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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

#391

Post by antonyh »

est wrote: post #177
antonyh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the idea of using Git for comments somewhat terrifying, not least of all for the permanence of the history making moderation a nightmare.

They are just bunch of static hosted .jsonl text files, one comment per commit, and makes up exactly one line In case of comments you don't like, just delete the line and `git commit` to erase the history entirely, use `git cherry-pick` and `git push -f` It might be a nightmare for people not familiar with `git`, but for folks running a static blog like Hugo, they use lots of shell commands anyway.

Your implementation might be static json files, but it's not impossible to force other filetypes in there. This in itself makes it high risk?

Allowing force-push is considered an antipattern for Git, and generally best avoided. It's a safeguard against lost history and prevents data loss.

That aside, the comments are the history. Git is the wrong tool for the job. Why would you choose a generic version-control system designed for source code diffs & merges for the specialised task of chronologically-ordered comments? A database such as PostgreSQL is a far superior choice in just about every possible way. I admire your ingenuity here to make something out of what's available, but I respectfully disagree with this being a good way to capture user-generated content when there are better alternatives.

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

#392

Post by Forgeties79 »

genewitch wrote: post #385
Forgeties79 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, are you just saying the shows you listen to don’t do DAI, or are you doubting that DAI exists at all? I only ask because of your comment before the one I’m responding to here. It almost sounds like you think it isn’t possible or that no one does it.

a "podcast" is just an mp3 file, usually fetched by finding the URL via an rss feed. I am asking, perhaps a bit cheekily, "who is putting ads in", because that isn't a "feature" of podcasts. Stop getting podcasts from places that put ads in, support "podcasters" that don't do this scummy crap. It's just an mp3 file! edit: I should point out that i pitched, to Apple, the ability to dynamically insert ads sometime arou…

I know what a podcast is, I have produced them for clients. I am honestly unsure what our discussion is about at this point.

DAI is a thing and my initial point several comments ago was that too many podcasts implement it, let advertisers drop their stuff in (not their own read), and never check what’s actually being run on their show. That’s all my point was about.

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

#393

Post by [deleted] »

fknorangesite wrote: post #384
Forgeties79 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, are you just saying the shows you listen to don’t do DAI, or are you doubting that DAI exists at all? I only ask because of your comment before the one I’m responding to here. It almost sounds like you think it isn’t possible or that no one does it.

Right? I'm confused. Saying "oh the ads are in the audio file" is exactly like saying that "the ads are in the html file." It's not like the client app is inserting them. I mean, I guess I can imagine an exceptionally-scummy podcast app, but that's not what we're talking about here.

[deleted]

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

#394

Post by Forgeties79 »

fknorangesite wrote: post #384
Forgeties79 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, are you just saying the shows you listen to don’t do DAI, or are you doubting that DAI exists at all? I only ask because of your comment before the one I’m responding to here. It almost sounds like you think it isn’t possible or that no one does it.

Right? I'm confused. Saying "oh the ads are in the audio file" is exactly like saying that "the ads are in the html file." It's not like the client app is inserting them. I mean, I guess I can imagine an exceptionally-scummy podcast app, but that's not what we're talking about here.

Hosting services drop them in. You sign an agreement with them and they have agreement with advertisers who drop their spots into your show using DAI. Often it’s a straight up bid-system but the podcasters are not part of the process, or the podcasters can do the read and hand it over to be inserted. This means that podcasters in a lot of situations don’t actually know what ads are being run on their show.

These ads are not just not baked into the audio file, they are legitimately a mystery to the people running the show sometimes. And I think that that’s kind of unconscionable tbh. Podcasts (especially early on) owe a lot of their success to the feeling of “authenticity,” they feel more personal and less “corporate” generally. Whether that’s reality or not we can of course debate, but it’s how audiences perceived them. The reason on air reads have been generally successful for podcasts is because of the trust between the podcast and the audience that has been built over time. This runs directly counter to it.

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

#395

Post by est »

antonyh wrote: post #391
est wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are just bunch of static hosted .jsonl text files, one comment per commit, and makes up exactly one line In case of comments you don't like, just delete the line and `git commit` to erase the history entirely, use `git cherry-pick` and `git push -f` It might be a nightmare for people not familiar with `git`, but for folks running a static blog like Hugo, they use lots of shell commands anyway.

Your implementation might be static json files, but it's not impossible to force other filetypes in there. This in itself makes it high risk? Allowing force-push is considered an antipattern for Git, and generally best avoided. It's a safeguard against lost history and prevents data loss. That aside, the comments are the history. Git is the wrong tool for the job. Why would you choose a generic version-control system…

> it's not impossible to force other filetypes in there. This in itself makes it high risk

you mean other files will bloat the repo and slow down the performance? Yes it's a very valid concern, but this system targets personal blogs, which I assume had very few comment traffic.

> Git is the wrong tool for the job ..... A database ... is a far superior choice in just about every possible way

the same argument applies to Wordpress.

But most tech people are choosing static generated blogs anyway, and with git too. File system is the database.

And there are good reasons for that.

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

#396

Post by InMice »

robinsonb5 wrote: post #43
InMice wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wordpress core can be kept up to date but the vulnerabilities from plugins, relying on fixes and updating plugins i think was more the problem than the core. In the 2010s if you left a wordpress blog unattended even with the official default filter plugin it would fill with spam comments. I dont know if thats still a problem.

My own blog - which gets maybe a couple of posts a year these days, and almost no audience - had 59 spam comments so far today. It really is time I turned off comments.

Same here with any blog ive ever hosted

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

#397

Post by account42 »

mrweasel wrote: post #63

Other than the volume, one of the issues I have with these types of ads is that you're rarely able to report them as scams. Reddit have a similar issue. You can report an ad, but you have to pick "Other", there's no: "This ad is clearly a scam". That's by design obviously, because by removing the scams, most of the ad networks are left with very little inventory. Certainly not enough to fund all the ad supported serv…

All ads are scams.

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

#398

Post by account42 »

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…

The whole point of ads is to mislead and manipulate people into acting against their best interests. They are not colluding with scammers, they are the scammers. The whole business is inherently rotten and that's before getting to second order effects. It's a travesty that ads are tolerated at all.

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

#399

Post by account42 »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #347
jrmg wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not even that there's no enforcement... you could talk to your state's AG. But their budgets aren't infinite, and the scammers are overseas as likely as not. Unless the scam rises above some (absurdly high) threshold or threatens someone very important/wealthy, it's going to be back-burnered. The cost of enforcement would break every government's budget. The cost asymmetry is the problem.

Budget is not the issue. When a crime is hard to police all you need to do is up the fines and other punishment so whatever enforcement you can afford acts as a deterrent for the rest.

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

#400

Post by account42 »

flowerthoughts wrote: post #314
mrweasel wrote: post #63

Other than the volume, one of the issues I have with these types of ads is that you're rarely able to report them as scams. Reddit have a similar issue. You can report an ad, but you have to pick "Other", there's no: "This ad is clearly a scam". That's by design obviously, because by removing the scams, most of the ad networks are left with very little inventory. Certainly not enough to fund all the ad supported serv…

I've been receiving email spam from Derilla, a pillow company, for many years. Once the manifest V3 abomination went into effect in Chrome, I also have to endure it on the frontpage of YouTube. Who buys pillows because of email spam and YouTube ads? I don't get it. It's probably not a scam, but a very obnoxious company nonetheless.

Well those ads got you to spread the company name here.

Some people are going to buy those pillows based on those ads. Others are going to think the ads are stupid but will remember the brand and are now more likely to choose it if they see it in a store. Ads persist because overall they work.

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