[HN Gopher] Webmention.io
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Webmention.io
Author : bezelbuttons
Score : 242 points
Date : 2021-03-09 18:33 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (webmention.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (webmention.io)
| Klonoar wrote:
| I don't have anything against jQuery, but isn't it a bit weird to
| have that be the example in 2020? Wouldn't `fetch` just work fine
| there...?
| aaronpk wrote:
| I'd happily accept a PR to the docs! I launched this service
| in... 2012
| zoover2020 wrote:
| This is what I love about HN and puts a smile on my face
| every damn time.
|
| For some reason, it makes the whole internet with its
| billions of users feel so small, for a sharp and brief
| moment.
|
| Of course we live in our own bubble on HN, so it's quite a
| specific and targeted demographic already, but still.
| throwanem wrote:
| Now you have one! (I fixed a typo and added a note about the
| presence of a CORS header on responses, too.)
| Klonoar wrote:
| Well, now I look like an ass. :)
|
| I was assuming this was a new thing - my mistake! Makes much
| more sense now, haha.
| abraham wrote:
| jQuery is still used on a huge number of sites.
|
| > jQuery alone is found on nearly 85% of the mobile pages
| tracked by HTTP Archive
|
| https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2020/javascript#what-do-w...
| SimeVidas wrote:
| Yes but it's worth mentioning that jQuery Ajax is a high-level
| API while `fetch` is a low-level method. The default call is
| sometimes (most of the times?) not what you want, and you have
| to add one or more options.
| throwanem wrote:
| It's not any more complicated to use than $.ajax ever was;
| the major difference is that it returns promises by default
| instead of needing callbacks, and that's a strict
| improvement.
|
| That said, I'm glad you gave me a reason to look at the
| jQuery docs again, for the first time in years. What a 2009
| mood!
|
| _edit:_ And if I 'd looked more closely, I'd have seen that
| $.ajax now _does_ return a promise. So that 's good! Still
| appreciate the nostalgia hit.
| scubbo wrote:
| TIL!
| johnorourke wrote:
| Obligatory mention: reminds me of the syndication element of
| project Xanadu.
| swyx wrote:
| tip for those considering this - i use clientside webmentions for
| this so that it doesnt add to my build times - and lazy load it
| so it doesnt drain visitor battery/data:
|
| https://www.swyx.io/clientside-webmentions/
| nynx wrote:
| I feel like this needs to be more of a browser extension than a
| per-site thing. You'd be able to see all the places that link to
| this page that have been created or seen by a group that you're
| in.
| alvarlagerlof wrote:
| And what is a "web mention"?
| Graffur wrote:
| I am glad someone else asked this. It seems terribly explained.
| A picture or video might do well here.
|
| From the explanations below, I think the person who gets
| mentioned will receive a notification (email?) from
| webmention.io (Both people(domains?) have to be registered on
| webmention.io)
| chewmieser wrote:
| "Webmention is a simple way to notify any URL when you mention
| it on your site. From the receiver's perspective, it's a way to
| request notifications when other sites mention it."
|
| https://www.w3.org/TR/webmention/
|
| Sounds pretty similar to pingbacks
| rektide wrote:
| Webmention was inpsired by pingbacks but without xml.
|
| Webmention.io (the submitted link) contains a pingback to
| webmention forwarding service[1].
|
| [1] https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.io#pingback-to-
| webment...
| rzzzt wrote:
| See the link in ivan_ah's comment:
| https://indieweb.org/Webmention
|
| "When you link to a website, you can send it a Webmention to
| notify it. If it supports Webmentions, then that website may
| display your post as a comment, like, or other response, and
| presto, you're having a conversation from one site to another!"
| kingkool68 wrote:
| Jinx!
| kingkool68 wrote:
| "When you link to a website, you can send it a Webmention to
| notify it. If it supports Webmentions, then that website may
| display your post as a comment, like, or other response, and
| presto, you're having a conversation from one site to another!"
|
| https://indieweb.org/Webmention
| rektide wrote:
| "Webmention[1] is a W3C recommendation that describes a simple
| protocol to notify any URL when a website links to it, and for
| web pages to request notifications when somebody links to them.
