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Show HN: MyTwoCents – browser extension to put a comment section on any website
- trahn 9y agoI know many of you won't like that it uses Facebook comments but i chose it (for now) for a couple of reasons: 1) mainstream appeal 2) ease of integration 3) FB already has comments on some links. If people use the extension I'm thinking of Disqus as an alternative or - more longterm - a P2P solution.
- Gys 9y agoSwitching to Disqus will hardly increase the appeal for most of the same people that dislike FB. See for example these stats on Disqus: http://donw.io/post/github-comments/ http://donw.io/post/github-comments/
- trahn 9y agoInteresting link! I was thinking more from a privacy point. Easier to create a fake-Disqus account. :D
- franciscop 9y agoI made a similar project but using HN comments embeded in your website: https://comments.network/ https://comments.network/ However HN asked me to put it down and cancel it so it's discontinued now.
- hsrada 9y ago> However HN asked me to put it down and cancel it so it's discontinued now. What issue did they have with it?
- lolive 9y agoWon't the Facebook usage block your software from working inside companies?
- trahn 9y agoyeah, might be. don't know exactly how they block it in those cases.
- rambojazz 9y agoWhere is the code?
- trahn 9y agowhat do you mean?
- mlvljr 9y agoYeah
- rambojazz 9y agoThe [addon page](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mytwocents/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mytwocents/) says it's released under "Mozilla Public License, version 2.0", which is a free software license AFAIK. So... where is the code?
- trahn 9y agoHey, I just clicked the first license as I didn't know what I was doing. I don't have the code public anywhere right now, but if you download the extension it's there to see, right? What license should I put it under? Anyone?
- rambojazz 9y agoJust choose a free one [1], then share your code somewhere (github.com, notabug.org, your own website...) [1] https://tldrlegal.com/licenses/browse https://tldrlegal.com/licenses/browse
- laci27 9y agoGreat idea and great execution! You are right with FB comments for now. I'm super excited about what you created and I'm thinking of some ways to collaborate. will keep you posted here (if you want or not:) )
- trahn 9y agothanks. :) feel free to contact me.
- laci27 9y agoSo you basically created something more similar to Sumo, but instead of the site owner installing the tools, the end user does. So it could be much more than just a comments section... still can't put my finger on it, but still very excited:)
- trahn 9y agoDon't really know Sumo, but yeah, it's all client-side. It could be used for anything. I was just thinking of commenting on news articles where there's no comment section but still a need for it. Could also see it used on video sites to discuss movies/shows/etc. The thing is, we have a bit of a marketplace (chicken and egg) problem, as it needs users to be useful. That's why I'm trying to promote it to specific communities around specific websites (which is a maybe too vast pool :D ). If you have any ideas where it could be useful, let me know. :)
- tomcooks 9y agoWelcome to decentralized services! I suggest looking into beaker browser and the DAT protocol, also scuttlebutt and d.tube
- INTPenis 9y agoDidn't firefox attempt this a few years back? They had a chat feature that worked on each website and only between firefox users. I can't find it on google now but I'm sure this happened.
- trahn 9y agointeresting. didn't know. if anyone has more info?
- modernerd 9y agoMozilla's Talk: https://coralproject.net/products/talk.html https://coralproject.net/products/talk.html https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/09/06/mozilla-washington-post-reinventing-online-comments/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/09/06/mozilla-washington-... Microsoft's web notes: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17221/windows-10-write-on-the-web https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17221/windows-10-wr... Both different approaches, but may be of interest.
- laci27 9y agoEdge and Opera also had/have a similar feature, yes. The main thing is that users didn't know about them, or they were too early. With an extention that you install, you're more likely to use it... besides I think that all this needs is a hardcore community of users, and it will grow from there (just learn from other's mistakes: more recently Soundcloud).
