Heyo everyone! Sorry for being gone for so long. I wanted to take May off to focus on life. I managed to write something to post on June 1st, but I haven’t finished editing it due to recent events that have happened. I’m also currently moving so shit has been delayed. Expect me to be off for a bit longer, possibly 2 weeks. With that said I finally added a working comment system. It’s Disqus, so it wasn’t hard to implement. If you’re wondering why I landed on Disqus, then keep on reading. It’s a tale of me getting banned from a few APIs and weird production errors.
I know it seems stupid to not use Disqus right away and to instead try to use a different commenting system, but I had a good reason. My website has a lot of international readers. Some of these readers are from countries where Disqus is banned. In fact, where I reside Disqus is banned. My website still works here but the Disqus system doesn’t load. I wanted people to be able to comment from all over the world, but there were so many issues. For some reason the icons never loaded. I could get them to load in my testing environment but never on the live site. One night I managed to get them to work. When I woke up the next day they were broken again. Nothing I did worked when I pushed the changes to my site. I also had a major issue with the APIs.
The two API systems I implemented for testing were Google and Twitter. Both of them worked if you clicked on the spots where their icons were supposed to be. However, both of my API accounts were banned for bullshit reasons. My Google account was banned because someone reported me for using Google API to steal people’s information, not true. Twitter banned me over some stupid shit, that was actually impossible to do with the API program, and then when I disputed it they unbanned me only to ban me again for lying on my API application, which I didn’t do. I said it was for a comment system on my website. Banned from two APIs and with a busted comment system I just caved on trying to fix it. Had I gotten this to work I would’ve implemented as many APIs as I could. This would allow everyone to interact with each other without any issue. People could use Twitter, Facebook, QQ, Line, WeChat, Google, Baidu, Kaokao, or whatever account they use for social media.
The reason I was using APIs to act as the middleman for my comment system, and why I am currently using Disqus, is because I don’t want my website to become a security vector for people who choose to comment. If I made my own comment system then your data would rely on my security skills, and I ain’t risking your data. I could use the built-in WordPress comment system but that’s a massive security hole for my website. This is why I am trying to find a nice middle ground that would allow for maximum interaction, and safety. When compared to other systems like Livefrye Disqus does the best to protect your information. Disqus also makes it possible to opt out of having your data sold, unlike the rest.
Let’s all enjoy and welcome Disqus, who knows when I will replace it.. Feel free to comment and insult me, or whatever.