Bonjour!  We spent last week in Quebec with our fellow Automattic colleagues for our annual company meetup, and we had an amazing time.  This was the first time Jon, Isaac, Beau, and I have been in the same room, so it was a pleasure to work side-by-side and kick around some ideas together.

We also got the chance to collaborate with the rest of the Automattic crew to look at how IntenseDebate can integrate with other Automattic projects, and learn how to apply their scaling knowledge to our systems.

While some of the projects aren’t ready to be disclosed yet, here are some general details about what we’re working on (please note that these include long-term projects):

• Backend Loading Optimization: We’re really excited about this project.  We are currently working on a new method for optimizing how we load comments and trackbacks.  This will improve load times even as the volume of comments on your blog continues to increase, as well as correct a couple of bugs.  Loading IntenseDebate will be even more seamless!
• More Sync Improvements: We had the opportunity to pick the brains of our brilliant WordPress system engineers about the inner-workings of WordPress. We will be adapting some of the code and principles they use to improve the quality of our syncing engine.  This is going to be huge for our plugin and will correct those pesky sync discrepancies that have been floating around affecting comment counts and backups.
• WordPress Plugin Overhaul: The core of our WordPress plugin was written prior to joining Automattic.  Since then our understanding of the WordPress codebase has drastically improved.  We have now identified significant portions of the plugin code that can be simplified or optimized making it much more lightweight and perform better.  The principles that we are applying in this overhaul will eventually be applied to our integrations with other platforms across the board.
• Moderation, Moderation, Moderation! Bug fixes aside, optimizing moderation is high priority.  The main moderation project that we’re currently working on is reworking your moderation page.  We will be minimizing the time you spend moderating comments and filtering spam, and simplifying your user experience.
• Support Documentation and Forums: We’re beefing-up our FAQ and support resources for end users, publishers and developers. This will help  everyone to find the answers they’re looking for.  More info to come on this one soon.

It’s an exciting time here at IntenseDebate!  We’re looking forward to pushing out loads of new code, and we will be depending on you for your feedback.  Keep an eye right here on our blog for the latest news.

Posted by Michael Koenig in News,WordPress Plugin

Brilliant comments have been submitted across IntenseDebate.  But once in a blue moon someone submits a great comment that’s perfect except there’s a typo or a curse word containing non-alphabetic ch@racter$ that slipped through your profanity filter!  Unfortunately when this happened the only available options were to leave the comment up or delete it.  Until now…

We’re extremely excited to introduce the latest enhancement to your IntenseDebate comments, Admin Comment Editing.

Now you can edit the details of all comments on all posts on your site (if you’re a site admin of course).  No more letting your users run wild, unless you’re into that sort of thing.

Comment Edit links are located in two different places in your account at IntenseDebate.com: your Moderation page, and your Comment History page (for editing comments that have already been posted).  If you are using our WordPress Plugin, you will find a link to edit comments in your WordPress admin panel.

Please note: you will not be able to edit user info for authenticated comments (like those posted using an IntenseDebate, Twitter, or Facebook account).

We built this feature based on your feedback, so keep it coming.  We’ve always got an eye out for cool ideas and we’re always listening, so please feel free to share your thoughts with us.  If you haven’t given IntenseDebate a try yet, there’s no better time than now.  Get started!

Posted by Michael Koenig in features

When you’re on a roll, you’re on a roll!  We’ve got two new admin features to introduce today: Ban Users & View Deleted Comments.

Banning Users
This just got a whole lot easier. If you recall, before you could only ban users from the moderation page when their comments were flagged. Take a look at your blog Settings page in your IntenseDebate profile. At the bottom right there’s a brand new section where you can input a username to ban that user from commenting. We think you’ll agree: this is a big improvement from having to either ban the user by email, IP, or add their username as a keyword.

View Deleted Comments
Until now deleted comments were gone forever! Now you can view all comments that have been deleted from your blog. This will come in handy if you’ve got an itchy trigger finger and tend to delete comments by accident. Now you can undelete them! Check out your Moderation page and you’ll see a shiny new Deleted Comments tab. This tab includes all comments that hit your blacklists in addition to comments that you deleted.

We’ve got some more cool projects in the works, so if you haven’t given IntenseDebate a try yet, there’s no better time than now! Get started with IntenseDebate.

Posted by Michael Koenig in features

Last Saturday we introduced Twitter Sign-In to IntenseDebate, and within a couple of hours it was activated on a massive number of sites! We decided that with that kind of adoption we had better build the next step for Twitter integration: Tweet This for Twitter Sign-In users.

Back in June, 2008 we introduced Tweet This for IntenseDebate users, and we received plenty of requests to add this for Twitter Sign-In users.  Well, ask and you shall receive! Commenters using their Twitter account can now opt to send a simultaneous tweet when they post a comment by selecting the Tweet This checkbox when they post a comment.  You can enable Twitter Sign-in in your Blog Settings page at http://intensedebate.com/edit-site-comments.  Facebook Connect is also available through your Blog Settings page.  Please see http://wp.me/plsX6-go for more details about Facebook Connect.

Next up we’d like to introduce a new admin moderation feature: Auto-approve commenters by reputation score. By setting a minimum reputation score for commenters, you can ensure that comments submitted by your regular readers will always be approved and not flagged for moderation. This is an excellent way to make sure that the debate doesn’t get interrupted by moderation. This feature is located on the left in your blog settings page of your IntenseDebate account. To enable it just type in a minimum reputation score and any user with that score or higher will be able to comment freely.

Last up, we’ve rolled out a bug fix for the email notification issue that some of you may have encountered. We received reports of instances where email notifications for new comments were not being received. We have since identified and corrected the problem, so this shouldn’t be an issue anymore. However, if you do encounter this please let us know by emailing support.

The Pipeline
We are continuing to work on a couple of niche bug fixes, and should have the remaining issues squashed out soon. In addition, we’re working on a few projects that are coming soon…

• Admin comment editing – the top requested admin feature in our last poll
• Version 2.4 of our WordPress plugin (details coming soon)
• Additional performance optimizations

As always, if you haven’t given IntenseDebate a try yet, there’s no better time than now! Get started with IntenseDebate.

Posted by Michael Koenig in features

We’re kicking off a new series of blog posts that will reveiw some of our features that you might not know about.  The first post in this series will review our moderation and blacklisting settings.  Our moderation page is going through a redesign right now, but this will get you off the ground and familiar with our current settings.

Moderation & Blacklisting Filters
IntenseDebate offers some truly hardcore moderation and blacklisting settings. Get the most out of our service and let us do the work of weeding out comments that are out-of-line with our automatic filters. You can automagically hold comments for your approval or have them deleted by:

• Keyword
• Number of links in the comment
• Email address of the commenter
• IP address

Enabling these settings is easy.  Just login to your account and select the “Settings” tab.  You’ll find several text boxes on the left side of the page where you can enter in all of the above info.  Make sure you separate your entries with spaces only!  You can access the IP addresses in your comment notification emails.

Comment Posting Settings
We offer some additional comment posting settings to help you weed out the rubbish.  With IntenseDebate you can require:

• All commenters to signup with IntenseDebate before posting*
• Commenters must have a previously approved comment*
• All comments are held for moderation before they are displayed*
• Or none of the above! (default setting)

*Disabled by default

Akismet Filtering
Don’t forget about our Akismet integration!  Your IntenseDebate account provides you with the option to run all comments through our cusotm Akismet integration.  You can enable Akismet filtering in your Settings panel.

Check out your Settings panel in your IntenseDebate account for more options!

Posted by Michael Koenig in features