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I put in the comments because I thought it'd be an easy way of adding some content for free as people add to the information already there, and also to let peop

I put in the comments because I thought it'd be an easy way of adding some content for free as people add to the information already there, and also to let people moan about errors so that I can then go in and fix them. Comments are a fairly low-maintenance feedback system, especially with Disqus dealing with the spam filtering for me. An eBook is a great idea. I just worry that the information is slightly out of date for people to actually pay for it. I know virtually nothing about ebook formats so this would be quite a learning curve for me. I'll bear it in mind though. I could realistically see 200 x $5 sales per year, which isn't to be sneezed at.

dminor 14y ago
> I know virtually nothing about ebook formats so this would be quite a learning curve for me. Pandoc can convert markdown into epub. Put it on Amazon's KDP, Barnes and Noble's PubIt, and then use Smashwords to target the other markets.
nollidge 14y ago
Yeah but comments will add load time and clutter to the page. Also I'll bet if this picks up any steam, the comments will devolve quickly without technically being spam.
- rapind 14y ago
  Disqus loads in after page load, so it shouldn't add load time to the content. Also keep in mind that comments add SEO (and can be extremely valuable for this reason alone). Plus I don't think it's such a bad idea from a reader's perspective. Seems like the worse case scenario is that no one uses it, and the best case scenario people are able to contribute to improvements.
  - toast0 14y ago
    If the comments load in after the page loads, crawlers are unlikely to see them, so you're not getting much SEO benefit. Worst case is off-topic comments that take time to remove, significantly worse than nobody using it.
    - AlexMuir 14y ago
      Google definitely indexes disqus comments.
    - rapind 14y ago
      They actually have a deal with google where all of their comments are directly indexed and attributed to the sites (likely similar to canonical references). It used to be a problem a couple years ago, and sites would then use the API to load in comments and include them server-side. Obviously this wasn't ideal, but it's a solved problem now.

dminor 14y ago

> I know virtually nothing about ebook formats so this would be quite a learning curve for me. Pandoc can convert markdown into epub. Put it on Amazon's KDP, Barnes and Noble's PubIt, and then use Smashwords to target the other markets.

nollidge 14y ago

Yeah but comments will add load time and clutter to the page. Also I'll bet if this picks up any steam, the comments will devolve quickly without technically being spam.

rapind 14y ago
Disqus loads in after page load, so it shouldn't add load time to the content. Also keep in mind that comments add SEO (and can be extremely valuable for this reason alone). Plus I don't think it's such a bad idea from a reader's perspective. Seems like the worse case scenario is that no one uses it, and the best case scenario people are able to contribute to improvements.
- toast0 14y ago
  If the comments load in after the page loads, crawlers are unlikely to see them, so you're not getting much SEO benefit. Worst case is off-topic comments that take time to remove, significantly worse than nobody using it.
  - AlexMuir 14y ago
    Google definitely indexes disqus comments.
  - rapind 14y ago
    They actually have a deal with google where all of their comments are directly indexed and attributed to the sites (likely similar to canonical references). It used to be a problem a couple years ago, and sites would then use the API to load in comments and include them server-side. Obviously this wasn't ideal, but it's a solved problem now.