4 WordPress plugins to spice up your blog’s comment section

MyAvatars

MyAvatars WordPress plugin displays a reader’s MyBlogLog avatar near his/her comment. See your reader’s faces, or their funny avatars.

WP Grins

WP Grins displays clickable smileys near the comments text box. Let your readers add some dash of emotions in their comments, with loads of smileys to use while posting.

SezWho

With this plugin in action, readers can rate previous comments, add up to the reputation of a commentator, filter comments by ratings for viewing. Such points work across sites, since there’s a distributed system that manages it. Visit the SezWho site to download the plugin for use on your blog.

Yet another similar plugin is Comment Karma, but does not work universally on all sites. Ratings are specific to each blog, if I’m right. Visitors can give a thumbs up/down to a comment. Download Comment Karma from here.

FireStats

FireStats displays the Operating System, Browser, and Location of a commentator near his comment. Good for a show off, and it also provides statistics based on these - they can be accessed via your WordPress Admin Panel.

Do you have anything else to add?

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 1:20 pm and is filed under blogging, wordpress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

30 Responses to “4 WordPress plugins to spice up your blog’s comment section”

Ramkarthik on July 27th, 2007 at 1:24 pm

Wordpress plugins offer just anything and everything nowadays. Very good plugins to be more creative on the comments side.
Rishi on July 27th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

MyAvatar and WP Grin gives a great interaction for non geeky readers and commentators and also makes the comment section look decorated.
And SezWho plugin is greatest for increasing comments and sharing, rating comments.

I cannot think of FireStats has any helpful use, if you know plz educate me!
Ehsan on July 27th, 2007 at 3:59 pm

very Nice Plugins i always wondered about that grins plugin, btw u know how can i set a different color or a background image in the admin comment as i have seen many blogs where when the admin comments in a post it is displayed with a different color or admin badge image.
Haris on July 27th, 2007 at 4:12 pm

WoW! Thanks a lot for sharing! I’m planning to use the 1st, 2nd and the 4th one.
Kyle Eslick on July 27th, 2007 at 5:19 pm

Great list!

I’m not sure if I like the WP-Grins one, but the rest are all useful. I’ve been contemplating SezWho for awhile now.

I cannot think of FireStats has any helpful use, if you know plz educate me!

Well, beyond obviously calculating server-side metrics (which tend to be more accurate and often more detailed), you also get to display browser/operating system/country information next to the comics. I think this is a neat (and optional) feature.
Brown Baron on July 27th, 2007 at 6:49 pm

Great list. I’m thinking about adding SezWho but haven’t really decided yet. Nice job buddy.
Venu on July 27th, 2007 at 6:59 pm

Why not Gravatar instead of MyAvatar ? Gravatar did go down for a while for a revamp but its up now and running

Sezwho; Interesting, I should try it out.
Kyle Eslick on July 27th, 2007 at 7:06 pm

Why not Gravatar instead of MyAvatar ? Gravatar did go down for a while for a revamp but its up now and running

There is nothing wrong with Gravatar, except a much smaller percentage of people have a Gravatar than a MyBlogLog account. Also, the MyAvatars plugin supports Gravatar if you prefer to show Gravatars.
sindhu on July 28th, 2007 at 2:20 am

i’d like to know if there exists a plugin that would pull avatar if it exists from gravatar too? (if the user doesnt have one at mybloglog)
Sunil Parmar on July 28th, 2007 at 3:58 am

Hi there,
I’m using MyAvatars & i’m really happy with it.
Other plugins sound interesting too.
Will try them out sometimes.
The list is too good.

Take Care!!!
Links for July 2007 - blogZene.com on July 28th, 2007 at 5:38 am

[...] Shankar is the most active blogger I’ve met till now; an amazing person with a great depth in knowledge. Not to forget his passion for GNU/Linux. He has brought a well researched list of 4 best plugins to spice up your blogs comments. [...]
Shankar Ganesh on July 28th, 2007 at 8:23 am

I’m glad you found the post useful.
@Ehsan: You can check this post for details on customizing author comments:
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/customize-the-blog-author-comments/
@Kyle: I think you should install the SezWho plugin. I’m also considering to put it here. A good add-on.
@Sindhu: I’m not aware of such a plugin as of now. If ever I notice one, I’ll let you know.
shashank on July 28th, 2007 at 9:28 am

wpgrins is what i wanted…firestat is cool too….
i think myavatar will make the pages load slowly …

BTW you haven’t installed any of those..
shashank on July 28th, 2007 at 9:29 am

wpgrins link is not working…plz check
Benedict Herold on July 29th, 2007 at 1:01 am

I may need to install WP-Grin.. Nice list as usual Shankar.
Shankar Ganesh on July 29th, 2007 at 4:04 am

@Shashank: What’s the exact problem with the plugin?
@Ben: Thank you.
Madhur Kapoor on July 29th, 2007 at 10:04 am

Great list buddy . I will implement a few in my new theme .
Shankar Ganesh on July 29th, 2007 at 10:08 am

@Madhur: Thanks for dropping by. Glad you liked it. Looking forward to see your new theme!
Vijay on July 29th, 2007 at 2:58 pm

Great list Shankar.. I was thinking about implementing the MyAvatars for my blog. So, I guess I ll be doing it now..
TechZilo on July 29th, 2007 at 3:49 pm

I’d add AJAX preview, and subtract FireStats - plugins for just bling-bling is a big no.
WordPress Guru Advice on July 30th, 2007 at 2:51 am

There are cool things, and there are useful things. you really have to decide which one really adds to the value.

The Avatar one really adds to the value of your blog. The reason is that a lot of us are really visual people and we recognize each other with faces. Avatar makes it really easy to recognize people.

The other one that actually adds value is the preview. A number of times we make mistakes in typing and sometimes we find that some of our html is chopped. Preview definitely help in writing comments that are actually valuable.
shashank on July 30th, 2007 at 4:25 am

@Shankar
that day alexking site was down for a while now its ok …
Ehsan on July 30th, 2007 at 7:48 am

Sorry for the late reply it was great help i am trying it out right now lets see how it goes
Mani Karthik on July 30th, 2007 at 8:43 am

Thanks for the list Shankar - Much appreciated!
Nirmal on July 30th, 2007 at 9:51 am

Nice list Shankar.
@Sindhu,
I think you may be able to integrate mybloglog and Gravator using an if condition, not sure if it will work out. You can try.
Myo Kyaw Htun on July 30th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

Do you have any information about wordpress avatar instead of using gravatar service. Or those two services are same ?
Srinivasan Paul Joseph on July 30th, 2007 at 5:59 pm

Hi Shankar,

Really cool list of Comment Plugins. I liked them very much.

Thanks for the same…
Shankar Ganesh on July 31st, 2007 at 1:13 pm

@Myo Kyaw Htun: Well Gravatar is a completely independent of WordPress and I’ve not heard of any other avatar plugins other than MyAvatars and Gravatar. To the best of my knowledge, there’s nothing as ‘WordPress Avatars’
@Srinivasan: Thanks to you for dropping by. Glad you liked those plugins.
Vic on August 3rd, 2007 at 3:33 am

Thanks for such a great list of plugins, this list are so helpful for the new guy.

Thanks

Vic
Javed Khalil on November 12th, 2007 at 11:55 pm

Here is my plugins list.

http://javedkhalil.com/techBlog/wordpress-essential-plugins-widgets-spice-up-blogging-experience/

Shankar Ganesh