This is cool, but I do find it odd that GitLab and Gitea isn't supported. It's always strange to me seeing people choose to build their platforms dependent on proprietary 3rd party infrastructure when good open-source self-hosted alternatives are available and easy to set up.
Maybe I’m alone with this but when I’m on GitHub, for some reason it feels more like I’m part of a community. For some reason gitlab doesn’t convey that when I write an issue there. Maybe it’s due to the packages that are on GitHub and gitlab themselves. That’s why I prefer GitHub over gitlab, although everything we do in my team we do on gitlab.
I'm on the Community Relations team at GitLab. I'd love to learn more about your experience as a member of the GitLab community.
When you say that opening an issue on GitLab doesn't make you feel part of a community, are you referring issues on one of GitLab's projects (ex: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab) or are you referring to issues on open source projects being hosted on GitLab.com?
Community is very important to us so when there are areas for improvement that feedback is really valued.
I think he meant just the network effects of a social platform. Github has more people in them so there are more people interacting with repositories hosted on Github.
I wish that somehow people carried identity across Github / Gitlab / Gitea / other services. Like, a federated issue tracker. Or otherwise that the issues themselves were easily movable between platforms, with no lock-in. But the incumbent platforms rarely want something like this.
> wish that somehow people carried identity across Github / Gitlab / Gitea / other services. Like, a federated issue tracker. Or otherwise that the issues themselves were easily movable between platforms, with no lock-in. But the incumbent platforms rarely want something like this.
Hey John, I'm sorry for answering this late. I haven't figured out a way to get notified about replies to my comments so here I am, backtracking what I have commented within the last few days. Sorry!
I'm referring to issues on open source projects hosted on GitLab.com so I think what this is about is out of your scope in some way? Also I've noticed that my initial comment is probably biased heavily by the projects I tend to follow on GitHub and GitLab. Gigantic projects (e.g. Inkscape vs. PyTorch) aren't different for me due to the active communities and after a second thought I have to admit that a lot of projects I follow and software I work with (PyTorch, Tensorflow as well as smaller ones like Potree, pyAIS, MIDI2LR) seem to live on GitHub. That's how some projects I did end up being on GitHub as well. On the other side me and my working group believe in Open Source so larger projects tend to end up on GitLab.
I'm not even sure if it helps but I didn't want to leave it "unanswered".
It's not odd, it's just not where their interests lay. Your priorities will always be distinct from others, and that'll seem strange from time to time, but it's a classic human condition thing.
Having been looking for a way to add comments to a static site for a while now, this is very cool and should get more love. Thanks for the service and the post!
Cool name … but why do so many apps insist on using simple English words as names? Whatever happened to more boring, uncool, old-fashioned composite names like PhotoShop or Notepad or Powerpoint?
The problem with one word names is that if the app gets big, it pollutes the search results for those words, making information hard to find. Just Google "Kafka", "electron" and you'll see what I mean.
I get that there is a "cool factor" in using "austere" names. But please be considerate of the need of other professions … Naming your app "electron", "polyhedra", etc makes it harder for physicists and mathematicians or even just the average person to find the information they look for.
It's interesting to note that font designers generally are more considerate of not polluting the public naming space than programmers. Fonts are generally given names that just sound like they are names of a font (just like drugs are generally given names that "sound like names of a drug"). Apps used to follow similar conventions, hence PhotoShop, FrontPage, DreamWeaver, etc. I'm really not a fan of the "austere" naming aesthetics that have prevailed in recent years. And as a Kafka fan I'm tired of constantly coming across results about Apache Kafka when I'm searching for information related to the novelist. Yes, I know I can be more specific in my queries, but you'd be surprised how many good resources there are about Kafka that don't contain "Franz" anywhere, or how many pages on the internet are about Apache Kafka but don't contain "Apache" anywhere on the page. I used to have a Google alert set up for Kafka results and I had to turn it off because the noise to signal ratio is just too high.
Sure. The gist is that Disqus collects your data like no one's business, and other shady things like ads. It's a very popular commenting system because it's free to use and easy to setup, but there's an obvious downside. I would go more in depth but honestly the articles below do a much better job.
Github is a great platform for building apps that use its infrastructure, but not always for its intended purpose, this being a great example.
I've personally built a number of apps on top of Github Gist. One of my apps is a bookmark sharing application, the idea is you create a bookmark collection and share it with others, all seperate from your browsers bookmarks. I ended up using Github Gist and got the ability to share bookmark collections right out of the box with GistID's.
I built an app for bookmarks but you can really apply it to anything where you need to keep small amounts of data and that data doesn't need to be private (gist has a "Private" mode but it's similar to unlisted Youtube videos).
