GitHub does commenting reasonably well indeed, but I’m worried about adding even more dependencies on the centralized, commercial service belonging to Microsoft.
I get what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t call it a “dependency” personally. It’s a nice to have thing that I offer to people who want to use it. If it goes away (doubtful) it’s no big deal.
Something like a mailing list wouldn’t have this issue. Since many people don’t like the concept of “mailing lists”, simply including a mailto: link at the bottom of the article and a link to the online list archives without including the words “mailing list” on your website should do the trick.
Most commenting platforms require users to create an account with their email; if you require an email, you might as well use it.
A few people have told me about Utterances since I published this post. It looks really cool. I deliberately wanted the comments to be a separate thing from the blog though, so I wouldn’t want to use a tool like this to pull them in.
On one hand, I get that it’s nice to have a centralized place for comments, and not have to worry about spam (for the most part), but part of me wonders if there’s a better way to meet people in multiple places for comments.
Once I redo my blog, I want the comments section to be links to places like twitter, mastodon, maybe here or HN, where there’s an easy way to dialog for people who don’t want to be forced to make a GitHub account. Just a thought for people looking to have a third-party host their comments.
Once I redo my blog, I want the comments section to be links to places like twitter, mastodon, maybe here or HN, where there’s an easy way to dialog
That doesn’t sound like it follows. If someone on Twitter comments on your blog will that be reflected to Mastodon? Will someone who then replies on Mastodon be able to reply? I suppose it’s true in the strict definition of dialog (i.e. two participants) for communication between you and one other person at a time but it sounds as if you’ll end up with a load of distinct views on different subsets of the comments that people interact with.
I’ve had that in the past, where “comments” are pulled from multiple sources, like Mastodon and Twitter via Webmention. But I didn’t want all the noise on my blog posts, and I didn’t want to have to manage them (they come through as WP comments). This way, there’s a platform for people to discuss the post, without the extra headache for me of managing comments.
HN or here would be great alternatives to GitHub Issues, but I think it would have to be HN rather than here, as the topics are VERY focused here (that’s a good thing), so a general life update, for example, wouldn’t be appropriate to post here. So there would effectively be no comments on that post.
GitHub does commenting reasonably well indeed, but I’m worried about adding even more dependencies on the centralized, commercial service belonging to Microsoft.
I get what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t call it a “dependency” personally. It’s a nice to have thing that I offer to people who want to use it. If it goes away (doubtful) it’s no big deal.
It’s a “dependency” in that it’s
Something like a mailing list wouldn’t have this issue. Since many people don’t like the concept of “mailing lists”, simply including a
mailto:link at the bottom of the article and a link to the online list archives without including the words “mailing list” on your website should do the trick.Most commenting platforms require users to create an account with their email; if you require an email, you might as well use it.
looks similar to utterances
A few people have told me about Utterances since I published this post. It looks really cool. I deliberately wanted the comments to be a separate thing from the blog though, so I wouldn’t want to use a tool like this to pull them in.
Also Gitalk
On one hand, I get that it’s nice to have a centralized place for comments, and not have to worry about spam (for the most part), but part of me wonders if there’s a better way to meet people in multiple places for comments.
Once I redo my blog, I want the comments section to be links to places like twitter, mastodon, maybe here or HN, where there’s an easy way to dialog for people who don’t want to be forced to make a GitHub account. Just a thought for people looking to have a third-party host their comments.
That doesn’t sound like it follows. If someone on Twitter comments on your blog will that be reflected to Mastodon? Will someone who then replies on Mastodon be able to reply? I suppose it’s true in the strict definition of dialog (i.e. two participants) for communication between you and one other person at a time but it sounds as if you’ll end up with a load of distinct views on different subsets of the comments that people interact with.
I’ve had that in the past, where “comments” are pulled from multiple sources, like Mastodon and Twitter via Webmention. But I didn’t want all the noise on my blog posts, and I didn’t want to have to manage them (they come through as WP comments). This way, there’s a platform for people to discuss the post, without the extra headache for me of managing comments.
HN or here would be great alternatives to GitHub Issues, but I think it would have to be HN rather than here, as the topics are VERY focused here (that’s a good thing), so a general life update, for example, wouldn’t be appropriate to post here. So there would effectively be no comments on that post.
Or just start your own subreddit.