One of my key “mantras”, if you like, is to really build and look after your blog community. Disqus is great for helping build discussion, but it lacks in a lot of other areas.

* No real mobile support
* Questionable spam filtering
* Extra load time on comments (especially lately)
* If you leave and go back to WordPress, you lose the threaded option (they all go back to single post comments).

The reason I like CommentLuv so much is that it opens me and my readers up to some great new blogs/bloggers that we’d never really have known about otherwise.

While you can certainly click through on just a name to see who and what they’re about, an enticing blog title takes that to the power of 10.

Anyhoo… that’s just my preference. Disqus is a good system, there’s no question about that. I just like the control your own system gives you more

Love this post, I’m going through a self-reflective process at the moment. Not sure about CommentLUV vs Disqus…I’m going with Disqus for now – but would love to hear why you use CommentLUV?

Also iThnk this is definitely something all bloggers do – so I’m limiting myself to thinking about it for only one day a week. Or else I never end up actually blogging – haha joyous indecision!

Little changes here and there, though, I think are more manageable. You could also write a post pre-experimentation asking for opinion, and using that feedback to build from. It’s really helped me out in the past, especially from a design angle.

So far I haven’t seen a major difference either way, so I’m guessing the changes I’m making gradually are ones that are less “irritable”, as opposed to wholesale changes across the board.

How that’ll pan out with my redesign is another matter, mind you…

I think what I like most about using the WordPress core comment system is that you can adapt to have what you like on there, either via plug-in or hard coding.

With the redesign that I’ll be unveiling soon, I’m working with a great designer over in L.A. and we have some cool ideas on styling the comments area – so that could be fun!

And as I always say, even just having one commenter means you have a community – size counts to a degree, but it’s the quality of the interaction that really counts. Something you have in spades.

Doesn’t matter if the blog is great – if you make it difficult in any way for your readers to participate, you’re simply losing out.

That’s a shame about the Digg Digg cut-off, thanks for the heads-up – although good “validation”, if you like, re. having extra sharing options.

And yes, we’re definitely our own worst critics – but that’s what often makes it fun

That is true of the blog design and sharing options as well. I’m never satisfied with how FrankDickinson.me looks, flows and works, so I’m fiddling all the time.

I’m wondering though if that provides a measure of stress on my readers? Do they get tired of constant changes?

Any thoughts from your experience?