[HN Gopher] Show HN: Remarkbox - Hosted comments without ads or ...
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Show HN: Remarkbox - Hosted comments without ads or tracking
Author : foxhop
Score : 134 points
Date : 2021-02-05 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.remarkbox.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.remarkbox.com)
| matthewpick wrote:
| I'm currently using https://commentbox.io for my static sites,
| I'll have to try yours out!
| marsknight wrote:
| This is a really nice piece of software :)
|
| It got so easy to build a dynamic, privacy-friendly, kiss website
| nowadays.
| foxhop wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| Agreed. Let's continue building some cool stuff and make it
| accessible!
| suyash wrote:
| Sorry but I don't trust this product anymore than Disqus when it
| comes to privacy etc unless it's open source.
| foxhop wrote:
| Here is my very personal answer to that question: filmed over
| my lunch break
|
| https://youtu.be/RD0FZ-ddido
| vishnumohandas wrote:
| Thank you for posting this. The project looks promising. You
| do you. Godspeed.
| [deleted]
| marcobehler wrote:
| How does it compare to commento.io ?
| asar wrote:
| I really like the idea and the implementation looks nice! But not
| having any type of spam protection is a deal breaker for me. Even
| if links are set to nofollow, it's still a big opportunity for
| bots and spammers to abuse this system and spread their links,
| similar to what is happening to misconfigured wordpress sites.
| foxhop wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback. I'll add Akismet integration to the
| backlog for people with the same objection. Allowing people to
| pass an API key to their Namespace shouldn't be too difficult
| but I'll need to build out a UI for separating ham versus spam
| which might take more work.
|
| In the Namespace settings you can force all comments into
| moderation before displaying to the page. This would be the
| best option for you in the mean time.
| simplecto wrote:
| One quick win that might catch most of the bots is using CSS
| to hide an dummy form input.
|
| No human will see it if their browser properly renders, but
| bots using CSS selectors might fill it in. If you see that
| field is filled in then you have a high probability of it
| being a bot and can drop it.
| ficklepickle wrote:
| Regarding the hidden form input, make sure you aren't
| blocking screen reader users/the visually disabled
| accidently. Make sure you can't end up in that input with
| the tab key.
|
| I've found that comments submitted in less than 7 seconds
| from page load are spam. On a few low traffic sites I just
| discard anything faster than that.
|
| A few bots seem to load a page, wait a while, then come
| back to it. But by and large they seem to try to submit the
| comment immediately after page load.
|
| Mind you, this was on low-traffic sites. High traffic sites
| I'm sure see more varied techniques.
| foxhop wrote:
| I like this. I'll add something like this to the backlog.
| foxhop wrote:
| yup. This really works for dumb bots.
| TrishaK wrote:
| How long will you be able to sustain this? I have a fairly small
| site that has virtually no traffic, so I would love to use this
| but what happens if you end up with a large number of sites using
| this? And assume that the donations don't cover the expenses. Do
| you have a fallback plan?
| foxhop wrote:
| I've optimized the codebase to scale.
|
| Please use it on your small site with no traffic for free.
|
| My biggest hope is for a large number of sites to use this.
|
| I've been operating Remarkbox for the last 5 years.
|
| Plan is to grow and try not to burn a bunch of money.
|
| Fallback plan is open sourcing the codebase.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > Fallback plan is open sourcing the codebase.
|
| I think the main concern for would-be user websites is not
| the code, but what happens to all of the comments if you shut
| down.
|
| Worst-case one might not notice you plan to shut down before
| you turn off the servers and all comments are lost.
|
| Do you offer downloads of comment archives for user websites
| so that they can download the comments in a convenient format
| for backup?
|
| That would be a relief for some people to have mayhaps.
|
| Edit: I see that this has been addressed already and indeed
| you do offer that. Excellent!
| f-word wrote:
| Hi! Sorry if I'm missing something. I do not understand how
| to pay you? Clicked around the site for a bit and couldn't
| find some self evident thing I can do to send you any given
| amount of money; my employers might find the idea of this
| being a paid service a bit more easy if I try to push this to
| them for use on some of our microsites
| foxhop wrote:
| Go to https://my.remarkbox.com and verify your email. From
| there you should see options.
| TrishaK wrote:
| Thank you for the follow-up. This + your other comment
| showing that there is an export to JSON option make me feel a
| lot better.
|
| I will set it up this weekend and see how it goes.
| foxhop wrote:
| Awesome. Good luck.
| rexreed wrote:
| But when Remarkbox disappears, so do your comments? Is there no
| self-hosting version possible?
| foxhop wrote:
| I answered this question here:
|
| https://www.remarkbox.com/#4b2e69b0-67db-11eb-8f71-040140774...
| rexreed wrote:
| Great answer, thanks!
| johnghanks wrote:
| Guy runs a Comments-as-a-Service platform but speaks like he's
| some revolutionary icon. He needs to indulge in some self-
| reflection, I think.
| clircle wrote:
| I've been using utterances (github issue tracker powered
| comments) on my website. Seems better than Disqus (lighter, less
| tracking) but it requires a github account.
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(page generated 2021-02-05 23:00 UTC)