Damn You, Disqus - the Pendulum Swings

Friday 26 August 2011

UPDATE:  So it was a case of a bad workwoman blaming her tools.  Not only did I not read the instructions before installing Disqus, but I also failed to properly read them after.  All of my comments have been retained and retrived, so I'm very happy about that :)

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So you've bought the wall unit from Ikea.  And now you're home in the middle of the lounge room, and you've opened the impossibly flat flatpacked boxes and taken all the bits out.  You've made a space so you can spread out the 152 different bits that no way on earth are ever, ever, EVER going to blend into becoming anything like the wall unit you see in the picture on the box.  And what the hell is THAT bit???

There are two types of people in this scenario - the instruction-readers and the non-instruction-readers.  The "go ahead and do it without reading the instructions" person holds that piece of paper with diagrams and accompanying Engrish in contempt.  Bah.  Don't insult my intelligence.  I don't need to be told how to do this.  The instruction-reader thinks the non-instruction reader is too cocky for her own good.  You want to spend your entire afternoon putting this wall unit together, with an ad break in the third hour for your dummy spit, when you pick up a handful of the 152 pieces and throw them in rage, and then spend ages trying to find them?  Well, I don't, thanks very much.  I will learn from the people who manufactured this so I can get the hell out of here and do something more interesting with the rest of my Saturday afternoon.

Me, I'm both.  Some days I understand the wisdom of the second path.  Other days, it is a folly to be so anal.  I wish to work it out by myself, thank you very much.

When it comes to installing different platforms and softwares and doodads on your computer, it's easy to get complacent about stuff.  Everything works better these days.  After all, I can't even remember the last time I had a blue screen, or my computer locked up through driver or software incompatibilities.

And so stability has led to complacency.  Therefore when I signed up for Disqus last night, I didn't think anything of it.  Didn't even really know exactly what it was or how it worked, but what the hell, why not?  And so I blithely signed up, linked up my blog to it ... and now I come here this morning and it seems all of my pre-Disqus comments have gone, kaputted into the voluminous ether void, possibly never to be seen again.  And so now Erin, you have the dubious distinction of being the only commenter on this blog :)  And, a wonderful and superb comment though it be, I feel sad for all of the other comments that have been lost, forever, never to return (insert dramatic forehead slap with outward-facing hand).

Every time I type Disqus I keep going to type Disgus instead.  Which is far closer to how I'm feeling.  Disqus, after all, is a word with positive connotations for me, being the only first I ever won at Little Athletics.  I still remember that blue ribbon.  Whereas this morning I feel rather more disgusted that some platform would come along in its arrogance like the Western Empire and cut everything down before it.  And also a little disgusted that I didn't read before I clicked.

And so the pendulum swings back into anality once again :)  So, anyone know how to get those old comments back?

12 comments

  1. Okay I don't know what's going on. Typing this from my phone, I can see all my old comments intact here ... But none of the new Disqused ones. Weird

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  2. Hey Tess.  I FINALLY worked it out.  I thought I'd incorporated the old comments into this blog, but apparently I hadn't.  So it's all here and in one spot now and I haven't lost any comments.

    Hip hip - hooray, hooray, hooray.

    (Noting though that comments now are held on the disqus server instead of the Blogger one.  Must remember to back them up every now and then)

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  3. hooray, perhaps you should write a 'how to' post for all the other people disgusted with disqus, so they can get their comments back

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  4. Maybe I should, Kel.  Maybe I will :)

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  5. Hooray indeed! Interesting also that they have a "like" option for comments - I've been trying to find a Wordpress plugin to do that. I do, however, like the CommentLuv plugin, which I presume doesn't work with Disqus. (And if I were to mention how many months it took to dawn on me what the word Disqus actually meant, I'd be embarrassed...)

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  6. Interesante. http://www.fisura.anal.org.es , http://www.almorranas.eu , http://www.hemorroide.eu , http://www.anal.org.es 

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  7. aaaaghhhhh
    i don't know what disqus is, but after your experience with it, I have no interest in going down that path at all, losing comments is like losing half the life of a blog...
    happened to me when I slurped a blog to make a blurb book, and also when i transferred posts about building our island retreat to their own blog
    sad sad sad

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  8. hmm, i have discovered that disqus changes your comments section, so now one has to manually choose for your blog link to be included
    more sad

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  9. You've been disqomblogulated, Sue! Do blogger keep backups of comments? Might be worth a try.

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  10. Haha, Harry! Disqomblogulated :)

    Okay, so this is weird. The Disqus comments are here when I'm on my computer and nothing else. When I look on my mobile, it's all the other comments that show up and not the Disqus ones. Thinking I might disconnect the Disqus :)

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  11. Oh dear, guess i'll stick with the old boring comments on mine then - I like to be able to click on people's names and see their profile and their blog. You could ask Richard Beck (you read his blog right?). What is different about disqus/disgus anyway?
    Emma

    http://growandbegrown.blogspot.com

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  12. Hmm, yes I installed Disgust at PM a while ago and uninstalled it pretty damn fast! It's a whole new comments system that overrides the inbuilt one rather than adds to it. But I'm afraid I don't know how to get the old comments back...

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