Consider alternative comment systems

[florimondmanca]

Right now I'm using utterances for comments. This system is backed by GitHub issues. It works great, but the main drawback is that people need a GitHub account to post comments. (Also, GitHub lock-in.)

Self-hosted, custom-made

Maybe a small comment system backed by SQLite (stored locally alongside the Python code at runtime) could suffice. Doesn't need user accounts (see how isso solves this - possibility to edit/delete comments within 15min).

isso

https://github.com/posativ/isso/

A commenting server built with SQLite / Python (Werkzeug) / JS, with support for moderation queue, admin interface, etc. Maybe a bit too many features.

Seems possible to make a Docker container out of it (for deploying on Dokku).

Mastodon-as-a-backend

An interesting alternative could be to use Mastodon as a comments backend.

https://carlschwan.eu/2020/12/29/adding-comments-to-your-static-blog-with-mastodon/

1. Post a toot about the article when published.
2. Add script to retrieve answers to the toot.
3. Add button to answer to the toot on Mastodon. (The user is thus invited to connect via Mastodon, and post their answer as a comment to the toot.)

Cons:

• We keep a certain form of lock-in (will toots be there forever?)
• People need a Mastodon account somewhere.

Pros:

• Now anyone with a Mastodon account can post comments, rather than anyone with a GitHub account.
• Still no third party tracking cookies at all.
• Allows only loading comments after user clicks a button. This reduces load on mastodon servers, but also saves up some page size (fitting the sobriety mindset). Utterances doesn't allow this - it always loads comments.

Other alternatives and discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25570268

Webmentions + Bridgy

Interesting reads:

• https://mikevdv.dev/blog/2022-08-25-switching-to-webmention-comments
• https://joshuawood.net/webmentions
• https://indiewebify.me/
• https://daily-dev-tips.com/posts/goodbye-comments-welcome-webmentions/
• https://www.codingwithjesse.com/blog/add-mastodon-replies-to-your-blog/

Tools:

• https://webmention.io
• https://brid.gy

[florimondmanca]

Also found out about Welcomments: https://welcomments.io

The comment form calls Welcomments' API endpoint which triggers a commit on the repo with the comment as JSON. Then from that point in it's ours - we can use that to generate eg a static site, etc. I like how this does not rely on any third party storage, just a git repo.