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Disqus, a dark commenting system

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Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#131

Post by that_guy_iain »

MisterTea wrote: post #121
throw14082020 wrote: post #47

The author of the post runs a competitor called Hyvor Talk (he discloses this at the end). I've had hyvor talk for more than a year. I don't run a blog thats very popular, but it has been quite easy to integrate (I use React, Gatsby/ static side generation, and Hyvor Talk has a react component). An example of the system is at the bottom of that blog post. There used to be a free tier, but now there isn't. I am only s…

Can I ask an honest question: Why do you want to allow random people to leave comments on your blog and be responsible for them? I just don't see the value and feel that it just adds technical and security overhead, invites spam, and possibly the need to waste time moderating trash comments. Many blogs that I have visited which demonstrate or explain something technical with a comment section has: spam, accolades suc…

I've ran a blog that was quite popular within the torrent community. The comment section itself was a reason to visit the blog. If you have an active community or you want to build an active community comments are a must.

Also, it allows to add more value to your blog at very little effort. If you have someone who comes along and points out another use-case for your information or raises a doubt which you can answer then your blog post has become more valuable.

If your blog is just so you can write what you currently think about things then there is little value.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#133

Post by greggman3 »

MisterTea wrote: post #121
throw14082020 wrote: post #47

The author of the post runs a competitor called Hyvor Talk (he discloses this at the end). I've had hyvor talk for more than a year. I don't run a blog thats very popular, but it has been quite easy to integrate (I use React, Gatsby/ static side generation, and Hyvor Talk has a react component). An example of the system is at the bottom of that blog post. There used to be a free tier, but now there isn't. I am only s…

Can I ask an honest question: Why do you want to allow random people to leave comments on your blog and be responsible for them? I just don't see the value and feel that it just adds technical and security overhead, invites spam, and possibly the need to waste time moderating trash comments. Many blogs that I have visited which demonstrate or explain something technical with a comment section has: spam, accolades suc…

I want people's feedback and questions. I want that feedback, questions, and their answers, to be public. Email is private which means if one person asks a question my answer has to be repeated for each person. As comments on the blog others can read the the feedback and responses.

As for spam, I've had very little spam since being on disqus. (~10yrs?) memory might be bad how along ago i switched to disqus. I will keep on using them.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#134

Post by SSLy »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #123
stonesweep wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shoutcast/Icecast are alive and well, there are thousands of independent radio stations online; one of the most well known (SomaFM) is alive and well, ad free listener supported. Big Sonic Heaven is still online, both of these are like 20 years and running. Lots of podcasts are free from their source, Spotify doesn't even offer one of favorite ones (a weekly DJ mix, 500+ episodes strong) all you need is an app like A…

> all you need is an app like AntennaPod To listen to a podcast? A podcast is an audio file you download like any other file and play like any other audio file. Why do you need a dedicated app?

As all the successful technology, convenience.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#135

Post by greggman3 »

tal8d wrote: post #18
ivolimmen wrote: post #2

At some point, and I feel it is close, we need to subscribe to stuff and simply pay for the stuff we want and need to use. The internet always have been a place where most stuff is free and people got used to that. At some point after that the dark parts and ad parts of the web will reside; but I do not think it will completely disappear.

I've been around long enough to remember a time when the web was full of content that didn't originate from profit motive. Just a bunch of people talking about their interests and sharing their creations. Even the stuff that was commercially motivated was largely innocuous, because they were focused more on brand awareness - which doesn't need a surveillance system. All that personal interest stuff is still out there…

I certainly remember when most blogs were about sharing and not making money. Still, the explosion of tutorials, how tos, cooking lessons, math lessons, science shows, etc on youtube is all arguably because there is a money incentive. The bad parts of youtube (leading to conspiracy videos/fake news) are bad but the good parts (the large number of relatively well produced indie content) feels to me to be pretty awesome and that's arguably because of money.

On the other hand, I only have my experience to go on. I have no idea what youtube is like for everyone, only myself.

