A potential solution for comments on blog networks
EDIT: As Dotcoma insightfully pointed out on the Hacker News post, this already exists, but it had some problems with spam. Here is a newer protocol. It's not something I've seen on other blogs though, I'm definitely considering adding it to mine.
One of the most biggest talking points right now in the 'movement' to resurrect the old web (see this post or this site) is comments. While there are different takes on it, I especially like the quote on this post
"one could argue that if we’re all 'connected enough', we can comment on each others’ blogs via our own blogs. And perhaps that is enough. After all, having some friction in this particular dimension of online communities might just turn out to be a good thing."
I had an idea to further push this further along. It goes like this:
- You post a blog. At the bottom is a list of replies in the form of links.
- Someone reads your post and has something to add. Maybe it's a thank you note, a minor correction, a counter-argument, something they found interesting pertaining to the original topic. Whatever it is, they write it as a post on their own blog.
- They add "[reply]" to the start of the title of their post.
- They send the link of the post to you. Maybe you have a form at the bottom of your post. Maybe just through email. Different blogs can choose how they want to receive replies.
- You add that link to the list of replies at the bottom of your post.
This approach allows for flexibility. It puts the power in the hands of the blog owner. You can choose what features to add, what level of moderation to use, on which posts to use it. It's up to you. Maybe you add a feature to allow people to vote for their favorite replies. Maybe you view every reply before you add it to the bottom of your post, or maybe it's all automatic. Maybe you only put it on some posts and not others.
This approach also gives the commenter ownership over their comment. In traditional commenting systems, the page owner owns your comment. They can choose to delete it, even to change it. But in this system, you own your comment. Maybe the post owner doesn't choose to add your link to their post, but your comment still exists. Not only that, but in this system you as a commenter are incentivized to only post high quality comments, because your comments are directly tied to your blog and its reputation.
What are your thoughts? You can email me at chat.randomblog@gmail.com.