October 13, 2005

Respect to Hossien Sharifi

I have used YACCS as my commeting utility on this and other blogs since 2001. In all of that time, when other blog tools were sucking at comments and letting in spammers or not offering comments at all or forcing you to develop 'black lists,' YACCS performed like a champ.

Hossein has rocked this house multiple times, never charging a dime. I don't know what his business model is--I don't know him at all--but if he's like the good folks who have been around here for a while, he didn't have a business mmodel when he started playing with comments. He was curious. He was already passionate about running a data-driven conversation platform.

Unfortunately, of late, YACCS has been throwing too many errors for me to keep up with on this blog. I get emails from folks who say, "why'd you take your comments down!" I've never taken my comments down, but sometimes YACCS has to go hurl and then it comes right back. In the mean time, it makes the blog take a LONG TIME to load. Too long.

When Blogger finally incorporated a commenting utility in this tool a year or so ago, I stuck with YACCS. I have four years of the most meaningful conversation of my life sitting in Hossein's database(s). I was not moved to switch.

But today I've turned on Blogger comments. What I want is for someone to buy YACCS and pay Hossein $2-$5 million like Dave Winer, because Hossein has also offered an incredibly valuable, free service and has never said a nasty word or pontificated or complained or jumped up and down. And he's provided what I think is the most reliable comment utilities in blogging for the longest time. Comment spam? I don't get any with YACCS.

So, in the mean time, while I wait to see how long it takes Hossein to get YACCS cooperating again or putting a few million dollars in the bank, I've saved the line in my template that lets me put YACCS back in. Hossein, I'm not leaving--I'm just taking a break and hoping you get rich. Keep my conversations safe.

THANKS,
respect.
jeneane