11 comments

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  Daniel Ha

  1 month ago

  We do not yet have this in place.
  
  It will be coming in some form.
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  irishtrojan

  1 month ago

  I just wanted to second this feature request. I realize there's an ongoing debate about "comment ownership" rights, etc., and I understand why users might not want someone else to be able to edit their comments as they appear on their Disqus profile (i.e., outside of my blog). However, it is crucial that I be able to edit what appears on my blog. If there needs to be a "click here to see the original" link that would appear on the version of the comment on the person's Disqus profile (NOT on my blog), that's fine. But I need to have control over what appears on my blog, and the idea that I might have to delete an entire comment because somebody says one small thing within a lengthy comment that violates my blog's rules (for example, revealing the workplace of a commenter who doesn't want that information made public) is absurd... particularly when, if I don't catch it right away, that might involve deleting a perfectly valid comment (with a single offensive aspect) that has, in the mean time, been responded to and has become crucial to understanding the conversation that has occurred.
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  Niclas

  1 month ago

  My way at it is also allowing for moderator editing, while keeping the original comment in some way; for instance by a "comment edited ... click here for original comment" or whatever.
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  irishtrojan

  1 month ago

  Except that, if the "click here for original comment" link appears not just on the disqus.com version of the comment, but on the version that appears on my blog, that means the banned content still effectively exists on my blog, which defeats the purpose of the ability to moderate commentary on my blog.
  
  For instance, in the example I cited above, if I have a policy of commenters not talking about other commenters'/bloggers' careers/jobs without consent (which, in fact, I do), and if some commenter violates that rule (which periodically happens), their violation is still just one click away, by your proposed method. Same goes for, if they post a link to porn, or a naughty word that I don't allow, or whatever. (I don't actually ban naughty words, but some bloggers legitimately might.)
  
  Your proposed solution, if I understand it right, still leaves me in the same situation, having to delete the post in order to uphold my blog's rules.
  
  Now, if the "click here for original comment" link appears only on the version of the comment on disqus.com, then fine, I can't object to that, because I don't profess to be a moderator of Disqus's content. I do, however, profess to be a moderator of my own blog's content, and thus I need to be able to control what appears on my blog -- including a "click here for original comment' link that goes directly to a version of the comment containing banned material.
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  Phil

  1 month ago

  I strongly agree with most of what irishtrojan writes, except that I
  don't think that the original content should be accessible on Disqus
  either. As far as I am concerned, I am just using Disqus as a service
  to host my comments. Disqus does not own my content, I do. If I deem
  that part of a comment breaches my rules and edit it accordingly, the
  original should not be accessible anywhere. Besides, I already have
  the power to delete the whole comment from both my site and Disqus -
  if the content on Disqus was not my content then I would not expect to
  be able to do that either.
  
  If Disqus is going to claim ownership of the content posted on my blog
  then I for one will not use it.
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  irishtrojan

  1 month ago

  For what it's worth, I too would prefer, as a blog owner, that the original content not be accessible anywhere. However, I'm trying to make allowances for the strong feelings of those who feel that they, as commenters, "own" their comments.
  
  This is not, as I understand it, an issue of Disqus claiming "ownership" of comments, but rather Disqus asserting, under pressure from many of its members, that individual commenters have some rights of "ownership" over their own comments. And frankly, I can see why: each Disqus member's comments are, after all, linked publicly and permanently to their Disqus profile, which exists independently of any one blog. In light of this reality, it's reasonable to ask how a blog owner can have the right to edit (or delete) someone else's comment, when that comment is associated with the commenter's Disqus profile and attributed to them on an external site, outside of the blog owner's jurisdiction? It is a problematic issue, no doubt about that.
  
  Frankly, I'm not sure there is any reasonable resolution of these two conflicting mentalities. If commenters "own" their comments, they can edit and delete at will, with the result that they can retroactively change the content of conversations on my blog, which destroys the integrity of my blog's comment archive. If, on the other hand, blog owners "own" commenters' comments, we can edit and delete their comments at will, which destroys the integrity of their personal comment archive, which is associated with their individual Disqus profile. These are essentially irreconcilable concepts, and the idea of "hybrid ownership" inevitably falls short of a true solution to this fundamentally unsolvable problem.
  