- INTPenis 9y agoJust found out it was Mozilla Talk. I actually thought it was good to be "forced" upon every Firefox user. Unfortunately it came during mass migrations to Chrome. Because if it's an extention you won't have the same impact. If it's forced then you can be sure to connect with every other user of that browser and see what they've said about the website you're browsing. Of course I fear the security issues in such a feature. One XSS vuln and EVERYONE is affected. Edit: I misunderstood. My memory was that it was a built-in feature of Firefox that worked on every site. But Mozilla Talk requires a server infrastructure. Of course, makes sense now that I think about it. Where else would your messages be stored. Perhaps some sort of p2p thing but I don't think Mozilla would go that route yet. It's not mature enough.
- olav 9y agoHow does this relate to existing tools like https://web.hypothes.is/ https://web.hypothes.is/ or even W3C recommendations https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/REC-annotation-protocol-20170223/ https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/REC-annotation-protocol-20170223/ ?
- trahn 9y agoDidn't know either of those existed. Will check them out.
- jquip 9y agoThis is really nice trahn.. Please get some funding to get the word out before Disqus or any other comments app having a user base replicates the same. It isn't technically hard, but the business case is viable and people will want to invest in the minds that envisioned it and made this possible (you guys :) ) and see where it can go.
- trahn 9y agoThanks jquip. I guess, it's not that novel an idea, as you can see from some other comments here. The thing is it's a bit of a marketplace problem - gotta have users to be useful. Will see, where I can take it. Also, I'm a bit of the bootstrap/solopreneur mentality... :D Will have to see. :)
- hsrada 9y agoA feature suggestion: If another user has posted a comment on an article you are currently viewing, perhaps you can change the extension icon to indicate so. That could be a trigger to open the comment section. Otherwise, I'll probably keep being disappointed upon opening the section in websites that don't have comments in them. Note : I haven't actually installed/checked the extension out. Sorry if this feature's already there!
- trahn 9y agoYeah, it's already there. :) It shows the number of comments (>0) on the icon.
- new299 9y agoI applaud anyone who gets things finished and released. "chat on any website" extensions seem to pop up with some regularity though and it might be instructive review the others. One I found with a quick google search which has some useful comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4628577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4628577
- trahn 9y agoThanks for the heads-up. :) Will do a bit of research. But yeah, I recon it's not that novel a concept and have heard of others who had the idea before. For me it was/is more of a fun project to get back into coding a bit... but still want to see where I can take it. ;)
- flabetvibes 9y agoAnd how does this relate to https://epiverse.co/ https://epiverse.co/, another existing tool?
- trahn 9y agoagain, don't know it, will check it out. :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938982
- brownbat 9y agoI love the idea of disaggregating content production from moderation, they are very different competencies, and these annotate everything approaches are a great way to follow that philosophy. Google Sidewiki was one of my favorite shut down projects, this one looks even cleaner. I think moderation and community are hard to tack on, though those might be necessary to make these projects as popular and usable as social networks, to get the network effects rolling. Without them this risks becoming either "4chan everywhere," or "your one comment no one ever reads everywhere." Genius had an annotate everywhere feature that ran into the moderation issue: observer.com/2016/03/genius-web-annotator-emma-dawson-alana-massey Probably out of scope for you, just think those are interesting untackled problems in this space.
- dudzik 9y agoIt could be interesting if you tap into the resource of an existing website (Something like hn or reddit). It already has a community build around it and moderation in place. For example, if you are on an article and click on the extension you could see the corresponding page on hn. If the article hasn't been added then it could be added.
- brownbat 9y agoI really like this idea. HN is too curated to cover literally every site or article (and that's a good thing), but you could have a sidebar that federates multiple comment outlets... "Here's what people are saying online..." Like pingbacks, but less opt in. If nothing is found, the sidebar could push new comments to a special purpose subreddit, or some other default backstop.
