I’ve Removed Disqus. It Was Making My Blog Worse
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
ryansouthgate.comTechstoryHigh profile
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DisqusCommenting SystemsBloggingPrivacyAdvertising
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Disqus
Commenting Systems
Blogging
Privacy
Advertising
The author removed Disqus due to its intrusive ads and poor business practices, sparking a discussion on alternative commenting systems.
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Sep 30, 2025 at 4:36 AM EDT
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* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45370971
In the 2010s if you left a wordpress blog unattended even with the official default filter plugin it would fill with spam comments. I dont know if thats still a problem.
You probably mean a PHP that can be hosted for cheap. But then, you end up with a Wordpress nightmare, even more spam and security issues.
I had a pretty popular blog and some posts gathered hundreds of useful comments. But I was so tired of fighting spam that I threw it all away and started using Hugo too, without comments.
They could be turned off at the time but only on a case-by-case basis. In the end, I got rid of Disqus.
What would be more useful would be an automated list of places where the post has been discussed (and maybe pull the top comments from there through API?)
Social media ruined that. Everyone is now on their own soap box posting comments of drivel from their sub-optimal self-conscious parroting asinine talking points about how one characterized group of statistics ruined it for everyone else. Bots, drivel, linkbacks, social media, stupid laws, and an aversion to independence - we have what we have today. Large platforms that trick humans into use because they have the largest arenas.
Also, the author’s experience with seeing scammy ads on their site doesn’t mean that others are seeing the same ads. Because they ran ad-free for so long it’s possible their token in the AdTech ecosystem is stale in which case it hasn’t put it into any buckets yet. Ergo, you get the smoking/drinking/scamming/doesn’t fit category.
A “token” is a device or ident signature used to identify a viewer or user so that they can tabulate impressions, build personas, categorize your shopping habits, track the sites you visit, link your token with others in your proximity
Partially agree, partially disagree. Blog comments were already dead when SEO fraudsters discovered that "linkbacks" could be abused for spam even easier than comments were.
Well, so they may see worse ads.
Then I built an alternative using free Cloudflare Worker
https://github.com/est/req4cmt
It's a simple service that transform comment POST form data to JSON, append to a .jsonl file, then do a `git push`
It renders comments by `git fetch` from a .jsonl file from a remote repo, or simply via raw.githubusercontent.com if your repo was hosted by Github.
The advantange over Github issue/discussion based comment plugins:
1. All data is stored a .git
2. no login of any sort
Github OAuth login might leak all your repo data along with your `access_token` to the plugin provider.
The `git push` works for any remote. You can choose github/gitlab or whatever.
You now have a direct way for users to insert data into your repo, which can include illegal things. And if you're required to delete it later, you'll be forced to edit your git history.
But if everyone behaves, it's a great solution
I did try to implement partial-clone but failed
Let's be honest, for a personal blog, >1k comments is an overestimate.
It is painful for writing, but reading comments is quite fast and 99% is about loading.
Maybe, maybe not. Before 2024, my blog got <10k views/y. Then in 2024 it got close to 1 million (this year it will likely be 100k). Very hard to predict traffic thanks to hn and stuff!
Yes, and spam is also a huge concern.
I plan to mitigate by adding "Pull Request" style moderation next.
And you can switch to a private repo
For mass moderation, just git clone, grep the lines, sed them out, and `git push -f`
Remember the use case is for static generated personal blogs.
I'd argue it's even quicker than, say a paginated bloated megabytes javascript rendered single-page application moderation system.
In case of comments you don't like, just delete the line and `git commit`
to erase the history entirely, use `git cherry-pick` and `git push -f`
It might be a nightmare for people not familiar with `git`, but for folks running a static blog like Hugo, they use lots of shell commands anyway.
Allowing force-push is considered an antipattern for Git, and generally best avoided. It's a safeguard against lost history and prevents data loss.
That aside, the comments are the history. Git is the wrong tool for the job. Why would you choose a generic version-control system designed for source code diffs & merges for the specialised task of chronologically-ordered comments? A database such as PostgreSQL is a far superior choice in just about every possible way. I admire your ingenuity here to make something out of what's available, but I respectfully disagree with this being a good way to capture user-generated content when there are better alternatives.
you mean other files will bloat the repo and slow down the performance? Yes it's a very valid concern, but this system targets personal blogs, which I assume had very few comment traffic.
> Git is the wrong tool for the job ..... A database ... is a far superior choice in just about every possible way
the same argument applies to Wordpress.
But most tech people are choosing static generated blogs anyway, and with git too. File system is the database.
