Comments are back: disqus

Tags: python

After switching from Plone to a custom sphinx-based setup, I lost my commenting system. Plone has it build-in, one of the advantages of being a dynamic website with an application server under the hood. What I’m stuck with now is just effectively a bunch of static pages. And “static pages” means “no build-in commenting system”.

http://photos.reinout.vanrees.org/photos/649059229_jquyu-M.jpg

The advantage of having static pages? Well, the above picture tells you what google thinks of the average download time of pages on my website. I never really put a lot of effort into properly setting up caching for my own website, despite doing a lot of Plone cachefu work…

Solution 1: I added a link to the bottom of the page like “got a comment on a weblog entry? Mail me!”. That didn’t really work. I used to get a few comments per month, pointing out errors/better solutions/hints/encouragement. Now that has dropped to 1 emailed comment per two months or so. A quick form on a webpage apparently makes it way easier or more attractive to comment.

Solution 2: use one of those online commenting systems. I picked disqus. No particular reason for this one, except that it looked OK, seemed to work on the first try and had a pretty OK management interface. Well, “no particular reason” apparently boils down to “good initial impression”. I looked at other services before but they failed to make a good impression. Disqus was the first I stumbled over today when reading some blogs. We’ll see.

If you have alternatives, you can now comment below :-)

 
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Reinout van Rees

My name is Reinout van Rees and I program in Python, I live in the Netherlands, I cycle recumbent bikes and I have a model railway.

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