One more post on the ‘respond to comments‘ post that I wrote yesterday.
If you’re a WordPress user there are a number of WP plugins that can help with managing your comments and responding to readers. Here are some that might be worth exploring.
1. Better Comments Manager – this plugin allows you to respond to comments on your blog as you moderate them in the comments area of WP’s back end. So instead of seeing a comment come in, having to then visit the post and responding from there you can simply hit ‘reply’ from within the comments section and you’ll be taken to a page where you can leave a responding comment. It also puts a ‘view all’ link in your comments area that allows you to quickly see all the comments on a post – still staying in the back end of WP. Here’s the two links as you’ll see them in your comments area:
2. Comment Relish – this plugin sends and automatic email message to users on your website who have never commented before. I’m seeing more and more bloggers using this – generally giving a quick thank you for the comment, a link back to the post and blog and a mention of their RSS feed etc. Be a little careful of making your comment too ‘auto generated’ and if you want to make your emails more personal check out how my good friend Alister uses it. Here’s another similar plugin called Comment Email Responder.
3. Subscribe to Comments – this won’t help you respond to comments but will help your readers know when you have as it sends an email when new comments are added to a post that they’ve subscribed to. While I don’t use this here at ProBlogger at the moment (in a previous version I had a bug) it is something I’ve used on other blogs and have found very effective.
4. WP Comment Moderation Notifier – get notified on your desktop when a new comment comes in that needs moderation. This is a new one that I only found today via John TP.
5. Threaded Comments – Ben and I have talked about using this in the new ProBlogger design but have resisted so far as it can get a little messy. However it is one way of helping readers to have more dialogue in their comments.
Want more Comment Plugins for WordPress? Check out the WP Codex page for Plugins for Comments.
Which WordPerss plugins do you use to help managed your Comments?
Subscribe to comments has been great for me since I added it. My blog is relatively new so I don’t get that many comments, but every new commenter for my site has subscribed so far!
I’ve been thinking about trying a threaded comments plugin for a while, but have been putting it off. Are there any others out there?
I connect the email comment to my mobile phone, and I can view the alert out of desktop.
Thanks Darren.
I don’t really care for receiving the auto generated responses to my comments. It is very inpersonal.
I love the idea of email plugins, but haven’t yet implemented any. Good finds!
I use “Subscribe to Comments” but by readers don’t make much use of it.
What I’d like to find is a Digg-style ratings system for comments. I’ve seen it on some Movable Type blogs but there doesn’t seem to be a WordPress plugin with that functionality.
I’m a Blogspot User (I know I know: second rate blogging… But I come from Live Spaces, which is, for me, third rate blogging :-)).
Anyway, I think one day I’ll make the switch :-)
Thanks for the tips and regards from Spain! :-)
Paquito.
http://paquito4ever.blogspot.com
A comment plugin that I find useful is the AJAX Edit Comments. Allows the user to edit their comments within a certain time frame.
FT
Thanks for the link! This is the first time I’ve been probloggered =)
A word of warning, the comment relish plugin completely messed up my WordPress installation so I had to deactivate it. Not sure what the problem is, but it took down the entire site.
Threaded Comments is one of my favorite plug-ins because it groups replies to comments with the original comment. It’s worked great for me. I also like Subscribe to Comments. However, for some reason, I haven’t been able to get Better Comments Manager to work.
Thanks for the information. That really help those blogs have lots comments. Get more comments….
From this list I’m using Subscribe to Comments and Threaded Comments. I particularly like Threaded Comments. I’m also using Recent Comments in my sidebar. Are others using Recent Comments? If so, any comments on benefits?
Right Now Comment Relish has problems with the way it has been coded. it can take down a blog because it has two many queries etc..
instead i would suggest you should point the users to an updated version of comment relish that has been fixed and works absolutely fine..
here is the url for the modified plugin
http://patchlog.com/wordpress/more-optimization-for-comment-relish-plugin/
How could you forget Paged Comments?
http://www.keyvan.net/code/paged-comments/
I had a thread with over 200 messages and it was getting out of hand until I installed this.
Thanks! I’ve been looking for comment management tools!
Thank you Karthik Kastury for informing about the optimized version of comment relish.
