6 ms·

As a blogger of 15 years, the issue to me now is that comments almost always take place in Facebook or Twitter, not on my blog. I blog. Then post the link to s

by judah 9y ago

As a blogger of 15 years, the issue to me now is that comments almost always take place in Facebook or Twitter, not on my blog. I blog. Then post the link to social media. I'll get tens or hundreds of comments on social media, but maybe 3 on the blog itself. Do any of these commenting systems have a way to say, "Any comments that happen on [Facebook/Twitter] should be added to the blog comment thread"?

russellbeattie 9y ago
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/embedded-comments https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/embedded-commen...
- judah 9y ago
  That's not it. I don't want Facebook comments embedded in my blog. I want comments that were made on Facebook to appear on my blog's native comment system. Outside the walled garden.
  - meestaahjoshee 9y ago
    what's the average facebook user/friend's incentive to leave a comment on your blog rather than on facebook? if they leave a comment for you, sure I would put it on the blog. but if people are discussing the article, isn't it easier to do on facebook?
    - spondyl 9y ago
      I believe they're imagining a system where any comments on Facebook/Twitter etc would be essentially mirrored. Perhaps a webhook of sorts that pushes comments discussing a link to the link itself and would then be imported into their own comments database. Of course, I doubt Facebook would do this seeing as there's no tangible benefit to them
lazerwalker 9y ago
What's troublesome about systems like that is they invariably end up pulling FB's tracking code onto your blog.
- judah 9y ago
  Right, we don't want that. I think it's technically possible to do the following: 1. I, as the blog owner, authorize this Facebook app to access my Facebook page. 2. I tell the Facebook app the URL of my blog. 3. That Facebook app watches my Facebook page for any posts linking to my blog. 4. When it detects a post on my page linking to my blog, it scans the comments of that post and automatically re-posts those comment to my blog's native comment system, outside the FB walled garden. Ditto for a Twitter-authorized app. This way, all the comments about my original content stick with the original content, rather than bound up in walled gardens. While this all is technically possible, it probably breaks Facebook's terms of service.
  - joombaga 9y ago
    What if I want to reply to a comment that was made on Facebook? How would the user be notified?
    - judah 9y ago
      The Facebook app should sync comments on Facebook with those on the blog. So, you could just reply on Facebook, which would then automatically get posted to the blog. As for the other way around, when a reply is posted on the blog to a comment that was imported from Facebook, I think the FB app could handle that too, and post a reply to the Facebook thread: "Joe Foobar posted a reply to you here: [link to comment on blog]"
KajMagnus 9y ago
I don't think any commenting system has that feature. You're thinking about something that automatically integrated with FB/Twitter/etc? So if someone posts a comment about your blog post at FB, it appears on your blog too? (I saw your reply & clarification to someone else below.) I suppose if there was a way to do that, FB and Twitter would dedicate some time to stop & prevent & break that feature, because they want the discussion to happen at their place instead :- ( Maybe a text message asking the user to please cross post, could do some good? (but not much I suppose) I've been thinking about if FB, Twitter, etc could be used as notification systems, so, if someone, X, posted a comment at the blog, and someone replied a few days later — then X got a notification via Facebook or Twitter. I had a quick look but didn't find a way to do that via FB. (Because then higher likelihood that people go back to the blog, reply, and continue discussing with each other.) I was going to ask what blog commenting system you use, and say that if you added Facebook or Gmail login, maybe more people would post comments, since they wouldn't need to sign up and create an account, just to post a comment. — But now I had a look at a blog linked via your profile, and I see you already have FB and Gmail login.
chipotle_coyote 9y ago
Well, the technology is there already, with Webmention support. https://indieweb.org/Webmention https://indieweb.org/Webmention I have these enabled on my own blog via the WordPress Bridgy plugin, which can report back on links to your article from Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Flickr. https://indieweb.org/Bridgy https://indieweb.org/Bridgy I doubt any of these "Disqus-like" services support this, because it sounds like it's solving a different problem. (Although it'd be useful if they did support it, the way earlier blogging systems display "pingbacks" as if they were comments.
- KajMagnus 9y ago
  This was interesting :- ) Doesn't seem to work so well with Facebook to me? If I write a blog post and use Brid.gy: I'm getting the impression Brid.gy (https://brid.gy/ https://brid.gy/) only lets me see [mentions about the blog post] that my Facebook account can see? If there's a public discussion about the blog post, somewhere at Facebook in a group of people I'm not connected with — then Brid.gy won't find it? Is that how it works in general? I mean, the blog & web-mentions tech, will find web-mentions, only about things the blog author can see, via his/her own social media accounts? I'm then getting the feeling that ... if a blog gets popular, shared and discussed a lot at Facebook etc, 99% of all discussions & shares etc, won't be found, because the blog author isn't connected to those people on the relevant social media places. (?)
- zaarn 9y ago
  Webmention is quite a cool tech, though it seems to have a very low adoption outside the indieweb community. The validation tool seems to be broken too [0] [1] and a lack of compliance [2] in the community. It's probably also not good that there is only one test suite, I'd feel more comfy if I could validate against more independent suites. [0] https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/26 https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/26 [1] https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/32 https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/32 [2] https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/27 https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/27
spondyl 9y ago
There is an API of sorts that pings your blog if it gets published to eg; Hacker News but I can't remember the name currently. It's opt in and I think Lobsters uses it? Anyway, it's not exactly what you're after as it wouldn't ping you about individual comments, just threads in general

by judah 9y ago

russellbeattie 9y ago

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/embedded-comments https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/embedded-commen...