- trahn 9y agoYeah, really like the idea as well... maybe another little project... :)
- trahn 9y agoYeah, you're right. Apparently many news sites that discontinued their comment sections did so, because moderation was too resource intensive and they argued that more and more discussion takes place on social networks. I don't really have the moderation issue for the extension right now, as I'm using FB comments. So, it's FB's responsibility; you can just use their regular report function. Another advantage with FB is, I think, their real-name-policy (if they still have that?); so comments shouldn't tend to get that out of hand - I hope. :D
- dudzik 9y agoI quite like this idea as it removes the need to include a comment system yourself. No need to include intrusive javascript or make the design visually littered. Can an author moderate his articles?
- trahn 9y agoHey, thought I replied to you. Apparently not, sorry. Moderation is only with FB right now. You can arrange your own moderation as well, put I'm not sure if I can scope it by domain or something or only for the entire app (i.e. extension), but it's probably not something I would go for. More here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/comments https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/comments
- foxhop 9y agoPart of the reason to have comments as part of your site is for SEO and capturing the long tail from user generated content. Basically rank higher on keywords searchers actually use by letting them use their own words on your site. Disclaimer: I run Remarkbox (https://www.remarkbox.com https://www.remarkbox.com)
- trahn 9y agoYeah, totally makes sense to have a comment section. This is for websites that don't offer that.
- trahn 9y agoBut interesting project you run there. Kinda like Disqus? Also, whos legal responsibility are the comments? I guess yours, as you host them?
- JeanMarcS 9y agoYou forgot the other reason on many sites: showing more and more ads at each step :-)
- meesterdude 9y agoI have a suggestion for a niche you might find explotable: cryptocurrency exchange trollboxes. Maybe a different version that automatically (or only) works for them. Poloniex removed theirs when users complained about the service - others like bittrex or coinbase don't have them. They're things where the sites don't want them (or are too lazy to) but users do use it for support/community too.
- trahn 9y agoWill try to promote in these circles! thanks.
- netman21 9y agoNice. I remember using something like this in the 90s. It was much less elegant. It got a lot of funding and disappeared during the dot com bust. It was written up in the Industry Standard, a trove of good ideas worth re-visiting in that magazine.
- KajMagnus 9y agoThis looks interesting. How do I know if someone else has left comments at a website / page I'm visiting? I probably wouldn't want to open the comments sidebar on each page, to find out. And I wouldn't notice if there's some small notification icon. The only things I'd react to, is blinkng light, and sound playing "There are comments". But is that too intrusive? To me, a voice saying "There are comments" would be fine. Who is going to moderate comments? I'm afraid people who say evil angry things to other will dominate a discussion system like this, as is usually the case, when there is no strict moderation, right. Well maybe as long as you use Facebook Comments, it has moderation features already?
- trahn 9y agoIt has a comment count on the extension icon, which looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/XWrcN https://imgur.com/a/XWrcN My first version was more intrusive and put an icon with comment count on every website, but I decided against this, as it needs "read all your website data"-permission for the extension, which can be off-putting. Now, the comment section only gets injected when the icon is clicked. Re moderation: Yeah, it has the usual FB comments features, i.e. you can report to Facebook and I could also assign moderators I guess (which I don't really plan to do; don't know if that would work site-wide - I guess only for the whole extension, so any site). I'm thinking Facebook comments shouldn't get as out-of-hand as other systems, where it's easier to just create fake/anonymous/throw-away accounts...
- pascalxus 9y agoHonestly, i was going to build this. But, I kept thinking that there wasn't that strong of a need for it. Also, in order for someone to see comments on something, someone else would have seen the site first and commented there, so it kinda depends on network effects.
- dcsan 9y agoWhat were the OSS versions of commenting plugins - that don't need a browser extension. Mobile browsers are not going to be able to use this. I run some sites that are used in China, where FBcomments/disqus are blocked. As a site owner I'm also responsible for policing my comments section. But a separately hosted solution could be an interesting way around that.
- rahimnathwani 9y agoI like the Hacker News Sidebar browser extension for this: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-sidebar/ngljhffenbmdjobakjplnlbfkeabbpma https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-sideba... I guess there must be something similar to display Reddit comments in a sidebar.