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Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

coralproject.net

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Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#21

Post by Fellshard »

wmf wrote: post #20
a3n wrote: post #4

The bullet list seems to describe Twitter. I've wondered why most publishers of comments don't just give up and say "comment on Twitter." Not that I would like that, but still ...

If you dig deeper it's more like anti-Twitter. "We don’t allow commenters to see each other’s comment histories, We don’t have @ mentions, No Follows, No private messaging, We use ‘Respect’, not ‘Like’, Our notifications are opt in, and via email, We don’t create a feed ... for you to constantly refresh, No gamification, No infinite scroll, world-class moderation tools, We tell community members if the algorithm thin…

Re: decentralized communities: Is that decentralized, or independently hosted? Does the owner of the site host the database, or is Coral Talk hosting all databases, with a separate instance for each site?

Re: explicit algorithm violation notices: Good, but it does not sound like there's an appropriate appeals process in place, something required even with algorithms in place. Also important to have said algorithm be tuneable, or even more preferably, pluggable.

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#22

Post by KajMagnus »

brighter2morrow wrote: post #17
JoshTriplett wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have particular uses for open source social network software for which the AGPL would be a problem for your usage?

Yes, I wanted to add automated moderation policies (including but not limited to word filters) to improve conversation on a platform I was considering building, but as I understand it all the algorithms to implement the policies would have to be published with the rest of the site under AGPL

Why would the rest of the site have to be published under AGPL? I'm thinking other parts of the site aren't the same "work" as the conversation platform?

Is the reason possibly AGPL Javascript? Maybe then server side code, could be AGPL, and Javascript instead e.g. MIT?

However don't one typically place a blog commenting system in an iframe. Then personally I think you wouldn't have to release the website that embeds the blog comments iframes, under AGPL? And a discussion forum, one places on a sub domain, on a separate server? Also separate from your main website?

Background: I'm developing AGPL discussion software that you can also embed in an iframe, for blog comments. https://www.talkyard.io/blog-comments. What are your thoughts about using sth like that, if the code that creates the iframe is MIT or Apache2, and the code that runs inside the iframe is AGPL?

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#23

Post by shib71 »

The copy implies very strongly that comments can be a respected part of the article as a whole, and by implication - of journalism.

My experience in the past has been that comments are not taken seriously by the publisher, seemingly just added to tick the "social" checkbox. But to make a commitment to the dialogue an article can generate seems like a positive development for journalism.

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#24

Post by wmf »

Fellshard wrote: post #5
cloud_thrasher wrote: post #2

Coral Talk is a Vox Media endeavor.

That certainly puts a very different angle on how this will be used, and what use cases it's targeted towards. From prior experience, Vox outlets are extremely stringent about what they permit in their comments: specifically, only people who agree or can extend the arguments of a given article further are preserved; or quibbles about minor details. No true discussion is allowed outside the article's bubble.

Since it's decentralized, maybe someone could create an alt-right instance that allows only the highest-quality and most ideologically-correct comments. Then we could see how long it would take for Vox to distance themselves from the project.

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#25

Post by KajMagnus »

ianbicking wrote: post #13
jp_sc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their license says the copyright of the project belongs to Mozilla. How weird. https://github.com/coralproject/talk/blob/master/LICENSE

It started as a Mozilla Foundation project, and then Vox Media took it over.

Why didn't Mozilla continue leading the project?

(If you happen to know)

Here's a blog post about the change: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/01/22/the-coral-project-i...

It writes: "After 3.5 years at Mozilla, the time is right for Coral software to move further into the journalism space, and grow with the support of an organization grounded in that industry", and "... The Coral Project will receive the backing of a large company ...". — However, Vox could back the project, also if it was still led my Mozilla, right. Still unclear to me why Mozilla didn't want to continue leading the project? Maybe Talk was too different from other things Mozilla does, and maybe it cost money and didn't bring any revenue?

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#26

Post by mikekchar »

brighter2morrow wrote: post #17
JoshTriplett wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have particular uses for open source social network software for which the AGPL would be a problem for your usage?

Yes, I wanted to add automated moderation policies (including but not limited to word filters) to improve conversation on a platform I was considering building, but as I understand it all the algorithms to implement the policies would have to be published with the rest of the site under AGPL

I'm not trying to criticise your decision (I think it's up to you to choose the best path that's good for you), but moderation policies seem like the ideal thing to have under an AGPL license. It would certainly allow users to know exactly what's going on rather than speculate (sometime vociferously and accusatively). Obviously the downside is that being able to look at the source may allow them to game the system (and maybe it's not great for spam detection). However, even that might be turned into an advantage in that if gaming the system forces them into better ways of communicating then it's fine.

From a commercial perspective, I think you would be better off with the AGPL as well (perhaps dual licensing). I don't think you'd be able to sell such software on a per-license basis anyway (or, at least you'd not make much money at it as the audience is pretty limited). I think you'd be much better off positioning yourself as an expert in the area and selling contract services for other (perhaps proprietary) systems. Cheaper to hire you than to implement it themselves while tip-toeing around your implementation which they can't infringe.

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#27

Post by cybersnowflake »

TLDR: Looks like stripped down run of the mill commenting system with things taken out or rearranged mostly with little common thread other than to make it more difficult to follow or connect, with typical buzzword woke commentary. Not sure how revolutionary this is when theres already tons of commenting systems that don't do any of the things theyre afraid of by virtue of being older, floating around. Pretty subpar even by the standards of HN/Slashdot vaporware.

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#28

Post by rtpg »

shib71 wrote: post #23

The copy implies very strongly that comments can be a respected part of the article as a whole, and by implication - of journalism. My experience in the past has been that comments are not taken seriously by the publisher, seemingly just added to tick the "social" checkbox. But to make a commitment to the dialogue an article can generate seems like a positive development for journalism.

Though comments are always hard, places like the NY Times have a lot of content in the comments section. Moderation helps a lot I imagine.

And some of it is kinda trash, but they'd still be better replacements for Bret Stephen's 100th "Democrats should listen to me, a person who will never vote for a Dem, on what to do" article

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#29

Post by KajMagnus »

Seems the project isn't being so actively developed any longer?

https://github.com/coralproject/talk/graphs/contributors

Why is that? (In the summer of 2018 and onwards, 90%? 95%? of the GitHub activity abruptly disappeared)

Two other open source blog commenting system that are being actively developed are Commento https://commento.io and Talkyard https://www.talkyard.io/blog-comments (I'm developing it).

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#30

Post by ryacko »

KajMagnus wrote: post #29

Seems the project isn't being so actively developed any longer? https://github.com/coralproject/talk/graphs/contributors Why is that? (In the summer of 2018 and onwards, 90%? 95%? of the GitHub activity abruptly disappeared) Two other open source blog commenting system that are being actively developed are Commento https://commento.io and Talkyard https://www.talkyard.io/blog-comments (I'm developing it).

It has implemented all the design goals and the code has reached stable?
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