Where do we discuss things?

2018-10-07

When I decided to restart my blog I also decided to add comments. Not because I strongly expect anyone will care to comment, but because it seemed like something that would be fun to do (note: my definition of fun is clearly outside the norm). I assuemed that I would be using forum software to accomplish this. I’m not willing to use a third party service like disqus because I want to control my own data.

I did a small amount of research, I had been planning on using Vanilla Forums , as I had played around with it in the past. Upon investigation I found some good comparisons between vanilla and Discourse . I’ve been following Jeff Atwood for a while and I had an “oh duh” moment, when I realized he was involved with Discourse. I took a look and quickly determined that I would be installing it.

The installation is done via docker, which is something else I’ve been wanting to get some exposure to. It’s almost too automated, as making any changes is a bit difficult. I’m still working a bit on the full automation, but for the most part its all working. After getting things installed I’ve got it configured and comments are working.

What seems like a lifetime ago I used to manage a forum which my friends and I used for communication and collaboration. In putting up the comments section I realized that I’ve got a full forum going here and I could maybe revive some of that. The real challenge would be actually getting anyone to use it. I think in general people see that sort of thing as just one more thing.

I’ve been pretty happy using Signal for most of my communcation, and I expect that’s primarily where conversations will continue to happen.

Software

Reduce the use of the big data companies

Standard Notes