As I already announced in my previous post, I sat down and rewrote the Show Top Commentators-Plugin by Nate Sanden to make it a fully configurable Sidebar Widget.
As of now I publish this Sidebar Widget for common public use, since the code it is based upon has been published under GPL license as well 
The zip file contains a README which includes the installation instructions, but as always concerning Sidebar Widgets, it is pretty easy. Here you can see a screenshot demonstrating both the option panel of the Widget and useful presets for the different options:
Here’s a brief description of all options:
- Widget title
Your Widget should have a title which is shown in your sidebar. - Reset
The statistics are reset automatically; by default the reset happens each week, but you may choose between hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis to reset the stats. If you do not want to reset at all, just choose the “all” option. Note: Using a larger time interval may result in the effect that some trolly people start spamming your blog to receive a backlink for a long period of time from your blog. - Number of Commenters
How many commentators should be visible in the top commentators list? - Filter user names
You usually do not want to be counted as a commentator for yourself, so you usually filter Administrator or admin or your own username on your blog. - Filter user IDs
If you prefer filtering by userid rather than adding the usernames to be filtered, you may choose this option instead. - Filter user URLs
If you just want to block some certain URLs in the list, here’s your chance to do so. - Define your ‘none’ text
As long as thete’s no new comment after a reset has happened, the text configured here will be shonw in your sidebar. - Link to users’ URLs
You may get rid of the spammer prblem at all, if you disable linking to your commentators’ homepages. - Show comments amount per user
You may choose to display the amount of comments a particular user has posted since the last reset of the statistics. - Name length limit
Long usernames tend to break the layout of the sidebar, so this is your option to choose how many characters of the username should be used before abbreviating the name.
Have fun with this widget! Your comments and feedback are appreciated as always, as well as a little donation to honor my work.
hakimtea meint
Thanks for the plugins is awsome… I will write a new entry about this, thanks to nate too
Carsten Albrecht meint
jan, it depends on your configuration how old comments are allowed to be to be taken into account. the default period of time is one week.
furtheron, I cannot exclude that imported comments lack necessary information to be taken into account.
Jen meint
Further to my last message, it’s actually only picking up new comments from me, despite not filtering any user names etc. Any ideas?!
Jen meint
Hi there,
I just installed this plugin on my friend’s blog that I’ve set up for her (link above) but it’s not picking up the comments we just imported from her old wordpress.com blog. I’ve tried reinstalling it but it is still only picking up my 2 test comments while I was setting up the blog. Probably something really simple, but can you tell me where we’re going wrong?! We have it set to a list of 10 and All comments.
Thanks!
Chris meint
Would it be possible to have a similar Plugin for the Top Contributors of a Blog? I’m planning a site with voluntary authors and it would be great to show off who is submitting the most articles.
Or can there simply something be changed in the code?
Many thanks!
Carsten Albrecht meint
no specification of days, only the options in the “reset” dropdown may be used.
Joel Teixeira meint
Hi friend,
Thanks for the great plugin, may you tell me how can I specify the numbers of days to reset.
45 days for example.
Very very thank you.
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