I hate all the tech blog posts that seem not about actually sharing useful info but instead about reputation building. I have no idea how much of youtube is that or if it will degenerate to that at some point. Maybe because the tech blog posts don't make money, only rep, they're being used to farm rep.

note: i'm not dissing all tech blogs. There are tons of people who write great and informative posts. I'm just saying that I run into enough that seem like they aren't about sharing, they're about rep farming, and it seems like a phenomenon

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#136

Post by SkyMarshal »

MisterTea wrote: post #121
throw14082020 wrote: post #47

The author of the post runs a competitor called Hyvor Talk (he discloses this at the end). I've had hyvor talk for more than a year. I don't run a blog thats very popular, but it has been quite easy to integrate (I use React, Gatsby/ static side generation, and Hyvor Talk has a react component). An example of the system is at the bottom of that blog post. There used to be a free tier, but now there isn't. I am only s…

Can I ask an honest question: Why do you want to allow random people to leave comments on your blog and be responsible for them? I just don't see the value and feel that it just adds technical and security overhead, invites spam, and possibly the need to waste time moderating trash comments. Many blogs that I have visited which demonstrate or explain something technical with a comment section has: spam, accolades suc…

>Want to leave me a comment? Email me or go away.

The common alternative these days is to have no comment section on your blog, but to post your blog posts to Twitter/Reddit/etc and have the discussion there.

That still builds community and drives traffic to your blog, but with greater potential network effects, and no tech/security overhead or need to be responsible for rando's comments.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#137

Post by jonnycomputer »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #136
MisterTea wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask an honest question: Why do you want to allow random people to leave comments on your blog and be responsible for them? I just don't see the value and feel that it just adds technical and security overhead, invites spam, and possibly the need to waste time moderating trash comments. Many blogs that I have visited which demonstrate or explain something technical with a comment section has: spam, accolades suc…

>Want to leave me a comment? Email me or go away. The common alternative these days is to have no comment section on your blog, but to post your blog posts to Twitter/Reddit/etc and have the discussion there. That still builds community and drives traffic to your blog, but with greater potential network effects, and no tech/security overhead or need to be responsible for rando's comments.

Yes, but then your community becomes subject to the whims of Twitter/Reddit/etc.

I've been feeling it these days, helping my spouse with their art career.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#138

Post by protoduction »

hobofan wrote: post #93
spinningslate wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm conflicted about the free tier thing. On the one hand, I get that personal/non-commercial sites don't generate revenue - so shelling out for a comment system is unattractive. On the other hand: the whole reason that shady, dark pattern, privacy killers like disqus exist is because people won't pay for stuff. It's at least partly cultural. We'll pay for hosting, or internet access. Why won't we pay for other servi…

I've been thinking about that a bit recently, for a product I'm building where I'd also like to offer a free tier, but at the same time I'm afraid that it's too much of a hassle. I'm wondering if an open subsidized approach could work: E.g. for every paid user you allow 100 (or at whatever threshold) users to sign up for the free tier. Possible one could also set up a monthly donation system that directly goes toward…

So it depends a bit on what you are hosting, but a real concern for myself at least is the value that free users bring to your service.

I'm not talking about the costs of running your service to support them, but everything else. A part of your free userbase will expect the world for free and start demanding more, and as they outnumber your paid users by so much it can just be a huge distraction. The question is how many of these free users will convert to paying users?

I personally add a free tier to my products because I want to make the tool accessible to hobby and other small projects without a budget, but it's probably not a good business decision.

Something I've been considering: charge some small one-time payment, say $10, for a lifetime 'try-out' plan. Then when they want to upgrade to a subscription you give them that $10 as a discount for their subscription. It may filter those users that will never upgrade anyway.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#139

Post by jonnycomputer »

matsemann wrote: post #118
xfz wrote: post #94

Title should probably have [Advert] prefix or something. That said, I deleted my Disqus account as part of a general cleanup and I'm glad I did. The web needs to shift more to a model where people pay openly for services; ideally with micropayments or a Spotify-like subscription to ensure a large user base. Free products are ok as a gateway to the paid product, but not if the business model relies on selling data (ei…

> I deleted my Disqus account as part of a general cleanup and I'm glad I did. Yeah, their data breach exposing mine and 18 million other's accounts made it the last time I used them.

I try not to say what might embarrass myself later, but I did use my email to create a disqus account to talk politics, which is always touchy. I got banned for a couple weeks once for telling someone to eff off after they said they looked forward to seeing liberals, gays and Jews shot in the street. Go figure.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#140

Post by airstrike »

sofixa wrote: post #107
hnra wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does any other service deliver music and podcasts at a much lower price then?

Plenty of alternatives exist - YouTube Premium ( which also gets you YouTube with no adds, on top of YouTube Music), Amazon Music, Apple Music, and iirc pandora, SoundCloud? I haven't compared prices.

Can't really suggest YT as an alternative to a monopoly
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