| Webmention was originally developed in the IndieWebCamp
| community[2] and published as a W3C working draft on January
| 12, 2016.[3] As of January 12, 2017 it is a W3C
| recommendation.[4] Webmention enables authors to keep track of
| who is linking to, referring to, or commenting on their
| articles. By incorporating such comments from other sites,
| sites themselves provide federated commenting
| functionality."[1]
|
| If you want to know a little more about how this fits in with
| other adjacent social web protocols, I'd recommend the Social
| Web Protocols document[2].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webmention
|
| [2] https://www.w3.org/TR/social-web-protocols/#delivery-
| mention...
| crazypython wrote:
| How do I insert a comments section with Webmention? What HTML do
| I add? Preferably via dynamic JS so it's self-updating.
| dbeley wrote:
| I'm too young to know what are webmentions or pingbacks (love the
| band Pinback though), you should briefly mention what they are on
| your homepage.
| gagege wrote:
| Wow, I'm not alone. I knew there had to be other Pinback fans
| out there :)
| koalala wrote:
| thanks, you just transported me back to my twenties :D
| notimpotent wrote:
| Not exactly the same, but I've been using https://f5bot.com/ for
| a while now. Sends me a notification any time specified keywords
| are found on Reddit, HN, etc. Great service with no fees.
| jazzido wrote:
| IIRC, the first incarnation of this was proposed and implemented
| around 2002 by Six Apart. It was called "trackback".
| xrd wrote:
| At first, I didn't get it. Pingbacks, isn't that from the 90s?
|
| Then, I thought: does this mean the bar for joining a
| conversation on my publication is that you have to publish
| something too?
|
| That seems like a nice bar to set for asking both parties in a
| conversation to be fully engaged. Trolls seem like they will be
| too lazy to do that.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| Which is closer to how opinion and editorial columns operate in
| traditional/print publications.
|
| General reader responses are curated into a "Letters to the
| Editor" section, whereas the real discussion tended to happen
| between columnists in their respective columns.
|
| That in contrast to what seems to be the popular
| misunderstanding--that columnists' opinion columns are
| summaries of an entire publication's political and
| philosophical stance.
| hashkb wrote:
| I think modern TV news has eroded all trust that
| organizations can have more than one opinion / host a civil
| debate. It's prudent now to assume every news organization
| has an agenda, no matter how it (says it) conducts itself.
| leephillips wrote:
| Exactly. This kind of thing encourages substantive
| conversations.
| wiml wrote:
| Right, this is effectively an updated version of pingbacks
| (pingbacks from ca. 2000, webmention from ca. 2010). See last
| month's HN discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26258557
| javajosh wrote:
| Implies an interesting lower bound to on-boarding friction,
| especially for anonymous services. Counter-intuitive, but
| clearly a thing.
| [deleted]
| toyg wrote:
| Pingbacks are back, baby! What is old is new again, except this
| time is centralized, so hopefully with less spam but also less
| independence once FAANG acquire the service.
| blowski wrote:
| When did we all end up so pessimistic? An interesting new idea
| with little more than an MVP, and we've already mapped out its
| whole demise.
| johnmaguire2013 wrote:
| It's been around since at least 2012.
| davepeck wrote:
| Indeed! To be clear: webmentions themselves aren't centralized
| (and neither are the other various IndieWeb protocols), but
| webmention.io does provide a very convenient (central) service
| for receiving them.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| So how long before this gets used for spam ala pingbacks?
| pmlnr wrote:
| https://indieweb.org/Vouch is an extension designed for spam
| prevention, but it doesn't have a wide adaptation yet.
| blowski wrote:
| If we let the possibility of spam prevent us building
| technology, we should never build anything.
| SquareWheel wrote:
| I agree, but I think it's also worth learning from past
| experiences. Pingbacks _do_ create a significant spam
| problem. How does Webmention.io cope with that?
| blowski wrote:
| Cross that bridge when you get there. If nobody uses,
| there's no problem. If so many people are using it that it
| attracts spam, then the users can decide how to solve it at
| that point in time.
| Mizza wrote:
| Of course, you are both correct here.
|
| Spam was my first thought as well. Back in the golden age
| of blogging, I loved getting pingbacks on my posts, but
| the ecosystem became flooded with spam to the point that
| anybody old enough to remember what pingpacks are will
| automatically associate them with spam. It'd be nice if
| this service could address this concern, which lots of
| people will have immediately, and it appears they do via
| a plugin, as mentioned in another comment.
