As part of my recent blog-enhancement attempt I added a comment system!

Writing And Editing Your Comment

There are no accounts, logins or passwords on this site. There are also not any comment/reply notifications (yet?).

The comment form accepts text in the Markdown format, with a lot of limitations. If you do not know Markdown and do not feeling like learning it today, a plain text comment will probably work just fine.

Your website, if provided, will be shared with other readers. Your email will not be shared, however: only I will see it. If there’s a comment-related issue, I might contact you through that email.

After you press “Submit” a cookie is stored on your browser which identifies you to the comment system, and expires in 15 minutes. You can only edit or delete your comment while this cookie is active. This means:

• You have at most 15 minutes to delete/edit a comment.
• If you clear your cookies, you cannot delete/edit comments you wrote before the clear.
• If you switch browsers or machines, you cannot delete/edit comments you wrote on your current browser/machine.

After the timeout is over, if you still need to clarify your comment, you will just have to reply to your own comment.

This is admittedly all a bit inconvenient, but the plus side is that unlike on social media, your identity can be hidden from the wider world. Even I will only have your IP Address (and anything you type in, of course).

Moderation

The policy is less “my site, my rules” and more like “my site, my whims”. I can remove your comment at any time, for any reason.

I will not edit your comment, except to change the text to “REMOVED FOR [reason]”. Or perhaps I will delete your comment without a trace.

Technical Details

This site uses Isso, with a lot of custom styling. Some of the limitations in the comment system are inherent to Isso, while others are just caused by my configuration.

Why Isso? Well…

• It’s free.
• It doesn’t deploy adverts or tracking scripts.
• It’s open-source (not a purely ideological concern: there’s a good chance I might actually want to edit the code someday).
• I host it on my site, rather than having to trust someone else’s server.
• It doesn’t require accounts, passwords or anything of the sort.
• It has existed for a long time, but is still being updated.
• It’s customizable.

Isso apparently doesn’t scale well, so I may need to switch to another system if ratan.blog gains a few million visitors. Until then, I hope you enjoy commenting.