Let’s face it, spam happens. While we’ve made a lot of improvements to our Akismet integration to catch future spam from sullying your comments with links to cheap prescription drugs, it’s possible that some spam might have slipped through in the past.

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

There’s a nifty new option in your moderation page to re-check all of your approved comments for spam with the click of a button.

Just click on the “Re-check For Spam” button and we’ll do the heavy lifting for you, and run all of the comments on your site through Akismet again.

Think of all of the time that will save you. While we do that, you can take some time away from your computer and slow things down. Go relax with a beverage and rest your eyes for a bit. You can read an old-fashioned newspaper (you know, the kind that you can tear), or catch-up with a long-lost friend – after all, IntenseDebate is all about connecting people.

When you get back, head over to your moderation page again. If we’ve found any spam, there will be a notification waiting for you. If there isn’t one, then your site is spam free.

Keep in mind that the more comments you have, the longer it will take for us to re-check them all. If you return to your moderation page while we’re still checking, then the “Re-check For Spam” button will be greyed-out and inactive.

You can learn more about the rest of our moderation tools at support.intensedebate.com/moderation and read our past posts on our moderation options here.

Posted by Michael Koenig in features

It’s been way too long since we last updated our blog – our apologies for the radio silence. I wanted to share a handy bit of CSS to help you further customize the way your readers can post comments to your site. While we offer a couple of different ways to comment – as a guest or using their Facebook, Twitter, WordPress.com, or IntenseDebate account – there wasn’t a way to disable guest commenting while still enabling Facebook Connect and Twitter Sign-in.

But, as you may know, we offer a super-easy way to add custom CSS to bring your own personal style to IntenseDebate through your Custom CSS page. By adding a handy snippet of CSS, you can hide the guest commenter information fields (Name, Email, URL), which will effectively remove the option to post comments as a guest.

Why is this cool?

I’m glad you asked. Currently commenters that post using Facebook Connect and Twitter Sign-in are considered guest commenters since they aren’t posting with an IntenseDebate or WordPress.com account. The issue is that if you disable guest commenting in your moderation settings by requiring readers to have an IntenseDebate or WordPress.com account, you would remove the options to post using Facebook Connect and Twitter Sign-in, which isn’t ideal.

So without further ado, here’s the CSS you can add to your Custom CSS page to get rid of guest commenting:

#idc-container-parent #idc-container .idc-postnav-label,
#idc-container-parent #idc-container .idc-c-m.idc-signup {
display: none !important;
}
#idc-container-parent #idc-container
.idc-postnav-list {
margin: 5px 0 8px;
}

That last little bit adjusts the margin to make up for the hidden fields so there isn’t a gaping space where the guest commenter fields used to be. Feel free to tweak that as you’d like.

Make sure you check out our CSS documentation, along with the rest of our guides to change the font size; text, background, and link colors; width of the comment section; and move the comment box to the top of the comment section.

Posted by Michael Koenig in features

Update 1-31-11: Upgrade complete! If you were running CommentLuv on your blog, then the plugin will automatically be reactivated. Thanks for your patience!

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Update 1-28-11: You can add a URL field for Guest commenters in the comment form by enabling the option in your Comment Settings. Make sure you disable CommentLuv in your Plugins page to ensure that the URL field shows up properly.

We will have this updated and back in action soon! We appreciate your patience.

–

Howdy! It’s time for an upgrade to the IntenseDebate CommentLuv plugin.

We have temporarily deactivated CommentLuv on IntenseDebate while we change the tapes and switch over to the new version.

We will post a status update once the new version is installed. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Posted by Michael Koenig in features,News

We released a cool new setting for reported comments (comments that your readers flag as inappropriate). You can now opt to have the comments automatically put into moderation for review. This handy option can help you and your readers keep your comments clean and debates friendly.

To enable this option, visit your Comments Settings, and check the box next to Send comments to moderation when reported (located at the bottom of the page). Make sure you save your settings. This setting excludes comments posted by site admins and moderators, as well as comments that you have already approved.

While you’re there you can also take advantage of our Auto-Delete setting for reported comments. With the Auto-Delete option, you can set a maximum number of times that a comment is reported before the comment is deleted. This is another super-handy feature for crowdsourcing moderation.

Both of these options are based entirely on your feedback, and we’re happy to deliver them!

Posted by Michael Koenig in features

We receive loads of feedback from you all on how to improve IntenseDebate, and the majority of what we develop is based on your requests. I read and respond to all of your emails, and one piece of feedback I receive daily is that we all love trackbacks, but sometimes they can really get in the way of a solid debate when they’re mixed in with your comments.

With that in mind, we’ve added a new layout option to separate trackbacks from the comments section. This new stylish option places your trackbacks above the comment section instead of having them mixed in.

This option is available at the bottom of your Comments Settings page at http://intensedebate.com/edit-site-comments.

Thanks again for your feedback!

Posted by Michael Koenig in features