|
| Since this is a centralized-ish service, it'd be good if
| they could perhaps address this at the hub-level.
| epc wrote:
| The spam problem helped kill independent blogging by
| driving bloggers to centralized hosting.
|
| The great thing about MovableType, b2, and eventually
| WordPress was that pretty much anyone could install it on
| a shell account and set up a fairly sophisticated
| publishing system. The lousy thing about MT and WordPress
| was that it was fairly easy to write automated tools to
| spam comments and trackbacks and now your unsophisticated
| bloggers were trying to become DBAs and understand the
| nuanced differences between MyISAM and and InnoDB tables
| and locking and...oh...it was easier to migrate to
| blogger and TypePad and eventually Tumblr/Facebook.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| We should realize that any technology without controls will
| be taken advantage of. There's a reason we've moved away from
| insecure default logins, unauthenticated admin portals and
| allowing apps to do whatever they want - those things have
| all been abused.
|
| Security must start in the design. Spam killed pingbacks, and
| unless Webmentions design with that flaw in mind they're
| doomed to the same end.
| pjc50 wrote:
| No, if you build without spam prevention you end up with a
| situation where you have to retrofit it, annoying legitimate
| users and having a huge fight over control.
|
| Or it drowns in spam and everyone quietly drops it .. or it
| never takes off at all. _Shrug_
| epc wrote:
| I have had trackbacks turned off on my MT blog for ~15
| years and still get hundreds of attempted POSTs to mt-
| tb.cgi every week.
| muppetman wrote:
| Why does this want permission to read my tweets? That wasn't
| clear at all putting my website and clicking the submit button.
| I'm sure it's fine, but I didn't grant it and backed out.
| jamesvandyne wrote:
| Webmentions are a great way of getting back to a decentralized
| web. Being able to comment on someone else's site _from your own
| site_ feels like magic. It brings back memories of the web before
| social media took hold.
|
| Implementation is pretty simple, too. I documented how I handled
| processing and display of webmentions on https://tanzawa.blog (a
| system I'm developing designed to make using the IndieWeb
| easier/less fiddly).
| ivan_ah wrote:
| Oooh I like a lot.
|
| The whole idea of a two-way links like the wp pingbacks in the
| good old days is getting traction. For more info about this, see
| https://indieweb.org/Webmention and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linkback
|
| Another useful related thing I saw is https://brid.gy/ which
| transforms social mentions into webmentions
| crazypython wrote:
| Two-way links are why people use tools like Roam or Athens
| research.
|
| I want to see the Web re-become the decentralized, hypertext
| knowledge graph it was meant to be.
| incanus77 wrote:
| Excellent concept, project & service. I'm using it together with
| Brid.gy[1] on my Hugo-hosted blog[2] and it's great for bringing
| in Twitter likes of posts.
|
| [1] https://brid.gy/
|
| [2] https://justinmiller.io/posts/2020/12/23/ornament/
| kickscondor wrote:
| Yeah - I've gotten a lot of mileage out of these services.
| Along with commentpara.de for anonymous comments.
|
| There's an anon comment on this post:
| https://www.kickscondor.com/the-multiverse-diary along with the
| link to leave a comment. Static HTML!
| incanus77 wrote:
| I have a ~200 LOC Hugo partial I've built up which reads in the
| webmentions via jQuery, then parses them out into Twitter,
| Micro.blog, or "other". If at least one of either/or Twitter or
| Micro.blog, pull out the root URL and show that at the top of
| the comments to encourage discussion. Otherwise, parse out
| like, repost, or plain old mention and add an icon.
|
| I also have an HN parser for posts like this one[1] if they've
| hit a certain comment threshold.
|
| I don't have any problem with sharing it, but I just haven't
| published it anywhere yet on account of not wanting the
| maintenance or support overhead. I think all of it can be
| gleaned from the page source, anyway.
|
| [1] https://justinmiller.io/posts/2019/09/21/pi-gadget/ (see
| bottom)
| wholien wrote:
| was it easy to get it setup? I too have a Hugo blog but other
| than occasionally adding posts and changing the theme,
| haven't done any intense partial-building. Sounds like it
| could be a fun little project
| incanus77 wrote:
| I mean, the JS itself is the 200 LOC, so it's not trivial,
| but feel free to crib my source as a start. The partials
| are really straightforward, though -- my
| layouts/microposts/single.html just brings in the
| webmentions.html partial with one tag at the right part of
| the layout (i.e. almost the bottom) and then that JS does
| the work of... whatever you want. You could start just
| iterating the contents of any webmentions array pulled in
| as an unnumbered list, then iterate your presentation from
| there.
