13:17 <timmc[m]> Hmm, my IRC bouncer died. :-(

13:19 <timmc[m]> I was looking at https://staticman.net/ as an option for adding comments to my blog, which is a static site. But it would be cool if I could host something as a Sandstorm grain instead.

13:20 <timmc[m]> I'm tempted to write a Python app that just receives comments, presents a moderation interface, and exposes an API for my blog generator to grab the latest comments.

13:21 <ccx_> Just make NNTP post for each blogpost. ;-)

13:24 <timmc[m]> You know, I've never actually managed to learn much about that.

13:25 <timmc[m]> It would also be relatively straightforward to implement something like Disqus.

13:29 <timmc[m]> Actually, this is what I want: Grain presents API and a comment UI that blog posts link to. Static site generator periodically grabs new comments and saves them alongside the posts in my git repo.

13:31 <timmc[m]> Blog posts include older comments inline, along with a link to "comments since last republish"—or if JS is enabled, just fetches any newer ones to display inline.

13:31 <timmc[m]> Comments end up in repo eventually, no JS required to read comments, maybe even not required to write.

14:18 <ccx_> The funny thing is that blog with nested comments is exactly the same model as usenet. Or mailing list threads really. But yeah, it has it's own mass of quirks that render it not very practical. And moderation is PITA wherever I look.

14:19 <ccx_> The question is how the comments get into the repo I guess. Plus they have to trigger rebuild. Which is kinda anti-thesis to static site design I'd say.

14:19 <ocdtrekkie> A Sandstorm/static publishing friendly comment system has been on the wish list a long time.

14:20 <ocdtrekkie> I wonder if you could do it irrespective of the static publishing method provided you were comfortable with an iframe.

14:20 <ccx_> At that point it's a dynamic site really, just with nicer caching.

14:20 <ocdtrekkie> Commenting uses form submission to hit the Sandstorm API endpoint, seeing comments embeds an iframe with the statically published comments.

14:21 <ocdtrekkie> When the comment app receives a comment, it regenerates it's statically published endpoint for the comment view.

14:22 <ocdtrekkie> No JavaScript needed for the blog or comments at that point.

14:22 <ccx_> Hmm

15:35 <timmc[m]> re "antithesis", that's why I was interested in having the static site generator pull in new comments whenever I happen to run it next. :-)

15:36 <timmc[m]> iframes have some weirdness around layout and I'm not sure if CSS has yet improved in a way that can paper over that

15:37 <timmc[m]> Definitely tempting though.

15:38 <timmc[m]> I like the idea of the comment app regenerating its own static view.

15:40 <ocdtrekkie> Presumably the site developer might have some flexibility on how to integrate it, if it's relatively plain HTML. You could grab it client side with JavaScript, if you didn't want to use an iframe, right?

16:05 <isd> ocdtrekkie's design is not far from what I experimented with once upon a time: https://github.com/zenhack/sandstorm-comments

16:08 <isd> with the caveat that my memory has probably faded some in the past 5 years