Giscus is an other Github based comment system using Github discussion [0] which I use for my blog [1]. It has reply, and recreation feature. And its theme is better than Utterances, in my opinion. Give it a try.
I've been gathering[1] (blog) commenting systems (and some alternative approaches) since 2018. It started with a few entries, but I add new tools every few months. Great to see the ecosystem getting bigger.
I am looking for something like this, but I’m the format of the intercom.io chat widget, so we can take issues directly about our mvp sites and respond through gh issues.
So far, looks like I’ll need to make it custom, unless someone knows of an existing tool.
33 comments
[ 1.2 ms ] story [ 81.7 ms ] threadI'm on the Community Relations team at GitLab. I'd love to learn more about your experience as a member of the GitLab community.
When you say that opening an issue on GitLab doesn't make you feel part of a community, are you referring issues on one of GitLab's projects (ex: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab) or are you referring to issues on open source projects being hosted on GitLab.com?
Community is very important to us so when there are areas for improvement that feedback is really valued.
I wish that somehow people carried identity across Github / Gitlab / Gitea / other services. Like, a federated issue tracker. Or otherwise that the issues themselves were easily movable between platforms, with no lock-in. But the incumbent platforms rarely want something like this.
An alternative is to eschew platform issues entirely, and use decentralized issue comments hosted as Git repositories, like https://github.com/dspinellis/git-issue or https://github.com/neithernut/git-dit or https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug - I think that Gitlab should offer integration with one of them. I mean: both allowing to export issues and PRs into a Git branch, and allowing people to comment on issues and PRs by pushing to a Git branch.
This is exactly what FedeProxy is dedicated to.
https://fedeproxy.eu
I'm referring to issues on open source projects hosted on GitLab.com so I think what this is about is out of your scope in some way? Also I've noticed that my initial comment is probably biased heavily by the projects I tend to follow on GitHub and GitLab. Gigantic projects (e.g. Inkscape vs. PyTorch) aren't different for me due to the active communities and after a second thought I have to admit that a lot of projects I follow and software I work with (PyTorch, Tensorflow as well as smaller ones like Potree, pyAIS, MIDI2LR) seem to live on GitHub. That's how some projects I did end up being on GitHub as well. On the other side me and my working group believe in Open Source so larger projects tend to end up on GitLab.
I'm not even sure if it helps but I didn't want to leave it "unanswered".
The problem with one word names is that if the app gets big, it pollutes the search results for those words, making information hard to find. Just Google "Kafka", "electron" and you'll see what I mean.
I get that there is a "cool factor" in using "austere" names. But please be considerate of the need of other professions … Naming your app "electron", "polyhedra", etc makes it harder for physicists and mathematicians or even just the average person to find the information they look for.
It's interesting to note that font designers generally are more considerate of not polluting the public naming space than programmers. Fonts are generally given names that just sound like they are names of a font (just like drugs are generally given names that "sound like names of a drug"). Apps used to follow similar conventions, hence PhotoShop, FrontPage, DreamWeaver, etc. I'm really not a fan of the "austere" naming aesthetics that have prevailed in recent years. And as a Kafka fan I'm tired of constantly coming across results about Apache Kafka when I'm searching for information related to the novelist. Yes, I know I can be more specific in my queries, but you'd be surprised how many good resources there are about Kafka that don't contain "Franz" anywhere, or how many pages on the internet are about Apache Kafka but don't contain "Apache" anywhere on the page. I used to have a Google alert set up for Kafka results and I had to turn it off because the noise to signal ratio is just too high.
It’s been easy to set up and maintain. Not that I get many comments!
Not affiliated. Just think it's cool.
https://supunkavinda.blog/disqus
https://jacquesmattheij.com/disqus-bait-and-switch-now-with-...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Otherwise it's still a good thing to have your comments in a repo because it'll live forefer and can be replicated anywhere.
I've personally built a number of apps on top of Github Gist. One of my apps is a bookmark sharing application, the idea is you create a bookmark collection and share it with others, all seperate from your browsers bookmarks. I ended up using Github Gist and got the ability to share bookmark collections right out of the box with GistID's.
I built an app for bookmarks but you can really apply it to anything where you need to keep small amounts of data and that data doesn't need to be private (gist has a "Private" mode but it's similar to unlisted Youtube videos).
[0] https://giscus.app/
[1] https://imblien.com/posts/harry-potter-related/happy-christm...
[1] https://darekkay.com/blog/static-site-comments/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26033052
Using the platforms people already use to discuss to host your comments is a great idea!
So far, looks like I’ll need to make it custom, unless someone knows of an existing tool.