Customizable Lightweight Forum & Commenting System – Moot

Note: Moot is now unavailable.

It is vital for media-filled sites to have a community and a reader base, which involves interaction from the readers and moderators via commenting and forum systems. Let me present you a simple, feature-filled, record-breaking community system: Moot.

Moot offers some great and convenient features and tools that other commenting and forum systems do not: super-simple embeddable forums and comments, advanced styling options, affordable pricing, awesome feeds, is real-time and here’s the best part: Moot is the only forum and commenting system that allows users to have one login for forums and comments in your community.

Getting Moot Set Up

Getting started and all setup with Moot is a bit different from other community interaction services and apps, yet still simple and easy. Click “Setup” on the Moot website, and register your name (it has to be at least 5 characters long).

After choosing a name, you can register or log into your account. You will then run through a step-by-step introduction into creating your forums and commenting system with descriptions, names, topics, and websites and finally publish your first forum post.

Installing Moot on Your Website or App

Getting Moot setup and ready to be used on your website and app takes only 5 simple and convenient steps.

Visit your forum’s dashboard on your Moot URL and click the Embed on your site link on the right-hand bottom corner. Then follow the steps and paste the forums code on the appropriate page; do the same for the commenting system.

Embeddable code instructions:

1. Copy the code to your clipboard.
2. Paste the code in an empty HTML page( on your text editor)
3. Open the page on your browser for a quick look.
4. Integrate the source code into your site.
5. For more information, read the installation documents for more information.

Account and Websites Feed

Moot has a great and handy feature in your account dashboard for viewing the feeds most important to you. If you follow, like or comment on a user’s comment or forum post, the feed for that particular content will show up on your account feed. From there you can also comment, discuss, like and follow posts as well.

More Features and Tools

Online Users

Moot has a really neat and useful feature to show you or even your users who is online using your forums and commenting actively. You can also use the advanced CSS and Javascript editor to spruce it up a bit, if you prefer to customize these elements to suit your site’s design.

Real-Time Commenting and Following System

Your comments and forums feed, posts, content and other media will show in real-time. You can comment or post a reply to the real-time content without leaving that page.

Automatic Spam Checking

Moot has built-in an automatic spam-checking system that fights and defends against spam, Akismet – Spam protection made by Automattic, the makers of WordPress.

Upgrading Your Account

Moot allows users to upgrade their accounts to get features such as custom branding for $10/Month and also for an extra $20/Month you can get a single site login across your whole website.

Advantages

• Search engine friendly. Pushing users to your site from search results.
• Syntax highlight and Live preview: See formatting, smileys and syntax as you type.
• Vector graphics: With CSS definable colors and sizing.
• Unofficial WordPress plugins are available.
• Automatic emails to follow new replies.
• Single sign-on support for your website, forums and comments!
• 21 localized languages and right-to-left (RTL) support.

Disadvantages

• Login via Twitter and Facebook. No login via other social accounts.
• Somewhat plain default design. Can be easily changed with CSS to match your web and app themes.
• No individual dashboard for comments (yet)
• Logo and other custom branding is only in the upgrade.

Conclusion

Moot is a great alternative to the other services and applications for forums and comment systems as it has some wonderful and useful features with great customization options, real-time capabilities, easy-to-integrate codes, and more.

The default design and layout is a bit weak, but I found it very easy to customize Moot for my app’s theme, and easy customization is always a big plus for developers.