Thoughts on commenting facilities for this site

This site, being a static one, presents some challenges with regard to accepting comments from its readers. There's also a bunch of comments that already exist on the legacy site. I have some thoughts about what I should do about this.

TL;DR

I think I will:

• Try to set up Isso at least for the purpose of importing old comments.
• Then I'll see what Isso is like generally.
• If Isso didn't work for importing then I'll try the XML conversion myself.
• Independently, I'll investigate the Fediverse conversation thing.

Updates

2024-06-24

Isso was implemented and comments from the old Wordpress blog were imported into it. I'm still unsure if I will continue to allow new comments through it though.

The problem

It's a bit tricky to accept comments onto a web site that is running off of static files. JavaScript is basically the only way to do it, for which there are a number of options.

There's a couple of hundred comments on the 300 or so articles that exist on the legacy Wordpress site as well, and at least some of them I think are worth moving over when I get around to moving over an article from there.

Is it really worth having comments?

I mean, the benefits are slim, but they definitely do exist. I've had a few really useful and interesting comments over the years and it would be a shame to do away with that feature even if it does make life a lot easier.

So, conclusions:

• I should find a way to bring over some if not all of the comments that already exist.
• I should provide at least one way¹ to let people comment on new articles.

Other people's value judgements can and will differ. A lot of this is just going to be, like, my opinion, man.

In that case, what to do about…

Existing comments

I've got an XML export of the legacy blog which includes all the comment data along with the post data. The Wordpress-to-Markdown conversion program that I've used only converts the post body, though, so at the moment none of the articles I've migrated have had their comments brought along with them.

I think it will be enough to also add the existing comment data as static HTML. I don't think there's any real need to make it possible for people to interact with past comments. There's some personal information that commenters may have provided, like what they want to be known as and their web site if any. There has to be a means for that to be deleted upon request, but I think it will be okay to expect such requests to come in by email.

After a casual search I haven't managed to find existing software that will convert the comments in a Wordpress XML export into Markdown or static HTML. I might have missed something though because the search results are filled with a plethora of Wordpress plugins for static site export. One of those might actually be suitable. If you happen to know of something that may be suitable please let me know! I guess that would have to be by email or Fediverse right now (links at the bottom of the page).

It is claimed, however, that Isso (see below) can import comments from a Wordpress XML export!

The comments XML

Comments in the XML export look like this (omitting some uninteresting fields):

<item>
  <wp:post_id>16</wp:post_id>
  <!-- more stuff about the article in here -->
  <wp:comment>
    <wp:comment_id>119645</wp:comment_id>
    <wp:comment_parent>0</wp:comment_parent>
    <wp:comment_author><![CDATA[Greyhound lover]]></wp:comment_author>
    <wp:comment_date><![CDATA[2009-07-08 10:35:14]]></wp:comment_date>
    <wp:comment_content><![CDATA[What a nicely reasoned and well informed article.

The message about Greyhound rescue is getting through, but far too slowly.

I hope your post gets a lot of traffic.

Ray]]></wp:comment_content>
  </wp:comment>
</item>

If I can't find existing software to do it, I think my skills do stretch to using XSLT or something to transform the list of <wp:comment></wp:comment>s into Markdown or HTML for simple inclusion.

Wordpress does comment threading by having the <wp:comment_parent> be non-zero. I think that would be nice to replicate but if my skills end up not being up to it then it will be okay to just have a flat chronological list. I'll keep the data to leave the door open to improving it in future.

I haven't decided yet if it will be more important to bring over old comments, or to figure out a solution for new comments.

Future comments

All of the options for adding comments to a static site involve JavaScript. Whatever I choose to do, people who want to keep JS disabled are not going to be able to add comments and will just have to make do with email.

I'm aware of a few different options in this space.

Disqus

Just no. Surveillance capitalism.

giscus

giscus stores comments in GitHub discussions. It's got a nice user interface since the UI of GitHub itself is pretty fancy, but does mean that every commenter will require a GitHub account and anonymous comments aren't possible.

There's also utterances which stores things in GitHub issues, but has fewer features than giscuss and the same major downsides.

I am Not A Fan of requiring people to use GitHub.

Hyvor Talk

Hyvor Talk is a closed source paid service that's a bit fancier than giscus.

I'm still not particularly a fan of making people log in to some third party service.

Isso

Isso is a self-hosted open source service that's got quite a nice user interface, permits things like Markdown in comments, and optionally allows anonymous comments so that commenters don't need to maintain an account if they don't want to.

I think this one is a real contender!

Mastodon API

This isn't quite a commenting system, since it doesn't involve directly posting comments.

The idea is that each article has an associated toot ID which is the identifier for a post on a Mastodon server. The Mastodon API is then used to display all Fediverse replies to that post. So:

1. You post on your Mastodon server about the article.
2. You take the toot ID of that post and set it in a variable in the article's front matter.
3. JavaScript on your site is then able to display all the comments on that Fediverse post.

The effect is that a Fediverse conversation about your article is placed on your article. This project is an example of such a thing.

Of course, not everyone has a Fediverse account and not everyone wants one, but at least anyone potentially can, without having to deal with some central third party. And if no existing Fediverse instance suits them then they can set up their own. It's a decentralised solution.

The extremely niche nature of the Fediverse is pretty stark:

Fediverse comments are also basically just plain text and links. Unfortunately no way to express yourself better with Markdown or other styling.

Nevertheless, I like it. I think I want to pursue this. Maybe in combination with Isso, if that doesn't get too noisy.