Last week I tried comment relish twice, and two times it took my server down. Finally, realizing I had more than 10000 comments that it was probably looking into and so creating lots of load, I gave up on it. I’ll look into this optimized version, thanks for informing.
There is also a plug-in which highlights the admin comments, so that when the admin of a blog responds to comments it is either in a certain color or a certain type font. This is cool, too. Bryan over at One Man’s Goal has it on his blog.
http://www.onemansgoal.com
Right now I’m using Subscribe to Comments, which I love. I’m also using Threaded Comments, but it’s working strangely (hardly working at all, actually) with my current theme, so that’s something I’ll have to fix.
The Better Comments Manager plugin seems extremely useful as well, and Comments Relish might also be something I’ll have to look into getting for my blog. Great post. :)
Darren,
Proof read before posting.
“this plugin sends ‘and’ automatic email message”
Both Comment Relish and Subscribe to comment plugins are absolutely awesome, but I had some weird problems with them. I guess its not a problem with the plugin, but my wordpress installation itself.
Whoever subscribes to comments or drops their first comment on my blog, got their inbox flooded with my mails.
BTW, I had also written about WordPress Comment Notifier earlier this month. Link
Comment relish also took down my site. I think it is a plugin war but I never figured out which other plugin it fought with. oh well. I might try it on another blog. I love the idea and I think you can make it sound pretty personal. I love the subscribe to comments and use it on all my blogs and also when I’m given the option,
I use better comments manager and subscribe to comments….one thing about stc…I do not have the box checked by default. I think it’s better to let your readers choose if they want to subscribe or not.
I am using subscribe to comments via email and it has significantly increased repeat visitors and post comments.
If you’re having problems with the comment relish plugin, you should check out my optimized comment relish plugin. It’s the same plugin but I modified it to make it more efficient, and you’ll not have any problems on busy sites with a lot of comments. It was tested with as much as 25000 comments and had no problems
@Darren: I appreciate the mention of my plug-in mate. There has been numerous issues brought to my attention, however with my extremely busy schedule lately I have been unable to offer any support. There is an alternate version available from another contributor, unfortunately for me, or whom he is, not sure — I wasn’t contacted by the new author for any conversations or permissions issues. Who knows, at least my plugin is doing someone–somewhere– some good!
Subscribe to comments has to be the best plugin in this bunch – IMO
yeah I use subscribe to comments just installed it about a week ago its a good one.
Thanks for the recommendations. No. 2 is what I’ve been searching for… and, No. 3 is really good for the conversation.
I was copy/pasting comments into a new email and then replying that way until I found the Comment Email Responder plugin! I have sent several people to the website to download it because I find it so useful.
As a new blogger I am always eager to find new ways to reach people or keep them connected. This helps out a lot.
Darren – you have to add this one – it’s EXCELLENT and allows you to reply to comments within the comment form and it sends an individual e-mail to the person you’re replying to. What an awesome tool for people who don’t check back to see if you’ve replied, and also for commenters to know that you DO reply to your guests.
http://www.u-g-h.com/index.php/wordpress-plugins/wordpress-plugin-comment-email-responder/
I’m using the “Better Comments Manager” plugin as I find it more useful and efficient.
thanks for the tip.. ill be using this tool
I was wondering how to add that email notification and now I know. Thanks for the listing.
I’m looking for a plugin like someone above mine – a ratings plugin for comments that can also sort comments based on their rating. Can’t believe I can’t find it anywhere!
Does the “Better Comment Manager” mentioned above also send an email to the original author of the comment to which you are responding, letting them know that you’ve written back to them?
I installed and replied to a couple of comments but they’re not showing up on the blog. Could you advise?
WOW, Thanks man for this great work
Karthik: “I’m looking for a plugin like someone above mine – a ratings plugin for comments that can also sort comments based on their rating. Can’t believe I can’t find it anywhere!”
My comments exactly. And don’t send me to Comment Karma, that’s a mess.
I think better comments manager is the best =)
WOW no comment
Nice list!
I’m looking for a plugin that I’ve seen before but I can’t find it again. It is a plugin that lets visitors that commented to manage their notification, quitting from being notified of new comments and even changing their notification email.
Do you know which plugin is this?