And there are good reasons for that.
I still wouldn't put them into Git along with the rest of the site, that's a definitely no-no. A separate Git? Also no for me. Filesystem does seem viable on reflection, and I feel inspired to explore this now.
They certainly do, but for they same reason why people chose static site generators like Hugo over Wordpress, I'd like complete control of full data.
The good value of static-hosted comments is that you `git clone` for backup and `git push` for redudency.
I also dislike managing DBs. Think of all those mess with backups, migrations, imports, exports, difference between mysql/pg/sqlite/d1. Tons of operating cost just for the sake of few blog comments
It's just a bunch of .jsonl files, the last resort is direct inline those .jsonl into .html files when generating
isn't that better IF the commenter has a GH account? (if you're writing a personal tech blog, then it's not a problem, your readers are Github users already)
Github issue or discussion based plugins require OAuth
If you look closely, some OAuth scope requires "Act on your behalf". Others require "repo" scope which means read your private data.
Comment systems are useful/effective when someone is paying the full cost of moderation.
Writing a comment that categorizes comments as a literary genre and then immediately argues that comments are useless is some meta level deconstruction. Kudos.
In blogs people can come along anytime and use comments to add additional information/context/perspectives, point out misunderstandings or outdated information, share updates, pose questions and start interesting conversations that do not have an expiration date on them.
The discussion for the article can be found on the same webpage by readers, they don't have to go looking on external sites, most of which have terrible searchability and now require logins just to view content and can delete threads and valuable discussions arbitrarily.
I just realised while writing this comment how much I miss web comment culture from the 00s.
That said, I run old fashioned forums and some older threads get revived there from time to time with new insights. Others get flagged up by copyright holders under DMCA takedown threats or bumped by spambots though.
For example on retro computing boards it makes me so happy when someone bumps a 5 year old thread to share new details, benchmarks, etc. about some card or motherboard where the ancient thread is first thing that appears in search results.
Remember Shoutboxes? :)
TBH, I have considered writing a version (this isn't my work at all, yet) that does submit the blathering server-side so it looks like there is a useful round trip, but:
* I have more important projects awaiting the much fabled arrival of Free Time!
* While it could potentially keep an idiot “happy” longer, I'd have to mess around with some sort of login system to give the right people the right comments back, it couldn't rely on a just session ID as that would be as volatile as the comments in local storage.
* Taking in the data gives the possibility of DoS by extra routes.
* Giving back the data gives the possibility of the comments being abused as a Heath-Robinson-esk storage device!
> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.
This is more or less artifact of HN algorithm, it's common to get single digit votes for majority of your posts. Whether something blows up feel almost random, you have to get pretty lucky to hit a time window when there's not that many posts or a lot of people look at new page and upvote the post at the same time to make it snowball. Many links are posted multiple times with no traction and then they suddenly blow up on 4th attempt.
HN doesn't have an algorithm, per se.
There are voting mechanics, and some sites gain or lose a penalty based on content or type (most generic news sites, for example, are slightly penalised). There are keyword / topic penalties too for issues that are dominating the hivemind for a period.
But mostly what you're seeing is simple mass-media power-law effects, along with early-action advantage:
- Votes / article tend to follow a power-law curve, where the frequency of high votes is inversely related to the vote. This typically shows as a linear relation when the log of both values is taken (log(frequency) vs. log(votes)). There are 30 front-page slots on HN, about 11,000 opportunities per year (at day's end, more if you count intra-day appearances), vs. about 400,000 submissions (see: <https://whaly.io/posts/hacker-news-2021-retrospective>). Most submissions won't make the grade, often through no fault of their own. I've looked into this in some detail, including looking at votes/comments by story position (there's a sharp decrease here as well).
- A small amount of early activity (upvotes, flags, comments) tends to have an outsized effect on the trajectory of a given story. Low-quality comments are particularly deleterious, and are hunted aggressively by mods for this reason.
- Stories often do far better on a subsequent submission. Part of this is probably randomness, part also a familiarity effect among those reviewing the "New" queue. If at first you don't succeed ... try again, a few times, at least.
- Stories can get selected (or nominated for) the Second Chance or Invited pools. These increase odds of landing higher on the front page, and are used fairly frequently. See "pool" <https://news.ycombinator.com/pool> and "invited" <https://news.ycombinator.com/invited> under "lists".
> A small amount of early activity (upvotes, flags, comments) tends to have an outsized effect
This is exactly the problem.
