Last week we announced the release of 6 new translations, and we’re pleased to release 2 more translations this week and dish out some much deserved credit to the awesome folks behind them:

• Polish – miguelm75
• Slovene – Marck Goran Lrencin, Aleš Gabrovec

IntenseDebate is now available in 20 languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, English, Estonian, Filipino, French, German, Italian, Lithuanian, Malay, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Slovene, Latin American Spanish, European Spanish, and Ukrainian. And there are more on the way!

These translations are available in your Blog Settings page at IntenseDebate.com.

We’re looking forward to making more translations available for use as they continue to get completed. So far we’ve received volunteers to help translate these additional languages (let us know if you would like to help with any of these!):

Don’t see your language? Give us a hand!
If you’re interested in getting involved, now is the perfect time! Please email us at labs@intensedebate.com for information. Ideally we’d like to have at least two Iñtërnâtiônàlizætiønër’s working together for each translation. Thanks!

Posted by Michael Koenig in features

It’s been a while now (almost 3 months!) since the last update to our WordPress plugin, and a lot has been going on here at IntenseDebate HQ since then. We’ve been working on our end to improve how the plugin interacts with our servers, and now we’re ready to release a new version which updates how it operates as well. Here are some of the new and improved bits in this version:

• Added a bunch of new API functions to enable better remote queue management (for syncing): get comment counts, get approved comment counts, get a copy of your sync queue, manage individual operations, lock queue temporarily
• Improved handling of duplicate comments
• Improved syncing on comment statuses
• Fixed a bug with closing comments on a Post/Page
• Added partial support for the Trash feature coming in WordPress 2.9*
• Added functionality to allow us to re-import a single Post to help fix up any sync problems (more efficient than re-importing your entire site)
• Lots of small improvements and fixes to the way the sync queue operates to avoid overloading your site (and ours) and to increase the success of requests.

* We’re going to be releasing an update in the near future, once we sort out a few remaining issues with the Trash functionality. When you upgrade to WordPress 2.9 (once it’s released!) you’ll also want to upgrade to that new version.

This version of the plugin has gone through a load of testing on WordPress versions 2.5, right up to the current “trunk” and WordPressMU version 2.6 to the current release (2.8.5.2). We’d like to note that in the next versions, we’re going to drop support for versions of WordPress below 2.7, so if for some reason you’re running an old version of WordPress, we’d strongly recommend that you upgrade!

If you are already using IntenseDebate on your WordPress blog then you should see a plugin update notification in your admin dashboard soon. If you haven’t tried us out yet, then now is the perfect time, with our best plugin release to date! You can search for the plugin (“IntenseDebate Comments”) under Plugins > Add New, or download it directly from the WordPress Plugin Directory.

Posted by Beau Lebens in WordPress Plugin

A little while back we opened up IntenseDebate for localization, and we received over 100 volunteers to help translate IntenseDebate to 43 languages.  Within a couple of weeks we were able to launch translations for 11 languages: Arabic, Croatian, Filipino, French, German, Malay, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Latin American Spanish, European Spanish, and Ukrainian. This week we’re excited to release 6 additional translations.

Here are the new languages that we’re releasing, along with the awesome folks who contributed to each translation:

• Bulgarian – Rado Stoyanov and his team
• Catalan – afontcu
• Estonian – Helari Hellenurm
• Italian – Tiziano Fogliata, Andrea Torre, Aldo Latino
• Lithuanian – Darius, Gintausas Kaveckas
• Slovak – terchulak

These translations are available in your Blog Settings page at IntenseDebate.com.

We’re looking forward to making more translations available for use as they continue to get completed.  So far we’ve received volunteers to help translate these additional languages:

Don’t see your language? Give us a hand!
If you’re interested in getting involved, now is the perfect time! Please email us at labs@intensedebate.com for information. Ideally we’d like to have at least two Iñtërnâtiônàlizætiønër’s working together for each translation. Thanks!

Posted by Michael Koenig in community,features

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

As Matt mentioned in the September Wrap-Up, we are heading to Québec City with the rest of the Automattic crew for our biannual meetup to work on some top-secret projects.

Here at Automattic we are spread across the world, and are in a sense a distributed company.  For instance, Beau is located in San Fransisco, CA; Jon is in Boulder, CO; I’m in Chicago, IL; and Isaac is in Veddige, Sweden.  So we relish the opportunity to get together to kick-it, toss around some ideas, and collaborate with the rest of the Automattic team.

Past meetups have yielded some super-cool features and enhancements for IntenseDebate like our PollDaddy Polls plugin, Gravatar integration, localization, backend integration, and some top-secret projects that are still underway.  We’ve also contributed to WordPress.com features like Reply-By-Email which was a product of our time with the Automattic crew last October in Breckenridge, Colorado (picture below).

The Automattic family has grown since our last meetup so we’re excited to have the opportunity to meet and trade ideas with our newest colleagues. With that in mind, while support will still be readily available and answered daily, please allow for some extra-time in the upcoming week as we might take slightly longer to respond. We greatly appreciate your patience.

You can expect great things to come!

Posted by Michael Koenig in News