| tristor wrote:
| Do you have a write-up on how you integrated this with Hugo and
| what the trade-offs were? I have an active side-project to add
| full IndieWeb support to my favorite Hugo theme, which includes
| WebMentions.
| seanwilson wrote:
| Can you explain how this works? The blog post is pulling in the
| webmentions via JavaScript?
| wiml wrote:
| Previous discussion on HN, "Grow the IndieWeb with Webmentions"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26258557
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| So here's my question: HN as far as I can tell doesn't explicitly
| integrate with webmention, but I'm assuming webmention.io _does_
| use it. Does that mean the owner @aaronpk _does_ get a mention
| every time webmention is linked, say, from Hacker News? The docs
| don 't make it clear, but if in fact, it does, this seems like a
| killer concept for HN users who want to be notified (among other
| times) when their service/blog/whatever is shared to HN
|
| edit: Also, why doesn't webmention.io display its own mentions to
| utilize the two-way communication it advertises? Seems like a no-
| brainer to show prospective users an example of it working in
| action
| cube2222 wrote:
| There are multiple services which solve this problem already,
| i.e. https://f5bot.com
| aaronpk wrote:
| HN does not as far as I know, but Lobsters does!
| https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters/pull/535
| tarkin2 wrote:
| Yeah. This is my interest.
|
| I don't want to a cluster of likes and tweets. But I do want
| link notifications. I need to rely to Google for this
| currently.
| leephillips wrote:
| You can also look at the referrers in your webserver logs.
| It's just that someone has to click on the link for it to
| appear in your logs. And you can discover referrer spam!
| aaronpk wrote:
| > edit: Also, why doesn't webmention.io display its own
| mentions to utilize the two-way communication it advertises?
| Seems like a no-brainer to show prospective users an example of
| it working in action
|
| This is a good idea, and if I were re-making this service new
| in 2021 I would definitely do this. However I launched this in
| 2012 as a barebones implementation to get webmentions working
| for a few of my websites and never bothered to develop it much
| past that point.
| nfoz wrote:
| Not meant to flame: why do people want these? They always just
| seemed like spam cluttering up an article's comments, removing
| the space for actual discussion.
| TrueDuality wrote:
| I don't display pingbacks anywhere on my website, but I like to
| know when people link to articles I've written. It's personally
| rewarding for me to know that I'm contributing knowledge that
| others are referencing and expanding on. These have opened
| project collaborations for me and allowed me to meet some
| awesome new like-minded friends from all over.
|
| I generally agree posting these on your site is going to be
| sloppy and probably lead to getting spam'd or end up with
| backlink issues.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| Agreed - I think mentions are a very cool in principle, but in
| practice it seems like blog software that supports them tends
| to just treat them as comments, which ends up being really
| irritating. Unfortunately this practice has been sort of
| solidified by platforms like Tumblr.
|
| I would love to see mentions implemented in the UX as a
| completely separate concept from comments, where there is
| independently maybe a "mentioned x times" in the post footer
| which can be clicked for a list of mentioners. This could be a
| cool method for "webring-style" discovery of websites on
| similar topics without cluttering up the comment experience.
| aaronpk wrote:
| The good news is everyone who receives webmentions can decide
| what it looks like themselves! In fact you'll see quite a lot
| of variation in how these are displayed on people's websites.
| Everything from a list of comments, to just a list of URLs,
| to a grid of faces with no text!
|
| eta: There is also no requirement that the receiver of a
| webmention displays it! You could just as well use it for
| private notifications of the links.
| aaronpk wrote:
| Don't think of it as comments on blog posts, think of it as
| enabling entire conversation threads between websites instead
| of between twitter accounts.
| uranusjr wrote:
| It's like something between Twitter reply and quoted RT, which
| both shows up for your own followers and notifies the OP you
| said something about their topic. Before big social networks
| were popular, this was a very good way to make new friends on
| the internet.
| InfiniteRand wrote:
| As a reader, I find clicking through the mentions / pingback
| links are a good way to find another take on the same subject
| as the original article
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(page generated 2021-03-09 23:00 UTC)