> what you're seeing is simple mass-media power-law effects
I would challenge that point. Power law comes from some feedback loop, which is partially from network effects but it can be massively amplified by the system, which is exactly what HN does. Not only it bakes the power law directly into the score eqaution, but it also shows the list sorted by score by default, which creates a positive feedback loop on votes.
Actually I'm a bit perplexed that it works this well, HN algorithm was one of the first that I implemented on our site and it was quite terrible even after a lot of tuning. I feel like it must be tuned for some volume of posts and people, otherwise it doesn't make much sense to me.
<https://knightcolumbia.org/content/the-myth-of-the-algorithm...>
To the extent that HN does utilise specific procedural mechanisms to adjust the priority of content, it's virtually always away from the typical patterns of algorithmic amplification: less emotion, less outrage, fewer hot takes, less nationalism and relgious flamewars, and specifically toward "intellectual curiosity and thoughtful conversation": <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404>.
It would be possible, yes, though incredibly disingenuous, to argue that what HN is doing is itself amplification. Yes, any curation is an amplification of some content over other, but in a world where "algorithmic content" means clickbait, brain-crack, and stickyness, HN is quite clearly aiming for something else.
Another facile objection is that HN fails to achieve its stated goals. Well, yes, it does, and the mods freely admit this (see, e.g.: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20188101>). Why does HN fall short? Because the problem is hard (see, e.g., <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16163743>).
If power-law dynamics were purely the result of manipulative algorithmic amplification, we'd see them only in online media subject to such amplification. And that's simply not the case. Power laws are fundamental to not only all of human communications and interactions (word and letter frequencies, for example, neither of which suggest a strong influence by algorithmic amplification), but to all manner of natural phenomena, including those entirely outside the realm of biological activity (e.g., frequency/magnitude plots of earthquakes, volcanoes, asteroid impacts, and stellar novae).
And in the realm of interpersonal online communications, HN's goals and interventions (mods, voting, and some programmed mechanisms) are desperately trying to swim upstream. As someone whose online tenure pre-dates the Web and extends to pre-Eternal September Usenet, HN has done remarkably well, and outlived many of its antecedents' and competitors' useful or entire lives (Usenet, Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, Google+, et cetera). Trust me, I'd love to see it do better (a view often voiced by mods as well). But in an ordinal ranking with what actually exists it's an exemplar.
This isn't a nitpick, it's a core and central point with (literally) universal applicability.
HN of course have all of these problems, just look at what we're doing now. It's in some ways better and some ways worse than others.
It's trendy these days to blame the algorithm or social media companies, but these problems are way more fundamental. Thinking that this platform and even you yourself is somehow immune to this is delusional.
> an end-goal of increasing time-on-site, engagement, addiction, outrage, and similar measures
Yea, again, this is naive oversimplification that's just been popular recently, but those are not endgoals and often go against platform goals. Outraged users don't click ads and increase revenue, they cause problems, drive other people away from the platform, same is true for the other issues.
As somebody who's been working on a social media platform for 7 years, I just can't hear this stuff anymore. Those problems exist, they are hard and much deeper and more difficult to solve than most people think.
The barrier to entry is a feature and not a bug.
This post was written in Emacs.
They are not suitable for one-off comments on a blog post. In particular, I'm not even sure how you could make it possible for a normal user using a standard mail client to reply to a comment that was posted before they came across the blog post.
No lock-in, except for GitHub, I suppose.
Or just leave it. Nobody needs to comment on blog posts, really. :D
Maybe anonymous commenting by just solving some captcha is impossible nowadays because in practice all captchas get broken by spam bots immediately. Or maybe not. I would like to see evidence for that first before giving up and choosing a commenting solution which strictly requires an account.
If I where to ditch it to save the money, I'd look into integrating Mastodon into the page, I saw somewhere that they used Mastodon as their comment system (it's basically a thread on Mastodon that is embedded in the blog page).
You also get no control over the level of abuse, misinformation, and spam on those external sites.
The joy of having comments on your own site is that you can moderate the bad-faith discussions and curate a friendly / helpful atmosphere.
Yes, you need a small database to receive and serve comments. Spam is mostly taken care of with a hidden field. It is great to build a community of commenters who want to offer their thoughts.
You'll also notice that I use WebMentions to import those 3rd party discussions (or links to them) into my blog.
That way users aren't subject to the advertising on platform A, the poor moderation on platform B, or the difficulty of even finding the comments on platform C.
I'm trying Mastodon comments on my own blog, that I'm not posting here because it isn't really ready, from my own Mastodon account. I'd never even consider public comments anymore, it just seems like inviting trouble.