judah 9y ago
That's not it. I don't want Facebook comments embedded in my blog. I want comments that were made on Facebook to appear on my blog's native comment system. Outside the walled garden.
- meestaahjoshee 9y ago
  what's the average facebook user/friend's incentive to leave a comment on your blog rather than on facebook? if they leave a comment for you, sure I would put it on the blog. but if people are discussing the article, isn't it easier to do on facebook?
  - spondyl 9y ago
    I believe they're imagining a system where any comments on Facebook/Twitter etc would be essentially mirrored. Perhaps a webhook of sorts that pushes comments discussing a link to the link itself and would then be imported into their own comments database. Of course, I doubt Facebook would do this seeing as there's no tangible benefit to them

lazerwalker 9y ago

What's troublesome about systems like that is they invariably end up pulling FB's tracking code onto your blog.

judah 9y ago
Right, we don't want that. I think it's technically possible to do the following: 1. I, as the blog owner, authorize this Facebook app to access my Facebook page. 2. I tell the Facebook app the URL of my blog. 3. That Facebook app watches my Facebook page for any posts linking to my blog. 4. When it detects a post on my page linking to my blog, it scans the comments of that post and automatically re-posts those comment to my blog's native comment system, outside the FB walled garden. Ditto for a Twitter-authorized app. This way, all the comments about my original content stick with the original content, rather than bound up in walled gardens. While this all is technically possible, it probably breaks Facebook's terms of service.
- joombaga 9y ago
  What if I want to reply to a comment that was made on Facebook? How would the user be notified?
  - judah 9y ago
    The Facebook app should sync comments on Facebook with those on the blog. So, you could just reply on Facebook, which would then automatically get posted to the blog. As for the other way around, when a reply is posted on the blog to a comment that was imported from Facebook, I think the FB app could handle that too, and post a reply to the Facebook thread: "Joe Foobar posted a reply to you here: [link to comment on blog]"

KajMagnus 9y ago

I don't think any commenting system has that feature. You're thinking about something that automatically integrated with FB/Twitter/etc? So if someone posts a comment about your blog post at FB, it appears on your blog too? (I saw your reply & clarification to someone else below.) I suppose if there was a way to do that, FB and Twitter would dedicate some time to stop & prevent & break that feature, because they want the discussion to happen at their place instead :- ( Maybe a text message asking the user to please cross post, could do some good? (but not much I suppose) I've been thinking about if FB, Twitter, etc could be used as notification systems, so, if someone, X, posted a comment at the blog, and someone replied a few days later — then X got a notification via Facebook or Twitter. I had a quick look but didn't find a way to do that via FB. (Because then higher likelihood that people go back to the blog, reply, and continue discussing with each other.) I was going to ask what blog commenting system you use, and say that if you added Facebook or Gmail login, maybe more people would post comments, since they wouldn't need to sign up and create an account, just to post a comment. — But now I had a look at a blog linked via your profile, and I see you already have FB and Gmail login.

chipotle_coyote 9y ago

Well, the technology is there already, with Webmention support. https://indieweb.org/Webmention https://indieweb.org/Webmention I have these enabled on my own blog via the WordPress Bridgy plugin, which can report back on links to your article from Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Flickr. https://indieweb.org/Bridgy https://indieweb.org/Bridgy I doubt any of these "Disqus-like" services support this, because it sounds like it's solving a different problem. (Although it'd be useful if they did support it, the way earlier blogging systems display "pingbacks" as if they were comments.

KajMagnus 9y ago
This was interesting :- ) Doesn't seem to work so well with Facebook to me? If I write a blog post and use Brid.gy: I'm getting the impression Brid.gy (https://brid.gy/ https://brid.gy/) only lets me see [mentions about the blog post] that my Facebook account can see? If there's a public discussion about the blog post, somewhere at Facebook in a group of people I'm not connected with — then Brid.gy won't find it? Is that how it works in general? I mean, the blog & web-mentions tech, will find web-mentions, only about things the blog author can see, via his/her own social media accounts? I'm then getting the feeling that ... if a blog gets popular, shared and discussed a lot at Facebook etc, 99% of all discussions & shares etc, won't be found, because the blog author isn't connected to those people on the relevant social media places. (?)
zaarn 9y ago
Webmention is quite a cool tech, though it seems to have a very low adoption outside the indieweb community. The validation tool seems to be broken too [0] [1] and a lack of compliance [2] in the community. It's probably also not good that there is only one test suite, I'd feel more comfy if I could validate against more independent suites. [0] https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/26 https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/26 [1] https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/32 https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/32 [2] https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/27 https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/27

spondyl 9y ago

There is an API of sorts that pings your blog if it gets published to eg; Hacker News but I can't remember the name currently. It's opt in and I think Lobsters uses it? Anyway, it's not exactly what you're after as it wouldn't ping you about individual comments, just threads in general