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I was thinking about this recently and really like the idea. You get the benefits of spam filtering, and it would work on any device with no JS or anything (“Le

by sen 5y ago

I was thinking about this recently and really like the idea. You get the benefits of spam filtering, and it would work on any device with no JS or anything (“Leave a comment”/“Reply” button is just a mailto: link).

em-bee 5y ago
i am working with a platform that makes this possible. it is essentially an object storage that works as a backend to your website. every object (such as a blog post) can be annotated with messages, and these messages can be sent by email, so that effectively every object gets an email address. it has a permission system to control who can create annotations which allows you to turn off email access on any object. it also has an imap interface for those with an account on the backend to access the discussions from your mail client. the platform itself is stable and in production. the REST api needs some work to support accessing comments and a frontend for comments needs to be built. unfortunately, i lack the resources to work on this right now with family and paid work taking priority.
- cbnotfromthere 5y ago
  1) Is it (supposed to be) Open Source? 2) What's the programming language for the implementation? Maybe I can help. Maybe some others cane also help.
- MayeulC 5y ago
  Thinking of it, IMAP wouldn't be a bad fit as an API to blogs and forums :)
- em-bee 5y ago
  (since someone asked) the platform is licensed as GPL2. it was created by a german university, and i forked it after they stopped development on it, and added the REST API myself. frontends using the REST API could be in any license of your choice, since the code would not be derived from the backend. the implementation language is pike. (a language similar to python, but with C-syntax) adding new abilities to the REST API should be easy enough, by looking at the existing API code. though i'd also like to create a graphql API. the project lives at https://gitlab.com/societyserver https://gitlab.com/societyserver and http://societyserver.org/ http://societyserver.org/
jamesponddotco 5y ago
The reliance on JavaScript is a big turn off for me with these third-party comment systems, and why I stick with what WordPress provides by default—with a few modifications to increase privacy. The ideal comment system for me would use the mailing list feature from SourceHut[1], with each post on a blog having their own list and using the In-Reply-To and Message-Id headers. SourceHut already exposes forms that sends emails to mailing lists and is open source, so I guess someone could probably look into their implementation to make this happen. Honestly, I would pay a good amount of money to licence something simple like this on a per-website basis, as long as the code is open source and the back-end is self-hostable—extra points if the developer includes a well-written WordPress plugin. I might look into writing a WordPress plugin that implements this idea. However, because I really like the idea and working with email in general—in no small part because of aerc[2]—, I am obviously biased towards it, so my opinion my not be the best one. Heck, maybe there is no market for this at all. The biggest reason why this idea will forever live in a drawer in my mental desk, however, are the privacy and potential GDPR issues; after all, anyone who leaves a comment will now have their email address exposed. I am not sure how to resolve that one. [1] https://sourcehut.org/ https://sourcehut.org/ [2] https://aerc-mail.org/ https://aerc-mail.org/

by sen 5y ago

em-bee 5y ago

i am working with a platform that makes this possible. it is essentially an object storage that works as a backend to your website. every object (such as a blog post) can be annotated with messages, and these messages can be sent by email, so that effectively every object gets an email address. it has a permission system to control who can create annotations which allows you to turn off email access on any object. it also has an imap interface for those with an account on the backend to access the discussions from your mail client. the platform itself is stable and in production. the REST api needs some work to support accessing comments and a frontend for comments needs to be built. unfortunately, i lack the resources to work on this right now with family and paid work taking priority.

cbnotfromthere 5y ago
1) Is it (supposed to be) Open Source? 2) What's the programming language for the implementation? Maybe I can help. Maybe some others cane also help.
MayeulC 5y ago
Thinking of it, IMAP wouldn't be a bad fit as an API to blogs and forums :)
em-bee 5y ago
(since someone asked) the platform is licensed as GPL2. it was created by a german university, and i forked it after they stopped development on it, and added the REST API myself. frontends using the REST API could be in any license of your choice, since the code would not be derived from the backend. the implementation language is pike. (a language similar to python, but with C-syntax) adding new abilities to the REST API should be easy enough, by looking at the existing API code. though i'd also like to create a graphql API. the project lives at https://gitlab.com/societyserver https://gitlab.com/societyserver and http://societyserver.org/ http://societyserver.org/

jamesponddotco 5y ago

The reliance on JavaScript is a big turn off for me with these third-party comment systems, and why I stick with what WordPress provides by default—with a few modifications to increase privacy. The ideal comment system for me would use the mailing list feature from SourceHut[1], with each post on a blog having their own list and using the In-Reply-To and Message-Id headers. SourceHut already exposes forms that sends emails to mailing lists and is open source, so I guess someone could probably look into their implementation to make this happen. Honestly, I would pay a good amount of money to licence something simple like this on a per-website basis, as long as the code is open source and the back-end is self-hostable—extra points if the developer includes a well-written WordPress plugin. I might look into writing a WordPress plugin that implements this idea. However, because I really like the idea and working with email in general—in no small part because of aerc[2]—, I am obviously biased towards it, so my opinion my not be the best one. Heck, maybe there is no market for this at all. The biggest reason why this idea will forever live in a drawer in my mental desk, however, are the privacy and potential GDPR issues; after all, anyone who leaves a comment will now have their email address exposed. I am not sure how to resolve that one. [1] https://sourcehut.org/ https://sourcehut.org/ [2] https://aerc-mail.org/ https://aerc-mail.org/