  Frankly, the only reason I use Disqus is because I needed an externally hosted commenting solution for my Blogspot blogs, and I find Blogger's internal commenting system unacceptable for various reasons, and the other alternatives like Haloscan are also unacceptable (for different reasons). I use Disqus in spite of, not because of, its Web 2.0 community/profile features. Nevertheless I recognize that Disqus is not going to simply abandon those features, which are, from many users' perspectives, its raison d'etre, and which are fundamentally irreconcilable with total blog-owner "ownership" of individual commenters' comments. That's why I endorse a hybrid system, imperfect though it may be.
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  irishtrojan

  1 month ago

  P.S. Incidentally, you are clearly correct, Phil, when you say "I already have the power to delete the whole comment from both my site and Disqus - if the content on Disqus was not my content then I would not expect to be able to do that either." The fact that blog-owners can delete comments entirely (including from disqus.com), but not edit them at all (even on their own blogs), is a completely irrational inconsistency. Likewise, it is equally absurd that commenters with registered Disqus accounts can, if I'm not mistaken, edit their own comments (including as they appear on my blog), but not delete them (even simply from their Disqus profiles).
  
  I assume this inconsistency is simply because Disqus (and for that matter, Intense Debate) have not yet truly figured out how to handle this issue, as a matter of "rights" and/or as a technical matter. Ultimately, however, editing and deletion rights should obviously be parallel.
  
  Under my proposed hybrid solution, I would be able to delete others' comments from my blog, and edit their appearance on my blog, but not delete them from Disqus or edit their appearance on Disqus, at least not without the commenter's consent and/or some kind of "click here to see the original" message. Conversely, commenters would be able to edit and delete comments as they appear on their own Disqus profiles, but could not edit or delete them from my blog (again, at least not without my consent). That would be internally consistent, whereas the current system is not, which I think is because it has evolved organically thus far, rather than from a clearly defined plan.
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  irishtrojan

  1 month ago

  P.P.S. Sorry to keep replying to myself :) but there's a great example here of what I mean when I say that, "If commenters 'own' their comments, they can edit and delete at will, with the result that they can retroactively change the content of conversations on my blog, which destroys the integrity of my blog's comment archive."
  
  Check it out: jyoseph asked a question, and VoicesCarry replied. Daniel Ha then replied to VoicesCarry's reply. However, we'll never know what Daniel was replying to, because VoicesCarry subsequently edited his original reply, so now it says simply: "Eh. Decided my comment wasn't worth much merit. Cheers!" Daniel's reply to the reply is thus now utterly incoherent, as it replies to something that's no longer there.
  
  (That's bad enough. Now imagine if VoicesCarry's comment had spurred a whole lengthy discussion, with multiple responses and back-and-forth conversation. Suppose 100 people had replied to it, or to each other. And then suppose VoicesCarry had deleted his original comment, thus retroactively neutering the whole conversation. This is exactly what I worry about with Disqus's self-editing feature.)
  
  As Disqus is currently set up, individual commenters can do this at will -- on my blog, and yours, Phil. Take note, Daniel and everyone else at Disqus: this is an unacceptable situation in the long term. I realize there are both technical and philosophical challenges, and you're "working on it." Well, not to be a pest, but, um, work fast. :) You simply cannot have a situation, going forward, where individual commenters can just arbitrarily edit their own comments into oblivion, thus destroying the integrity of blog conservations, without any recourse for the blog owner. That state of affairs is untenable for Disqus if it's going to expand and become a truly viable alternative for large numbers of blog owners.
  
  [UPDATE: as if to undermine my own point, I've edited this comment several times :) and I just fixed the link, which was originally wrong]
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  irishtrojan

  1 month ago

  Hey, wait, it looks like I can't edit my own comments after someone has replied to them. Is that true? If so, it completely eviscerates everything I said in the comment immediately above this one. But then I don't understand what happened with the VoicesCarry thread I linked. Maybe this is a recent change?
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  Daniel Ha

  1 month ago

  Yes it's true.
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  Niclas

  1 month ago

  Now matter how it's handled, but sentiments need to be accomodated in some
  way. Perhaps a notice of the comment being edited without a direct link
  would be a possible middle way.
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