Jay Marcyes

Good general overview on how to make your comments an important part of your site. The big takeaway is don't treat your comments section like a chore, enjoy it, participate in it, and it will grow and become an integral part of your site.

Good writeup on why the Washington Post allows anonymous comments. The big takeaway is:

"Man is least in himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

In other words, without anonymous comments, people are more reserved, trying to put their best face forward so to speak. Are there horrible, racist, and disgusting comments made? Of course. But there are also good, mature, well thought comments that for the most part counteract the filth.

So I was thinking of letting Disqus take over commenting duties on this blog, among others, the problem is I wanted to make sure I had backups of all the comments (because I am crazy like that). The api seems like the best way to achieve this, though I haven't bothered to implement it yet.

here are some other thoughts and write-ups I found:

Duncan Riley isn't sure he wants to move over to Disqus

How to back up Disqus comments (webmonkey)