This is for my Tumblr friends who wanna allow non-Tumblr users to comment on your blog entries. As we all know, the default ways for people to sorta leave their words are:
- End your entry with a “?” so that people (even anonymous users) can answer your question
- By clicking on the “reply” link on your Tumblr dashboard.
The disadvantage of allowing people to comment or reply through this way is that you cannot reply to your own entries, which is somewhat problematic. So the best way is to have a comment box on each of your entries, and thankfully, Disqus has done all the work for us, and the process of installation is very quick!
But first thing first, go to the “customize” page. Understand that some Tumblr themes do not allow you to add the comment box, but if your blog layout is an ordinary one (ie: It doesn’t look like magazine with many columns on a page), then chances are you are able to get it done. Now, on the “Appearance” tab, see if there’s a space for you to enter your Disqus shortname, leave it blank for now.
If there is, then you’re in luck! It means the theme is Disqus-friendly! Now here comes the second step, you need to do is to go to Disqus’ registration site to sign up for an account there.

The “Site Shortname” you enter will be the same as your “Disqus shortname”. For example the shortname you decided to use is “Iamsosexyxoxoxoxo”, then it will be “Iamsosexyxoxoxoxo” and not “Iamsosexyxoxoxoxo.disqus.com, and remember, once you have chosen your shortname, you are NOT allowed to change it later on as it’s unique.
After registering an account on Disqus, you can now enter your shortname on your “Customize” page and save it, go to your homepage and you can see there’s a link under every entry that allows people to drop their comments. Note that Tumblr users CANNOT comment on your Disqus comment box through their Dashboard, they have to visit your homepage (e.g: My page: http://badboyisme.com (a.k.a http://badceddy.tumblr.com)
Basically that’s all you should do for a comment box to appear under every entry of yours. If you wanna play around with the settings, by all means go ahead, you can change the comment link’s wordings, instead of “0 comment”, you can change it under the settings page on Disqus’ site, there are not many things to play around so you should be able to explore it within 10 minutes.
You can also allow people to comment with their Facebook name or Twitter account, you know those who are extremely lazy to enter their names, email address blah blah blah would find this a useful function for them, or better yet, get them to sign up for Disqus.
With Disqus’ profile, you don’t have to sign in everytime you comment on someone’s blog with a Disqus comment box in it. Handy isn’t it? Also, if someone drops a comment for ya, you can choose to receive it on your emails and even REPLY through your email! It’s a very cool feature.
You can view the example of my thread here.
Now I don’t have to worry that people without Tumblr account can’t leave their comments and I don’t have to worry that I can’t reply to them. It’s all made very convenient for me.
I wrote this entry because I’ve got a few friends asking me about configuring a comment box in their blog. So there you have it! Rejoice! My Tumblr friends, once you have it installed, drop some words for me so that I can now comment on your site freely! ;)