We need a better model of financially supporting websites and services, not all companies are simply greedy, there are bills to pay, but it's gotten ridiculous.
Yes. I think Disqus is trying to get money from the long tail of blogs that enabled Disqus in the past and never bothered to look up for the policy changes. I am sure they started with small, non-invasive ads and eventually got bigger until we get in the situation that we are today.
So even if someone enabled Disqus in the past because they seemed a reasonable system a few years ago, their blogs are now an ad farm and the original owner may have zero idea since it is a blog they abandoned years ago. Heck, my old Wordpress blog that I don't even remember the password is probably an ad field nowadays that is probably generating pennies for one of those companies.
That grants people an easy way to discuss content and to check any prior discussion, if any.
Something like https://lists.sr.ht/~shugyousha/public-inbox for example.
Still, since we do not get that many comments these days, I’ll probably postpone it and just provide a static render of existing / historical comments which does have value for archival and discussion purposes.
It dumps all pages and articles as markdown with most Wordpress metadata as front matter metadata, and all comments in a separate yaml file which can be processed as needed. It creates a minimal theme with the necessary templates to do a basic static render of the content. It does need some theme and template tweaking to match Wordpress url structure and ensure all pages end up in the same url/permalink.
I also used a Wordpress hugo exporter plug-in about 3 years ago - worked mostly the same.
Using Hugo still allows me to more easily add content to the site while maintaining a consistent templating and design.
I also experimented with doing a simple static dump of html as generated by Wordpress - I tried two ways, using wget —-mirror which kinda worked but generated a lot of redundant pages, and a Wordpress plugin called “simply static” which was supposed to do something similar but in the end didn’t work.
In the end I decided against the static dump because it would have entirely “frozen” the site in time - I did want the ability to add content down the line; or change the design without having to modify the content significantly. Archiving sites verbatim is best left to the experts at archive.org :)
When I forget to sign in to YouTube, I see the same pattern, shitty ads that are clearly only allowed because otherwise YouTube wouldn't have sufficient ad inventory to meet their internal KPIs.
Medical supplements or plans that make claims that clearly aren’t real, financial scams (crypto or get-rich-quick schemes), or product scams (this new device that ‘they’ don’t want you to know about can heat/cool your house in minutes for pennies!).
I’m pretty sure none of this is legal, and Google obviously doesn’t care.
FWIW I have ad personalization off - perhaps it’s a bit better for those who don’t?
Now, we're getting diaper commercials all over youtube. I assume we're flagged in some database as likely having a new child, but you can't ever know for sure.
You can look up your Google ad profile and see if "pregnant" is one of your account's attributes. Facebook has a similar page somewhere.
The reality is, of course, that Google and its ilk doesn't give a single rat's ass about people falling from scams or getting infected by malware. Scams and malware pays better than "ethical" ads (to the degree that such a thing exists). It's a travesty that there are apparently no laws against their behavior.
But I don't care* about that, I care that they're visually obnoxious and sometimes slow.
* Well, usually. Way back when, there used to be occasional news about browser sandbox escapes.
there is in the UK. And likely in most other jurisdictions too. But it's about penalizing the advertisers rather than the platform. Which clearly neither works at scale nor across borders.
This definitely feels like a better use case for an "online safety act" -- but instead we got censorship laws....
If it wasn't a threat, they wouldn't police it so hard.
In the USA I’m pretty sure advertising scams - even the more ‘benign’ ones like claiming a product does something it doesn’t do or lying about its efficiency - are illegal. There’s just no - or not nearly enough - enforcement.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/truth-advertising
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45424888
(US infocoms, and Google in particular, aren't reputable companies any more. Ban them all.)
The situation’s been like this for a few years now.
But, the solution I've been looking for/prototyping is one that lets people comment from the Fadiverse, so it will also double as a feed. Nothing to show yet, but one-day maybe.
https://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2025-03/26-meh_another_comme...
It is now 2025, Unless it is an extremely popular site where every blog post has hundreds of comments. For most blogs hosting your own comment section shouldn't even be a rounding error or expensive. Why do we still have to put up with Disqus?
Blog like Michael Tsai [1] do it just fine. You submit a comment it render the page on server.
[1]https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/09/29/ios-26-0-1-and-ipados-26-...
I made Bluniversal Comments partly for this, but there are other Bluesky-based solutions out there if you prefer.
[1] https://giscus.app/
But that's a temporary solution.
Sure, I can code an in house comment system within an hour, but the real work is to combat spam. Because people (and now also disqus) suck.
Here is another one https://docs.coralproject.net/
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