I found out about this a couple of days ago through the Top 10 WorPress Plugin Authors post, but only decided to talk about it now, coz this is a scheduled post, muahahahahah!!

I should have felt happier that I ranked in the 200s for the Top Commentators widget, but really, the credit should go to Personal Finance Advisor for developing the original plugin in the first place. The TCW, as I fondly call it, still has bugs to squash, so it’s not perfect. The new update will be published sometime this month, together with the start of the WordPress GEDCOM plugin I plan to develop.

You should really take a look at the Top 1000 list, as they contain some wonderful plugins such as Article Templates, Amazon Reloaded for WordPress, eShop, WordPress Download Monitor, and many more. If you’re creative, a lot of them can be used for your niche sites, either to improve usability or improve SEO!

How’s that for a first post in 2009?

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Yes, and finally it’s version 1.0. It’s a small update, but one which can improve the sidebar layout if you have been affected by it. The latest version fixes the extra tag that appears on all other pages when Show In Home Only is selected. Thanks to Ulquiorra for reporting the bug.

Download Top Commentators widget v.1.0 now.

Related posts:

1. Top Commentators Widget v.1.2 now up

(Tacky headline, don’t you think?)

If you’re subscribed to my feeds, you probably don’t realize that I have made three changes to my blog this month. Although very small, they’ve been very significant in terms of increased traffic, and — yes — increased moolah! Yeehah!

1. The Top Commentators list at WebGrrrl.net has been increased
   Many people who have used this plugin/widget have posted about how Top Commentators can increase a blog’s visitor participation and bring in more traffic. And they’re true. Of course, comments also depends on the quality of your posts, PageR***, and removing the nofollow tag off your comments. I recently thought that it would be cool to just list as many commentors as possible every month, so that every one gets the chance to show off their URLs in my home page. It’s currently set to 30 names, but I’ll keep increasing them as the commentors grow every month. From the increased comments I received, everyone seems to like this change.
2. EntreCard has been added
   I am loving the EntreCard concept; users get EC credits for visiting or being visited, then use the points to advertise or buy some stuff. I have noticed a 20% increase in visits since I installed EC on my sidebar, and discovered many other great blogs out there that I ended up subscribing to.
3. Ads have been added
   Because of the increased traffic, I thought that I should just take advantage of it by targeting and monetizing my popular posts. You should only see those big ads showing up in certain posts that are popular with the search engines. And, oh boy, it is definitely showing some very good results! I like to do the hard work, but it doesn’t hurt to get some passive income once in a while.

At least try the first two if you’re looking to build some easy traffic into your site or increase your blog’s popularity. Feel free to share your own traffic-building tips, too.

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I am in the midst of updating the Top Commentators Widget, and have a few changes in mind for this:

1. Modifying commentator queries based on e-mail addresses instead of URLs. I have read a few posts currently in the Web about how Top Commentators plugin can be hijacked by spammers, by way of typing in legitimate site URLs of honest commentators in a particular blog, then possibly inserting the spamming URL in the content of a comment. The suggested fix to this issue is to do queries of top commentators based on e-mail addresses, which are hidden from comments (as is most often practiced). I have suggested a fix that does just that in one of the comments of the Top Commentators Widget, but I have not tested it extensively. I’ll be doing so before releasing the next version of this widget.
2. Fixing the unclickable form fields in the Control Form. There’s only one, really, that I have identified as problematic, and that is the “Specify number of days” field under the reset period. The problem is apparently caused by the label tag wrapping around both the reset period and reset day fields. I have redone that part in my current test.
3. Option to list only commentators with URLs.
4. Fix the exclude URLs field, which seems to not work the way it suppose to.
5. (Added 4/Mar/08) Option to display or not display comment count.
6. (Added 11/Mar/08) Option to set NoFollow on all links in the list.

