Using Google Groups as a Commenting System

05/05/2023 /

Original link: https://limboy.me/posts/use-google-groups-as-comment-system/

I started to toss the comment system again, from the initial Disqus , to Gisqus , to self-research, to the current Google Groups , I hope this is the last time.

Mental journey

Gisqus

There are several reasons for abandoning Disqus: 1) loading too much content, affecting page loading speed; 2) concerns about privacy and profit models; 3) inconvenient unified management of comments; 4) poor UI performance. When looking for candidates, Gisqus appeared in my field of vision: based on Github Discussions development (no privacy issues, easy content management), UI and UE are also good, it is open source, and some websites are also using it . After evaluation, it was decided to switch .

Self-study

I moved my heart for self-development. On the one hand, I saw that Giscus still sends a lot of requests (of course, less than disqus). I feel that a comment system does not need to be so complicated, and it is still a bit uncomfortable to rely on Github. On the one hand, it limits the blog group (non-programmers will most likely not have a github account), on the other hand, the core of Github is code management and collaboration, using one of its sub-functions as a blog comment system, in addition to making the entrance change Deep, there will be a feeling of unconventional use. It’s like buying a knife, but just smashing walnuts with the handle of the knife.

So I developed a comment system by myself, no account is needed, just email and username (back to the WordPress era).

Why Google Groups

Let me first talk about why I thought of switching the comment system again. After all, the cost of switching once is still quite high. The main reason is that the self-developed comment system is still a bit weak, such as the lack of account system, inconvenient reference and discussion, lack of notifications, etc. These functions can naturally be completed, but this will also make the comment system more and more complicated, and it will take more time to develop and maintain.

So the search for a solution started again. I saw that geekplux on Twitter is using webmention to aggregate Likes, Replies and Mentions by searching for links to current articles on Twitter.

Looks fine, but there are two problems:

  1. From the perspective of participating in comments, there is a certain cost. You need to send a tweet with the link, and then attach the corresponding Comment, or find the tweet corresponding to the link to comment, and I am deliberately reducing the use of Twitter. frequency.
  2. It is not convenient to have in-depth communication. Twitter’s design will pay more attention to the rapid generation and distribution of information, which will also affect users’ attitudes towards information.

For this commenting system, I want it to:

  • Lightweight
  • Cheap
  • long life cycle
  • very low maintenance
  • Low barriers to participation (for example, existing accounts can be used)
  • Facilitate in-depth communication
  • Appropriate Notification Mechanism
  • Certain member/post management capabilities

In this way, it looks a bit like a forum. The more popular forum is discourse , but its unhosted version is very expensive ( $100 per month), and I don’t want to host an open source version (maintenance cost). Then I thought of Google Groups , an ancient product. Although more than 10 years ago, John Resig (the author of jQuery) wrote that Google Groups is Dead , and recently some people said that Google Group has been left to die , but I think it should be safe in a short period of time (a few years), based on the following A few considerations:

  1. Google Groups has been around for over 20 years
  2. Maintenance of Google Groups is less human and machine intensive
  3. With the lessons learned from Google Reader, I will be more cautious about such decisions in the future
  4. Google uses Google Groups a lot internally, but not sure if there’s a big difference between the internal and external versions

PS: It feels amazing to be able to look back at the internal discussions of Zhihu Devs more than ten years ago

Google Groups is lightweight, cheap (free), has no maintenance costs, and can last for at least a few years (based on personal judgment). At the same time, using a Google account also lowers the threshold for participation, notification mechanism, in-depth communication capabilities, and member/post management capabilities are also available. Therefore, it is very in line with my demands for a blog comment system.

I hope that I don’t have to toss about the comment system again in my lifetime…

This article is transferred from: https://limboy.me/posts/use-google-groups-as-comment-system/
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