. Many bloggers have seen the benefit of installing one of these awesome services, and many more are sure to come... but not everyone will take part when all is said and done. In fact, some of the biggest blogs out there would not come close to either of these services, they simply have too much to lose and would never loose the reigns on that aspect of their blog. Where does that leave the comments for those blogs?

I am a big fan of Disqus, and I think ID has some compelling offerings in their effort as well... both services are competing in a really cool and exciting space. But I do not see one-on-one "team ups" as being the solution for the users. I would rather not endorse any one service professionally, but rather encourage all services to work together to bring a universal solution to the table quickly. Partnerships today will lead to an open initiative being stifled tomorrow. So while the notion that "something is better than nothing" is easy to say, it's a harder to live down once a limited process is entrenched.

Shey · 1 year ago

I can understand that; I don't want it to seem like I'm criticizing you for taking that stance.

I look forward to using Shyftr more and the future integration to come.

gregory · 1 year ago

one thing is for sure, after using discuss, as a commenting person, any blog with blogger, or even simply with a linear comment thread, feels crippling

keep cooking ... and don't make me choose between intense debate, disqus, etc...

JC John Sese Cuneta (謝施洗) · 1 year ago

There should, no, there must be an open specification for sharing comments and keeping comments attached/showing on the original post.

But it must start somewhere right? SezWho+DISQUS+FriendFeed maybe? If it works, then on to the next phase, getting everybody else to the interconnection party.

Not because people are all into "SDF" combo does it mean we're shunning out the other services ;)

awilensky · 1 year ago

We are only one or two major outages away from a user revolt when a major SAAS platform or data center comes tumbling down. Comments are one thing, but the new guard of mission critical platforms for business applications that are cloud hosted will not tolerate these disruptions.

Matt Shaulis · 1 year ago

Then again... "mission critical" is a realtive term.

There are plenty of people to whom "Comments" are critical... and I'm sure Daniel can attest to the fact that these hiccups are not exactly "tolerated", in the traditional sense of the word. Just a hunch.

Have I mentioned yet that I think Disqus is awesome? Cuz I do... I never want to come across as feeling any other way.

awilensky · 1 year ago

Well, I'm talking about invoicing 2.0, hosted business apps, real bottom line stuff. It's just a matter of time till some bad thing happens that wipes a few businesses out. The sector of SAAS wont collapse, but such failures could give rise to a shake out, and perhaps, standards for reliability or third party certification.

Daniel Ha · 1 year ago

We updated our blog with more information on this morning's issues.

The entire team is still focused on this right now. We know what went wrong and are fixing it now.

Sorry again guys, and thanks for being ridiculously understanding.

fredwilson · 1 year ago

i think it's worth pointing out that if you blog at wordpress.org, typepad, blogger, or tumblr, not only your comments but your posts as well are in "the cloud"

this is not a disqus or intense debate issue.

this is the world we live in and it's only going to get more so

fred

Louis Gray · 1 year ago

This is not a "Disqus" problem, per se. Disqus is a great product with good leadership. Data is moving to the cloud. But when the cloud fails us, short term or long term, it makes me think about how we can protect our data. I regularly back up my FTP sites locally to be sure I can move from host to host, and I don't think it'd be a bad idea to see if DIsqus' data could be similarly saved. Why not have something like a hybrid two-way post, one to the blogger's local/FTP share and one to the central Disqus host? Just thinking...

w.d.watson aka megalar · 1 year ago

Ah memes. I love 'em. I must admit though that the meme of the day, worries over data stored in the cloud, is getting on my nerves. The cloud has always been here. All these services that people are referring to as the cloud are only one small part of the cloud. The cloud is built into the design of the web. Almost all websites are hosted by one company or another. By using services like Disqus we are merely storing different parts in different places. This is not a new idea. This is not a bad idea.

Louis Gray · 1 year ago

I don't personally worry much about data in the cloud. For the most part, I trust my data to be in the hands of a 3rd party than on my laptop. But where there are options to have multiple copies, locally or on the Web, that is advantageous. Disqus' downtime was a surprise for me, due to them being so solid from day one, and it made me think about how some do have concerns there.

Paul · 1 year ago

I agree with you!

Zoli Erdos · 1 year ago

It's a bit funny to read this post in light of the Amazon outage on the same day. .. if anything reminds us of "woes for data in the cloud", it has to be Amazon...

SEO Updates · 11 months ago

Apparently, comments are back. Hopefully an official update from Disqus is forthcoming!

glasswool · 10 months ago

I am new to disqus, is there a way to periodically backup the comments to your hardisk?

Renew Passports · 2 months ago

I am happy to say that since this issue occurred, nothing as catastrophic has occurred again.