[tor-bugs] #10022 [Blog]: We need a new blogging system

[Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki]

#10022: We need a new blogging system
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     Reporter:  phobos     |      Owner:  phobos
         Type:             |     Status:  accepted
  enhancement              |  Milestone:  2014 Tor Blog Replacement
     Priority:  normal     |    Version:
    Component:  Blog       |   Keywords:  blog replacement upgrade www-team
   Resolution:             |  Parent ID:
Actual Points:             |
       Points:             |
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Comment (by jmtodaro):

 '''Status Update:

 I've done some digging into several commenting systems, and I'm afraid our
 options aren't great. Before I get started on the differences, I would
 just like to point out that over the history of the blog (2007- current),
 it has accumulated nearly 20000 individual comments. Roughly 6000 of those
 were made since January 2014. So what I'm trying to illustrate is that we
 have a fairly active comments section that will likely continue growing.

 Unfortunately [https://github.com/phusion/juvia Juvia] and
 [http://posativ.org/isso/ Isso] (I really like Isso btw) are designed with
 smaller blogs in mind and are missing many features that we will likely
 find necessary on a blog as active as ours, such as user authentication
 (for authors and moderating), ability to close comments, and moderation
 controls to name a few. I don't believe these are viable choices unless we
 are willing to further develop and contribute to these projects ourselves.
 Or are willing to sacrifice significant features that we currently have.
 If we do go this route, I think it might be a good idea to simply close
 comments on all existing threads and render them static with the blog
 posts, rather than importing them.

 [http://tildehash.com/ Hashover] seems kind of interesting, but it is
 written in php and actually seems to require living on the same server as
 the blog. Bleh.

 So, that really only leaves 2 viable choices (in my opinion), each with
 their own set of problems: [http://www.discourse.org/ Discourse] or Third-
 party (such as [https://disqus.com/ Disqus]).

 Discourse is fully featured but the way it works is a bit strange. The
 main problem with this one is the fact that it requires a sign-up (with
 our instance of discourse, it doesn't leave our server) to comment, which
 in turn requires email validation. I saw no easy way around this.
 Switching to Discourse is also known for reducing comment activity in
 general due to the hurdles imposed, but according to the developers this
 is a //feature// designed to promote more thoughtful discussion.

 Which leaves Disqus. I am actually somewhat sad to say that Disqus is
 nearly perfect in every way. I seriously have zero complaints regarding
 the functionality, and migrating would be a breeze. And yes it allows
 anonymous/guest comments without a sign in. The main drawback of course,
 is it being hosted by a third-party that does who knows what with the data
 it collects.

 So I begrudgingly recommend Disqus based on featues alone. It would hands
 down be the most painless transition, for both us and our existing
 audience. Maybe we can add some sort of warning at the top of the comments
 section to encourage viewers to use tbb when commenting? I did not
 actually test it with tbb yet, I guess we would need to make sure it
 doesn't pull some cloudflare bs.

 I've also put together a small chart to help compare the differences,
 available
 [http://cloud.jmtodaro.com/public.php?service=files&t=dcd6d42faa29dceae00bc9f384c96858
 here.] I look forward to hearing your feedback on this issue.

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/10022#comment:42>
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