Friday, January 29, 2010

Comments Conundrum

Haloscan is being shut down on: Feb 11, 2010
The Haloscan hardware and software is physically failing and we have no choice but to discontinue the service.


That's the notice I received a few days ago from Haloscan, the service that currently allows commenting on this blog.

They offer two options:

1.) Switch to a paid service who will transfer and host all Haloscan comments and become the host for all future comments (for $12/year)

or

2.) Export all Haloscan comments as a file for which there is currently no way to import into any other useful commenting system.

Hmm...

When I started this blog, Blogger-hosted comments were either entirely non-existent or riddled with Spam, which is why I opted for Haloscan commenting in the first place.

When Blogger moved out of beta a few years ago and offered many new features, I felt a little bit trapped. Switching to New Blogger meant that many (if not all) the modifications I had made to my old template would be lost, including Haloscan comments, so I stuck with my old modified template.

Now that my hand has been forced (to decide, at least) and I'm choosing to give up the Haloscan comments for the time being, I am left with the feeling that this is a bit of a mixed blessing. Yes, I'm losing all of your comments (mine too!), but I'm hoping that New Blogger will offer some new features of which I'll be able to take advantage.

Besides -- when I started this blog, it was my only foray into the world wide web. Now, with Flickr and Facebook, etc, many of the smaller project and quips, observations, etc. find their way into other outlets.

I don't get that many comments in this blog space anymore, so it won't be too big a loss, I guess. Chances are, if I wasn't mentioning here, the few regular readers would likely have never noticed.

Bottom line: I will soon be switching to Blogger comments.

Hopefully, you'll see some other changes improvements in the near future, as well.

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