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I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

ryansouthgate.com

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Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#161

Post by gruez »

inetknght wrote: post #151
gruez wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If it's a brand of good quality (Miele, Henry, DeLonghi) it probably does not need to be advertised, as word of mouth and price point is generally enough. what about iPhones? They're ubiquitous enough that Apple probably doesn't need ads to let people know they exist, yet every at launch ads for them are plastered everywhere. Same with soft drinks and cars, just to name a few. Before you say "iPhone sucks", the same…

> if your theory allows categorizing an entire industry as crap, your theory is basically unfalsifiable Or maybe, just maybe, the entire industry is crap and so many people are complicit such that it becomes a self-sustaining problem.

>and so many people are complicit such that it becomes a self-sustaining problem.

If you're defining "ads" to be a "problem", then it turns the statement into a meaningless tautology. Only crappy brand use ads, because brands that use ads are crappy.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#162

Post by jrmg »

mort96 wrote: post #117
lupusreal wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ad industry likes to say that their industry is clean and the people who buy ads for scams are the problem, but the truth is the entire industry is complicit with the scamming, and stuff like this shows it. If the ad industry were merely hapless victims of the scammers, rather than willful participants in the scamming, they'd be eager to receive reports of scams.

I feel like there are almost two completely incompatible stories being sold by ad tech people. One is that "you shouldn't use an ad blocker, reputable websites have ads from Google and other reputable companies and they wouldn't be scams or malware". The other is that any time there's a story about malware and scams on reputable websites, they say: "there are so many ads being submitted, Google is doing their best bu…

It's a travesty that there are apparently no laws against their behavior.

In the USA I’m pretty sure advertising scams - even the more ‘benign’ ones like claiming a product does something it doesn’t do or lying about its efficiency - are illegal. There’s just no - or not nearly enough - enforcement.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/truth-advertising

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#163

Post by lioeters »

shark1 wrote: post #127

Disqusting is the copious amount of trackers they inject in the websites. For small websites a good start is to get comments by email, publishing only the ones that adds value to the article or conversation. Why? Because we have lots of noise done by social media. A way of curating the comments increase the quality of the website. If the website gets traction, than it's good to consider a tool to facilitate the comme…

> Disqusting

Bravo for this banger of a new word.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#164

Post by est »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #79
est wrote: post #6

I ditched Disqus for the exact same reason, too many ads Then I built an alternative using free Cloudflare Worker https://github.com/est/req4cmt It's a simple service that transform comment POST form data to JSON, append to a .jsonl file, then do a `git push` It renders comments by `git fetch` from a .jsonl file from a remote repo, or simply via raw.githubusercontent.com if your repo was hosted by Github. The advanta…

.jsonl files are fine for low volume comment threads I think, but others have already mentioned the use of git for storage. Would sqlite or Cloudflare's own D1 (SQLite compatible, also available in their free plan) work as an alternative?

> Would sqlite or Cloudflare's own D1 work as an alternative

They certainly do, but for they same reason why people chose static site generators like Hugo over Wordpress, I'd like complete control of full data.

The good value of static-hosted comments is that you `git clone` for backup and `git push` for redudency.

I also dislike managing DBs. Think of all those mess with backups, migrations, imports, exports, difference between mysql/pg/sqlite/d1. Tons of operating cost just for the sake of few blog comments

It's just a bunch of .jsonl files, the last resort is direct inline those .jsonl into .html files when generating

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#165

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

mort96 wrote: post #117
lupusreal wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ad industry likes to say that their industry is clean and the people who buy ads for scams are the problem, but the truth is the entire industry is complicit with the scamming, and stuff like this shows it. If the ad industry were merely hapless victims of the scammers, rather than willful participants in the scamming, they'd be eager to receive reports of scams.

I feel like there are almost two completely incompatible stories being sold by ad tech people. One is that "you shouldn't use an ad blocker, reputable websites have ads from Google and other reputable companies and they wouldn't be scams or malware". The other is that any time there's a story about malware and scams on reputable websites, they say: "there are so many ads being submitted, Google is doing their best bu…

Google Tag Manager is a malware vector. It's very design is to distribute non-Google code through a supposedly trusted source. They are part of the problem and JS blocking is the only dependable safeguard.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#166

Post by ghaff »

gruez wrote: post #126
tetris11 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the poster is lamenting the general quality of all advertised products in general. If it's a brand of good quality (Miele, Henry, DeLonghi) it probably does not need to be advertised, as word of mouth and price point is generally enough.

>If it's a brand of good quality (Miele, Henry, DeLonghi) it probably does not need to be advertised, as word of mouth and price point is generally enough. what about iPhones? They're ubiquitous enough that Apple probably doesn't need ads to let people know they exist, yet every at launch ads for them are plastered everywhere. Same with soft drinks and cars, just to name a few. Before you say "iPhone sucks", the same…

In the case of iPhones specifically--which I see a lot more ads for than appliances--people do upgrade phones a lot more frequently than appliances, especially major ones, often for specific capabilities like cameras. So reminding people they don't have the latest and greatest makes a lot of business sense.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#167

Post by hoistbypetard »

erikig wrote: post #115

As far as alternatives go, there was an interesting post a few weeks ago on using Bluesky as a commenting platform. It improves discoverability and adds a social aspect to comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44826164 I’ve also found HN to be a great commenting platform too.

I haven't tried them on my own blog yet, but on blogs I read, both the Bluesky comments you linked and this mastodon comment system:

https://carlschwan.eu/2020/12/29/adding-comments-to-your-sta...

have been pleasant.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#168

Post by ghaff »

sofixa wrote: post #160
tetris11 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the poster is lamenting the general quality of all advertised products in general. If it's a brand of good quality (Miele, Henry, DeLonghi) it probably does not need to be advertised, as word of mouth and price point is generally enough.

> If it's a brand of good quality (Miele, Henry, DeLonghi) it probably does not need to be advertised, as word of mouth and price point is generally enough. Nah, they advertise (probably) for a similar reason as car brands do, to make the people who bought it already feel better and more reassured about their choice. Also, obligatory "lucky 10k" xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1053/

I'm guessing high-end appliance brands are enough of a niche market that it just doesn't make sense for them to advertise in relatively unfocused ways. You'll see plenty of ads for high-end appliances and cookware if you frequent gourmet-oriented websites and magazines.

Re: I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse

#169

Post by ants_everywhere »

D13Fd wrote: post #91
tcfhgj wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

almost every ad is a scam, telling lies directly or indirectly maximizing what is within the legal bounds.

Come on. There is a massive difference between an ad that optimistically emphasizes the best aspects of a real product or service and an ad for a fake product or service that will take your money and leave you with essentially nothing.

It's legal to advertise real products or services that will take your money and leave you with essentially nothing.

For example:

- gambling, e.g. slot machines, sports betting

- healing crystals

- palm readings

- carnival games

Perhaps the right distinction is whether something is legally a fraud or not. But I kind of agree that most ads are scams and also that ad networks don't have the ability to separate legal scams from fraud. So I just block them all.

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