Options For Managing Comments

Comments are the lifeblood of most websites that aim to be social. Drupal based sites are no exception. In fact the feedback I'm seeing is that many people who are new to Drupal get involved with it because building a robust social network using Drupal is easier than something like WordPress which is heavily focused on blogging. That doesn't mean that you won't have to put some thought into how to set up your commenting if you're building a Drupal site.

I like Drupal's built in comment system. It has nice features like threaded comments,  a comment approval section, search indexing of comments and the ability to turn comments on and off for each individual node. Out of the box the comments are very usable for low traffic websites. But if you expect a lot of activity on your site then your comment needs will require putting more thought into how you set things up. Your first big choice will be to decide whether you should build on the existing comment system using contributed modules or if you should use a 3rd party commenting system like Disqus, JS-Kit Echo or IntenseDebate.

If Drupal's built in comments are so good then why even think about shutting them off? As good as the comments are they don't necessarily meet all the needs you might have. For example, if you expect a lot of commenting but don't want to have to do a lot of maintenance and configuration on your Drupal site then a 3rd party system might be good for you. Let's say you want site visitors to be able to authenticate themselves using Google Friend Connect, Facebook or Twitter which are the most popular social networking services in the U.S. right now. You could utilize at least two contributed modules to make your site do that. But you would also spend quite a bit more time doing that than you would just configuring the Disqus module which gives you all of those features which are available via the free (for now) Disqus service. You can see a sample of how Disqus integrates on the module developer's site here. Another attractive feature typically included in these systems involves notifications. Moderators and comments can either subscribe to comments via an RSS feed or by email. Notification features can help to create a community on your site and keep people coming back for repeat visits.

The mileage you get out of 3rd party commenting systems will vary. When you opt for an outsourced approach for such a large portion of your site you also lose some control. Most services will keep a backup of your comments in case you decide to switch back to your native comment system. That doesn't mean that re-importing the comments back into Drupal will be easy. Your site may also be affected by the performance of the servers of the 3rd party service. If their servers have a problem then your site will likely load slowly or comments might not show up at all. So be aware of the trade offs.

If you want people to create accounts on your site in order to comment then you'll want to stick with the core comment system. The 3rd party offerings may authenticate users but they don't create a user profile on your site. If that's the way you're going then there are some contributed modules that you'll want to know about that can enhance the core Drupal commenting experience.

Identity

These modules help to establish the identity of commenters on your site.

• Gravatar - Displays pictures for anonymous commenters who also use the Gravatar service.
• Google Friend Connect - Creates user accounts using Google Friend Connect API.
• Facebook Connect - Creates user accounts using the Facebook Connect API. Also allows commenters to publish comments back to their Facebook wall.
• Gigya Socialize - Offers a single API for creating accounts using identities from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Google and others.

Spam

These modules help to limit the effects of spam on your site.

• Mollom - Offers spam filtering via text analysis and captcha presentation.
• AntiSpam - Offers access to the Akismet, Defensio and TypePad spam filtering services.
• Captcha - Allows you to present a CAPTCHA (which is a challenge image) to commenters.
• Comment Lockdown - Applies a set of rules that make it harder for comment spam to get through.

Notification and Moderation

These modules provide notifications of new comments and assist with moderation.

• Comment Notify - Allows registered and anonymous users to get comment notifications via email.
• Watcher - Similar to Comment Notify.
• Comment Moderation - Adds features that improve the comment moderation workflow.

So you've been presented with a lot of options here. The modules listed above certainly don't represent a complete list. You're welcome to link to your favorite ones in the comments. The approach you take will depend on the goals you have for your site, the number of comments you receive and your level of technical knowledge with respect to Drupal and the 3rd party services (such as Disqus) and APIs (such as Facebook Connect) that I've mentioned.