Ben Stucki

What do you want from a commenting system?

You may notice my blog is a little sparse. That’s because I’m taking this opportunity to restart with the basics, focus on one element at a time, and develop a compelling experience. First up is a commenting system. Allot of searching online turned up little new ideas on the subject. I did manage to find a blog entry from cheeaunblog which seems to lay out my own thoughts pretty well. The system I have right now isn’t great, so I thought I would ask you. What do you want from a commenting system?

So far I’ve come up with three basic objectives. First, you shouldn’t have to jump through any hoops to leave a comment. Second, you should have control to edit, protect and otherwise manage your comment. Third, the system should be easy to understand. Of course, each of these goals can conflict with the other two. Most canned blogging solutions achieve these to some degree, but not unconditionally. For example, they may allow you to edit and protect your comment if you jump through some hoops and sign in to their system first. Alternately, they may let you comment anonymously and give up any chance of editing your comment later.

As a solution I may move towards a system in which anonymous or unverified comments can be claimed at a later time by verifying your email. I’m also considering a versioning system to allow edits while still maintaining the historical data. I’ll start to implement some of this soon, so now is the time to let me know what you think.