Add Disqus post

Author: codegaze

_posts/2023-01-10-disqus-no-more.md

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: Disqus No More
+description: It was time to migrate to a different commenting system, giscus
+categories: ["Jekyll"]
+---
+
+Back in 2015, I created - I'm still having difficulty calling it a blog for some reason - this place. GitHub Pages with [Jekyll](https://jekyllrb.com/) (free hosting FTW), the [Poole theme](https://github.com/poole/poole) with some CSS and layout changes, and there was a thing - my own thing, besides work - in the internet. _"Introverts of the world, unite"_.
+
+Depending on the mood I'm in, I make minor improvements here and there or remove parts I don't like.
+
+So a few weeks ago, it was time for Disqusm, a commenting system, to be removed from codegazerants.
+
+There were two main reasons for doing this:
+* Disqus has had a bad reputation for a long time now. Tracking, ads, JS bloat, loading times etc.
+* People don't comment that much so removing it won't do any harm.
+
+Regardless of the last point, I wanted to keep the ability to comment on something. What if someone had a question?
+
+## Search for an Alternative
+For a moment, I thought of creating a small custom service to handle the whole commenting system, but this has been done too many times in the past by other people. Maybe a weekend project at some point.
+
+It was time for a Google search, and the only requirements were something that worked on a static site and was lightweight.
+
+I saw [webmention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webmention) - maybe for another time - and then two similar approaches that looked good to me. The first one was [utterances](https://utteranc.es/), and the second one was [giscus](https://github.com/giscus/giscus).
+
+Both are Github apps that use its features as a commenting system. The only reason I chose one over the other was that giscus - a newer app - is using comments instead of issues.
+
+## Enter giscus
+The setup was straightforward. You install the app in Github for the specific repository, include a JS script in your page, and that's it.
+
+You can also do some CSS tweaking, but I didn't bother. The default one looks nice on this site.
+
+The only "issue" with the giscus (and utterances) approach is that only people with a Github account can interact with it, but it's something I can live with.
+
+## Old Comments and Moving Forward
+I apologise a bit for removing some old comments, although I'm sure no one remembers.
+
+I will try to keep giscus for some time, and if no one is using it, I will remove this too.