Facebook Comments | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

I'm pretty sure that this has been discussed before, but I searched several times and couldn't find anything, so starting a new thread.  

I personally haven't given a second thought to using one of the plugins that replaces the wordpress comments with Facebook comments.  I've had myriad reasons, but the biggest of them is that I just don't like having to login to multiple services to comment somewhere.  It's the same reason that I don't much care for Discus and LiveFyre.  

However, with all the crazy changes to the Facebook pages, and Edgerank that drives their "visibility", would it be smarter to move to one of those plugins?  If Edgerank is directly influenced by the number of comments, likes, etc that a post gets on Facebook, wouldn't using one of those plugins automatically get you X more comments just because it's also getting the comments from the website?

Does anyone here run facebook comments on their site and care to share their experience, both with comment trends, and with facebook insights trends?

As a commenter, I WILL NOT comment on a site that uses Facebook Commments. I've found that Facebook has a tendency to ignore the fact that you unchecked the box asking if you want to post your comment on your Timeline. I've had flame wars break out on my status updates on FB, so I am very careful what I post there.

I won't comment on sites that use exclusively Facebook commenting.

I guess I look at all these new complexities to the commenting systems as helping bloggers but adding nothing (except extra steps) for readers.  You can tell me all you want that readers don't mind or comments increase or stay steady, but at a certain point, when are these systems taking readers from people and turning them into numbers/metrics/rankings/whatever? 

I just think the option to leave a comment should be simple.  It shouldn't require a profile of any sort or tying back to another social media option.  At least that's my thought, but maybe I'm just old school.

Glen Craig – Free From Broke said:

Interesting question!  I haven't used the plugin.  Do the comments show on Facebook or is that one of the options?

That's essentially what I'm trying to find out too, Glen.  If they show up on Facebook, plus add to the EdgeRank of a post, it could potentially be a pretty good thing for Facebook stats.

BB, that is a great option and does offer choices, but there are complexities you would have to be aware of.  Some users will inevitably type their comment in the wrong field, then get surprised when it shows up on Facebook even though they had no intention of that happening.  Also having two forms is one more thing your site has to load, meaning one more potential slowdown or one more plugin that could potentially turn into a backdoor hacking opportunity.

It's all about trade-offs.

BeatingBroke said:

From what I can tell, even if you're logged into Facebook, you still have to click the button (or a dropdown) to comment with facebook.  The same seems to be true with Twitter.  So, I think that's a pretty good safeguard against commenting with the wrong account.

I'd be very careful there. Facebook will do whatever the feel like and I've noticed that their plugin coding skills aren't the greatest. I dropped the Facebook plugin from my site when an update highjacked my entire commenting system. And I will never comment with a Facebook commenting system again when a comment I made of an, err, adult, nature was posted to my profile without my permission. My family reads that!

Edward Antrobus said:

BeatingBroke said:

From what I can tell, even if you're logged into Facebook, you still have to click the button (or a dropdown) to comment with facebook.  The same seems to be true with Twitter.  So, I think that's a pretty good safeguard against commenting with the wrong account.

I'd be very careful there. Facebook will do whatever the feel like and I've noticed that their plugin coding skills aren't the greatest. I dropped the Facebook plugin from my site when an update highjacked my entire commenting system. And I will never comment with a Facebook commenting system again when a comment I made of an, err, adult, nature was posted to my profile without my permission. My family reads that!

Well, it's not a direct FB plugin, but someone that's created one using the API.  I've seen the direct FB plugin, and I have no intention of installing that. 

If anyone still wants to see this plugin in action, I managed to figure out what the issue was.  Seems to work pretty well really.  Haven't decided if it's really worth having or not yet though.