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diff --git a/site/posts/18-disqus-comments.md b/site/posts/18-disqus-comments.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a574c35 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/posts/18-disqus-comments.md @@ -0,0 +1,92 @@ + + title: "There goes using Disqus comments" + permalink: '18-disqus-comments' + date: {m: 7, d: 5, y: 2017} + categories: + - 'text' + - 'dev' + +--- + +# There goes using Disqus comments + +I've removed Disqus comments. + +The main initiative for this decision is that they're now going to be adding +advertisements to some sites. + +There are a few reasons why it's tempting to *keep* using Disqus, actually: + +* These new advertisements only affect large, commercial sites. They explicitly + aren't going to be adding any ads to personal blogs, in fact. + +* The advertisements aren't even going to be the usual, intrusive, clickbait + things you'll find on any other site - instead they'll be ads promoting new + Disqus features. + +But I'm still getting rid of Disqus comments. + +First off, the fact that they can and *will* change things like this is +appalling. Disqus has always been that awesome, free, ad-less discussion tool +anybody can use just by embedding it on their website, hardly any setup needed. +They aren't going back on much of that *per se*, but.. it's just kind of like +they're going from being that one not-for-profit tool to being for-profit, all +of a sudden, you know? + +This whole thing feels like if Twitter decided to embed ads inside your +profile, assuming your Twitter account has over (for example) 75,000 followers, +with an option that those people with 75K+ followers pay a subscription to get +rid of them. + +Or maybe it's more like if Streamable decided to stick advertisements on the +sides of your videos once they get 10,000 views. + +Because, you know, we trust them? We trust those sites not to mess with how we +use them or how people see the things we make through them. But clearly that +isn't actually reliable.. and that's kind of frustrating, and not something I +want to get stuck in. + +Honestly, this is all more worrying for *bigger* sites. There was only a couple +of discussions done through Disqus on this blog; other sites have *so many* +more. I don't know how they'll deal with it.. it looks like they'll either have +to abandon and obliterate old comments, or be forced into either paying for +Disqus or ending up have ads. + +(Or some sort of compromise. Other options include backing up all Disqus +threads, but I'm not sure that's possible without writing a Crazy Hack. Another +option would be only displaying Disqus threads on old posts, but that's not +really wonderful, either.) + +## How can we comment now?? + +So.. there's no incredible option yet. What *are* fine options for the time +include: + +* Write me an email. I'm not going to embed it here, but suffice it to say that + it doesn't take much effort to guess; also, it's an at-gmail.com. Seriously. + Virtually no effort to find. + +* Send me a tweet. My account's [@towerofnix][twitter] there (surprised?); + those are (slightly) more public than emails, which is probably good, but + also limited to 140 characters (or - ugh - chunks of 140 characters). + +* Write me a Scratch comment. My username is [_nix][scratch] (with an + underscore before "nix"). I guess this is handy if you're one of the few + people in the world who has a Scratch account, but then, chances are most of + the people who view my blog are them. + +All of those are imperfect for various reasons. And sorry for removing Disqus +comments. I know it got rid of a good discussion on radios. (Just kidding, [I +saved that!][radios] No reason not to.) It'll probably make commenting less +easy in the future, until I find some better solution than I listed above. +(No, you don't get to pressure me to do that *now*, thank you!) + +As a side effect of removing Disqus comments, this site is now 100% +JavaScript-free. Bwahahahaha. Run this on all your stupid browsers! (Er, just +don't look at [the last post][fractions] through curl or view source; I haven't +figured out how to embed SVGs well yet!) + + [fractions]: posts/17-fractions-and-simplification-explained.html + [twitter]: https://twitter.com/towerofnix + [scratch]: https://scratch.mit.edu/users/_nix/ + [radios]: static/media/18-radio-discussion.png |