4 ms·

That is a good idea but would people really want to leave the site to open their email client and make a comment? I had once thought about a different approach

That is a good idea but would people really want to leave the site to open their email client and make a comment? I had once thought about a different approach - Creating a Google form (for each blog post) and then embedding it on the blog post. Then whenever anyone submits a comment via the form, it would get saved to a Google spreadsheet(this needs to be made publicly readable). The unwanted comments can just be deleted from the spreadsheet. The contents of this spreadsheet can then be obtained in a JSON format and displayed on the blog post using Javascript.

pier25 7y ago
Or you can just post the blog post to Reddit/HN with a link to those at the end of the article and let your readers comment there.
- bishalb 7y ago
  Yes but again, I prefer not to offload commenting to a third party because they can ban you(reddit can ban your subreddit) or just stop their service(Google Plus comments). If I am to use Reddit, I might as well just use Disqus or Facebook comments that I can embed on the site and my visitors won't even have to leave the site to comment on a post.
  - KajMagnus 7y ago
    Hmm a 1st party commenting service can ban you too? What makes you feel safer w.r.t. getting banned, if you were to use say a service provided by Ghost, instead of e.g. Disqus? A difference could be that, with a 1st party commenting service, your whole blog might get banned, instead of only the comments. (Depending on how banning gets implemented.)
    - bishalb 7y ago
      Yes I agree. That's why I am a proponent of hosting your blog posts and comments yourself using Wordpress or other similar CMS on a VPS or a shared host. Also, Ghost doesn't even have a commenting service of their own and one would need to rely on Disqus to add comments on a Ghost powered blog :)
  - pier25 7y ago
    > because they can ban you Anyone can ban you, even your hosting company. In practice banning is pretty rare. > I might as well just use Disqus or Facebook comments that I can embed on the site And you will contribute to unethical tracking practices even if your users are not logged in to Facebook or Disqus[1]. [1] https://replyable.com/2017/03/disqus-is-your-data-worth-trading-for-convenience/ https://replyable.com/2017/03/disqus-is-your-data-worth-trad...
    - bishalb 7y ago
      Hosting companies banning you is very rare(at least with reputable ones, I am not sure of the cheap VPSs on lowendbox). And you can always download the database and move to another hosting pretty easily. Subreddits getting banned is not so rare. If lets say Disqus (or reddit) bans you, how do you move those comments to another third party lets say facebook comments(or HN)? >And you will contribute to unethical tracking practices even if your users are not logged in to Facebook or Disqus[1]. I don't care much about that because one way or the other one of the tech giants is going to track us anyway. I would much rather install Google analytics and get a great overview of my visitors. I don't think anyone who is an active user of the tracking behemothos Facebook or Google(which represents most of the internet users) should be concerned about tracking. But coming to main point, I am actually against Disqus or facebook comments. I prefer plain old self hosted comments(wordpress) for other reasons and this solves your concern as well.
      - pier25 7y ago
        > Subreddits getting banned is not so rare If you moderate a subreddit it's extremely unlikely a ban would happen since you have control over the content. But hey, I get it, you like Wordpress.
KajMagnus 7y ago
Hmm interesting approach. What about reply notifications? If Jane replies to Joe's comment? Maybe with Zapier or ifttt it'd be possible to construct automatic reply notifications. ... But then, what about unsubscribe, hmm. > saved to a Google spreadsheet(this needs to be made publicly readable) Hmm, then, people's email addresses cannot be remembered, meaning, no reply notifications?
- bishalb 7y ago
  Yeah this is just a hacky solution, not very effective. Forget reply notifications, even replying to a comment in a threaded style would be tricky using this approach :)
viraptor 7y ago
> That is a good idea but would people really want to leave the site to open their email client and make a comment? In most cases this means tapping on the link and typing the response. Mobile OSes make it pretty seamless.

pier25 7y ago

Or you can just post the blog post to Reddit/HN with a link to those at the end of the article and let your readers comment there.

bishalb 7y ago
Yes but again, I prefer not to offload commenting to a third party because they can ban you(reddit can ban your subreddit) or just stop their service(Google Plus comments). If I am to use Reddit, I might as well just use Disqus or Facebook comments that I can embed on the site and my visitors won't even have to leave the site to comment on a post.
- KajMagnus 7y ago
  Hmm a 1st party commenting service can ban you too? What makes you feel safer w.r.t. getting banned, if you were to use say a service provided by Ghost, instead of e.g. Disqus? A difference could be that, with a 1st party commenting service, your whole blog might get banned, instead of only the comments. (Depending on how banning gets implemented.)
  - bishalb 7y ago
    Yes I agree. That's why I am a proponent of hosting your blog posts and comments yourself using Wordpress or other similar CMS on a VPS or a shared host. Also, Ghost doesn't even have a commenting service of their own and one would need to rely on Disqus to add comments on a Ghost powered blog :)
- pier25 7y ago
  > because they can ban you Anyone can ban you, even your hosting company. In practice banning is pretty rare. > I might as well just use Disqus or Facebook comments that I can embed on the site And you will contribute to unethical tracking practices even if your users are not logged in to Facebook or Disqus[1]. [1] https://replyable.com/2017/03/disqus-is-your-data-worth-trading-for-convenience/ https://replyable.com/2017/03/disqus-is-your-data-worth-trad...
  - bishalb 7y ago
    Hosting companies banning you is very rare(at least with reputable ones, I am not sure of the cheap VPSs on lowendbox). And you can always download the database and move to another hosting pretty easily. Subreddits getting banned is not so rare. If lets say Disqus (or reddit) bans you, how do you move those comments to another third party lets say facebook comments(or HN)? >And you will contribute to unethical tracking practices even if your users are not logged in to Facebook or Disqus[1]. I don't care much about that because one way or the other one of the tech giants is going to track us anyway. I would much rather install Google analytics and get a great overview of my visitors. I don't think anyone who is an active user of the tracking behemothos Facebook or Google(which represents most of the internet users) should be concerned about tracking. But coming to main point, I am actually against Disqus or facebook comments. I prefer plain old self hosted comments(wordpress) for other reasons and this solves your concern as well.
    - pier25 7y ago
      > Subreddits getting banned is not so rare If you moderate a subreddit it's extremely unlikely a ban would happen since you have control over the content. But hey, I get it, you like Wordpress.

KajMagnus 7y ago

Hmm interesting approach. What about reply notifications? If Jane replies to Joe's comment? Maybe with Zapier or ifttt it'd be possible to construct automatic reply notifications. ... But then, what about unsubscribe, hmm. > saved to a Google spreadsheet(this needs to be made publicly readable) Hmm, then, people's email addresses cannot be remembered, meaning, no reply notifications?

bishalb 7y ago
Yeah this is just a hacky solution, not very effective. Forget reply notifications, even replying to a comment in a threaded style would be tricky using this approach :)

viraptor 7y ago

> That is a good idea but would people really want to leave the site to open their email client and make a comment? In most cases this means tapping on the link and typing the response. Mobile OSes make it pretty seamless.