[...] of Intense Debate, but found it lacked support with FriendFeed. Recently, I went on record as to my reasons for liking Intense Debate. One of those reasons included their willingness to support Seesmic video comments. Today, Disqus [...]

Intense debate is awesome, been using it for a month now, nice blog btw

Cool, I just did that. It looks ok. I feel compelled to edit the CSS but i will resist

I find these commenting tools increases the amount of commenting on your blog. I think the rating system of ID will encourage users to comment as well.

That's the main goal that we're trying to accomplish with Intense Debate – to give you the tools to better engage your readers. I'm really pleased to hear that you've already noticed an increase!

Our rating system is intended to not only encourage users to comment, but to also give you a quick way to cut through the junk and find the best comments made by the most credible users (as determined by your votes). It adds a level of accountability that I think has been missing from comments. Oh and by the way…you can choose how you want the comments to be sorted – by Rating, Date, or Last Activity – at the top of the comment section.

I don't mean post an essay here, it's just easy to get sidetracked! I really just wanted to thank you for the blog love and your kind words. We really appreciate it!

Cheers,
Michael

Intense Debate

Our reputation system is based on two factors: your frequency of comments and positive vs. negative ratings. Here's some (very) basic info – http://intensedebate.com/features. We're currently remaking IntenseDebate.com, so there may be some additional explanation for this in the future on our website.

Hope this helps!
Michael

I had a look though the ID settings and noticed the language filters, although I think the main issue I was trying to raise was that many people will actively seek to abuse voting systems. In fact whole groups of griefers will plan invasions and 'digg down' comments on mass that users make – regardless of the original commentors post.

What I would hate to see is the rep system you have developed to be abused in such a way. I love the idea of rewarding insightful/useful comments, and 'digging down' unhelpful ones. However, what protection is there for bloggers/blog commentors using ID when they are senselessly 'dugg down' for fun? Their one night of damage can destroy months of legitimate reputation building. However we mustn't forget that +ve Rep. bumping exists too!

I could suggest a few techniques (although they're based on AI principles & would need me to write a few notes before I passed them on), but another simple system measuring the influx of ratings from each user, the outflow of given ratings by each user, and an analysis of user trends might help flag up possible abusers for later moderation. This would allow control over user ratings and a degree of protection for serious users of your service.

I could talk more about curtailing voter abuse, but I feel bad for Mr Bwana by writing essays on his blog (assuming he doesn't mind of course)