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Isso: A Commenting Server Similar to Disqus

posativ.org

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Re: Isso: A Commenting Server Similar to Disqus

#51

Post by reitanqild »

anigbrowl wrote: post #50
reitanqild wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd like to understand the significance of this. I'm extremely interested in comments as big data (to try to understand social networking patterns better from studying the structure of nested comments) and I'd like to get a handle on the opposite point of view - what is it that you prefer about this approach? While this might be interesting to you it is in the best interest of the site owners and commenters worldwi…

You seem to have me confused with someone else.

Care to explain?

Re: Isso: A Commenting Server Similar to Disqus

#52

Post by anigbrowl »

reitanqild wrote: post #51
anigbrowl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have me confused with someone else.

Care to explain?

I don't work for FB, nor am I in a position to demand big data flows from someone else. I'm just intensely curious about the dynamics of commented discussions and think it's an under-studied phenomenon. I'm not interested in making money out of it, I just want to understand how ideas promulgate and what factors drive virtual communities.

I was confused by the original post because a) I'm not sure why using SQLite makes comments into 'not big data' (is it extraordinarily hard to get statistical information out of SQLite or something?) and b) even if a blog or website is completely private, might not the owner want to analyze what's going on within the private social network they've created?

Also, I question your blanket assertion about what is or in't in the interest of other people. You seem to have taken my prior comment as an intent to exploit comment data for financial gain.

Re: Isso: A Commenting Server Similar to Disqus

#53

Post by jdsin »

voltagex_ wrote: post #26
mikekchar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about why you have a static website hosted by someone else, but then host your own comments? Is there some advantage to keeping the comments separated from the content?

Static hosting is pretty much free, then the comments can go on a cheap server. I looked into using Discourse to do something like this, but they refuse to reduce their memory usage (2GB minimum required, I think)

Exactly! I host my blog for free on github, and the comments on free account from www.pythonanywhere.com.

Re: Isso: A Commenting Server Similar to Disqus

#54

Post by jdsin »

kbar13 wrote: post #14
jdsin wrote: post #7

I explored this for my static website (hosted on github), Didn't fit my needs exactly. So I started building one in flask and mySQL recently: https://github.com/singhjaideep/flask_comment

care to elaborate what features isso was missing?

Actually I wanted something even more simpler. No usernames, avatars,emails,threading, none of that. I just wanted the simplest way to add comments, and to keep spammers out, that it. I feel isso is more useful for blogs that have a ton of comment interactions. FYI I agree that comments are not bigdata, I should have used sqlite as well..

Re: Isso: A Commenting Server Similar to Disqus

#55

Post by jdsin »

jordanlev wrote: post #31
kaushalmodi wrote: post #24

So this wouldn't work with a static blog generated by something like Hugo, right?

It certainly would... as long as you're hosting the comment backend somewhere -- which might defeat the purpose of going with a static site generator in the first place (if your purpose was to only host static files).

This is exactly the issue I encountered. I run a pelican static blog on github. I just host my comments as a simple flask app on www.pythonanywhere.com Code here: https://github.com/singhjaideep/flask_comment

Re: Isso: A Commenting Server Similar to Disqus

#56

Post by stevekemp »

stevekemp wrote: post #41
reitanqild wrote: post #3

SQLite backend Because comments are not Big Data. Yep, you got it. Also MIT licensed. Please go ahead and kill Facebook comments. I strongly dislike realname policies in this day and time where a single remark can cost you your job.

I also wrote a self-hosted comment-server: https://github.com/skx/e-comments/ Mine uses Redis or SQLite for storage, and uses markdown. The biggest difference is mine is flat. I keep thinking I should rework it to allow nested comments, and avatars, but at the same time it is nice and simple as-is..

Nested comments are now supported, FWIW.

Demo - https://tweaked.io/guide/demo/

Re: Isso: A Commenting Server Similar to Disqus

#57

Post by posativ »

StavrosK wrote: post #47

I tried to set this up for my site, because Disqus takes two hours to load and I don't like the centralization aspect and all the bloat they're adding. However, I stumbled first thing on the "host" parameter. It doesn't seem to like the subdomain I've set up for serving the comments, and it's obviously not getting served on the top-level domain, so I don't know what it expects. The documentation doesn't mention much…

A host can also be a subdomain. I'm using Isso on my personal blog for reference: https://blog.posativ.org/. It works exact the same way as for a top-level domain.

Re: Isso: A Commenting Server Similar to Disqus

#58

Post by posativ »

LordWinstanley wrote: post #16
radlad wrote: post #2

I'm a big fan of Isso, and have been running it on my (not at all notable) blog for a while! I do however wish that the commenter icons were customizable (e.g. Gravatar, Facebook, etc.). There have been Github issues open for it since 2014, but nobody seems willing to put in the effort to implement it. :)

Yeah. I'd like this too, but I'm not holding my breath as the developer comes across as a bit of an arrogant arsehole. When I first set up isso, I had a hell of a time getting it configured and running, following the pretty poor official documentation. So I visited the Github repo to ask for help but, after seeing the dev's condescending attitude to other people in difficulties, I thought better of it and [fortunatel…

Can you be more specific? I don't mind the accusation, but peope on the internet™ have often different expectations of what a software should or should not do. There is no such thing as the perfect product™. It is all about tradeoffs.

Re: Isso: A Commenting Server Similar to Disqus

#59

Post by reitanqild »

anigbrowl wrote: post #52
reitanqild wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain?

I don't work for FB, nor am I in a position to demand big data flows from someone else. I'm just intensely curious about the dynamics of commented discussions and think it's an under-studied phenomenon. I'm not interested in making money out of it, I just want to understand how ideas promulgate and what factors drive virtual communities. I was confused by the original post because a) I'm not sure why using SQLite mak…

Aha.

Then you might get a license from me. And if you haven't tested with the HN dataset that is where I would start.

I was confused by the original post because a) I'm not sure why using SQLite makes comments into 'not big data' (is it extraordinarily hard to get statistical information out of SQLite or something?)

No, getting data out of SQLite is easy. But I have yet to hear anyone using SQLite for anything that would be called big data in a way that makes sense. (Yes, my previous employers file share where we could upload 5GB files doesn't qualify.)

I think the comment on the website is supposed to be funny in a bitter way.

and b) even if a blog or website is completely private, might not the owner want to analyze what's going on within the private social network they've created?

I have yet to manage to think of a private website that might contain enough non-spam comments to qualify as big data.

And for small and medium size data plain SQLite is wonderful : )

What I and others are skeptical to is REAL big data, where certain companies scoop up everything they can get their hands on. This is an often dirty, potentially really harmful raw material as we have seen in articles about the moderation teams that makes sure Facebook and others stays reasonably clean.

With a little bit of processing this "nuclear waste" is also possible to weaponize. Two ideas off the top of my head:

- Facebook and others can easily name thousands of people who waste their employers time during the day.

- or post a number of people who run pseudonymous accounts for various reasons but have failed to maintain proper opsec.

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