There were a few more issues I would like to fix but which may be out of my control. For example, a few commented that changes were not reflected even when saved (this could be permissions issues or browser not refreshed after changes were applied), and the control form not showing at all (certain browsers can’t display the JavaScript-and-CSS-based form properly; you may want to try using a different browser just to make sure).

If you’re currently using the widget and have anything else to add before the update is released (probably end of March), please use the comment form in this post, instead of the widget home post, and I’ll see what I can do with the request.

Related posts:

1. Top Commentators Widget v.1.2 now up

Updated 06/Jan/2010: Download Top Commentators Widget v.1.3 (refer to the README for customization). And, yes, it works with WordPress 2.9.1.

Holy Molly, I never thought I’d make one so soon, but it’s true! I’ve created my very first WordPress Widget!

Yeah, well, not exactly. I adapted this Top Commentators Widget from the actual Show Top Commentators (hereto known as STC) plugin by PFA. Here’s actually what happened:

1. Went to Giuk.Net as usual, saw MrBadak talking about his newly installed plugins, and I hopped by.
2. Excitedly surfed into Personal Financial Advice to download the STC plugin.
3. Followed the instructions to the dot, only to find out later that it won’t work if you have Sidebar Widgets activated.
4. Googled for a widgetized version of STC, only to find that the download links don’t work.
5. Desperately needed to install it, so I did the next best thing a desperate grrrl would do — build one.
6. Accidentally sacrificed a few other widgets due to carelessness, but nevermind as I always back-up.
7. Destabilized my site with countless access error messages and loads of SQL warnings.
8. Trying so hard to stay true to the original codes, only to surrender at the last minute and decided to strip down most of the original codes off, therefore FINALLY COMPLETING MY MISSION!

But wait….

Crapazoola. After more googling, I found out that the STC plugin does run on widgets, if you installed the executable PHP for Text widgets first.

My ego is effectively squashed by this new-found knowledge. It took me an embarrassing 8 hours just to get this heck of a plugin to work as a Widget, which goes to show how badly I need to polish up on my PHP.

You may happily use this full-fledged Widget by downloading here:

Download Top Commentators Widget v.1.3

Installation instructions

(WordPress 2.5 and above)

1. Unzip to get the topcommentators_widget.php file.
2. Upload the file into the wp-content/plugins folder.
3. In your WP admin console, go to Plugins and activate Top Commentators Widget.
4. In your WP admin console, go to Design | Widgets and click Add beside the Top Commentators widget.
5. Click Edit on the Top Commentators then scroll down and click Change.
6. Drag the Top Commentators to wherever you want it to be, and click the Save Changes button if you want to stick to the default values.
7. That’s it!

(WordPress 2.3.3 and lower)

1. Unzip to get the topcommentators_widget.php file.
2. Upload the file into the wp-content/plugins folder.
3. In your WP admin console, go to Plugins and activate Top Commentators Widget.
4. In your WP admin console, go to Presentation | Widgets (for WordPress 2.2 and later) or Presentation | Sidebar Widgets (for older WordPress versions), and drag the Top Commentators widget to wherever you want it to be, and click the Save Changes button.
5. Nah, that’s it! Remember to read the FAQ to see what options you can play around in the Top Commentators Widget.

Customization

Please refer to the README file or the WordPress Plugins Directory page for TCW for the latest changelog, available options, snapshots, buglist, etc.

Bug Reports

The comments on this page has been disabled. Please go to WordPress.org and post your issues in the Support Forum. Remember to tag your posts as top-commentators-widget (remember the widget part!).

My Wish-List as of 05/Oct/2009

• Allow TCW to be used in more than one sidebar within a blog.Totally forgot about this in v.1.2. Will do so for the next version.
• Allow users to select the default Gravatar to be used.
  

Donate?

Sure, if you want to, though it’s not necessary. Just PayPal any amount to me at “webgrrrl”.”net” (remember to remove the quotes).

Related posts:

1. Top Commentators Widget v.1.2 now up
2. WebGrrrl.net now an URL shortener with YOURLS