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

WordCamp is coming to my home town of Chicago this weekend, at the Chicago Mart Plaza. If you’re in the area, pick up a ticket at http://wordcampchicago.com/registration. You’d better hurry because there are only 16 advanced tickets left. I’ll be there (along with some slick IntenseDebate stickers for your laptop) and I’d love to meet you!

In case you’re not familiar with it:

WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. WordCamps are open to WordPress.com and WordPress.org users alike.

Posted by Michael Koenig in community

We love it when the entire Automattic team gets together – it gives us an opportunity to hang out and work side-by-side. During our last meetup in San Francisco, fellow Aussies, Beau Lebens and Alex Shiels, sat down to brainstorm some ways to improve our Akismet spam filter integration in IntenseDebate. A short-while later they cranked out a completely reworked integration that has drastically improved the accuracy of our spam filtering.

If you haven’t already, please make sure you enable Akismet in your IntenseDebate account at http://intensedebate.com/edit-site-moderation.

Please give us a shout at support@intensedebate.com if you continue to encounter spam issues. Thanks!

Posted by Michael Koenig in features,News

Yesterday we identified and corrected a temporary bug with our email notification system. The issue prevented new comments from being adding to our email queue, and emails notifications were not sent for around a 12 hour period. We’ve updated our email systems to optimize performance, and to prevent this from occurring again.

Missed email notifications are being sent now and should be caught-up within the next couple of hours. Sorry for the inconvenience – we appreciate your patience.

Posted by Michael Koenig in News

It’s that time again folks: time for another release of our WordPress plugin!

Version 2.8 is available right now in the WordPress Plugin Directory, and you’ll be prompted to upgrade within your WordPress admin panel in the next few hours if you’re already running it. With this version you’ll be able to install our IntenseDebate widgets directly through your WordPress admin panel without having to insert them directly into your theme.

To add an IntenseDebate widget to your sidebar, select the Appearance tab in your WordPress admin panel sidebar → select Widgets → drag the IntenseDebate widget from the Available Widgets or Inactive Widgets area on the left into the Sidebar area on the right. When you see a dashed line appear, you can drop the widget into place. You can also change the order of the widgets by dragging and dropping them around in the sidebar.

Please note: in order to use this widget install method, your theme must support widgets.

We’re also working on some very-cool backend updates to our sync and import queues. More details to come. 🙂

Posted by Michael Koenig in WordPress Plugin