Named Commenting (GSoC 2010)

[onli]

The "Named Guest" comment level should give people from outside of dreamwidth the opportunity to comment on an entry without registering and without remaining completely anonymous. A Specification is already given.

Comparison

A comment on other Blogsystems like Wordpress typically stores following additional information besides the comment-text:

• Name
• Email
• URL
• (Whether to subscribe the entry)

The introduction on the "Summer of Code"-Wikipage speaks only about Name and URL, not about email. It was explained to me that email-addresses should not be stored so that nobody could spam another by entering a foreign email-address on comments to entries.

Necessary changes

Frontend

It's not strictly necessary to add one additional commentform. The current anonymous-commentform could be replaced with a new one having the additional fields, a comment without a chosen name would be a "old" anonymous comment.

Draft:

Note the use of "URL" in the list and "Website" on the label of the inputfield. Website is default on such forms, URL used in the OpenID-form. Which one is better suited? Instead of using Name/"URL/Website" in the list, it could also get called "Named comment".

Also note that "unverified identity" shall be appended to the pseudonym in the commentlist. The presentation of the comment itself aside from that won't differ from the comment of a logged-in commenter.

Database

At the properties associated with a comment, a place for the url has to be created.

Possible Extensions

Settings

A blogowner could get an option to require the commenter to use a pseudonym. This probably isn't a real extension, more a necessary option.
The other way around, to not allow anonymous user to use a pseudonym but to comment anonymously, is possible, but I don't see a usecase for that. Can you think of one?

Saving

It's possible to store in the cookies of a user his data, so he doesn't have to enter his name and url again, the commentform gets prefilled. The specification says it shouldn't be prefilled after a session or on other journals or on other entries. This could made controllable by adding a checkbox to the commentform asking whether or not to save the entered data (maybe instead of the session). It's also quite possible that it'd be useful if this storing of data wasn't per entry, but only per journal.

Email-related

Also storing email-addresses would allow to

1. Subscribe to an entry by just entering an email-address
2. Add suggested support for gravatar.

To prevent the use of this system for spamming, a double-opt-in-system for each subscription on entries could be used. The first email would ask if the owner of that address really wants to subscribe to the entry and only send notifications about follow-up-comments when answered "yes" (by clicking on a link).
Also a checkbox would be needed to activate the subscription in the first place.

Comments

[zvi]

No, no, no! The comment has to make it clear that this is not a verified identity. If you make a signed comment as Sue, there is nothing in the system to make it even slightly difficult for someone else in the same conversation to make a comment as Sue. It needs to be really clear that this is not an account, when we have discussion, because this is a MAJOR CHANGE in DW-style conversation, where, heretofore, a signed comment was always associated with an account either verified by us or verified by some third party website.

[denny]

Well, it's a major change for DW (and LJ) but one that brings it closer to how most other sites with comments work, so I don't think it would be particularly misleading. I figured just dropping the little head would be the simplest way to do it, but that doesn't help people without graphics.

[zvi]

There are many people who use DW/LJ extensively and don't read other styles of blogs, certainly not with any regularity.

Also, please explain the harm you feel results from having (unverified identity) appended to the comment signature?

[denny]

You seem quite adamant/excitable about this issue, and I'm not feeling a great need to get into a debate about it, so I think I'll step out here.

[onli]

I understand denny's point. It really feels strange to have such a mark in a commentsystem when it's normal on most blogs to be able to comment without login. But maybe that's not an issue on most blogs because they are not part of a community.

Now when thinking about that, "verified" seems to be the wrong label. The identity is not verified apart from having an account on this site - which is an important information, bot in no way a verification. So not linking to a profile, thus implying "this is no dreamwidth-account", looks like a good solution to me. Are you sure that won't work?

[zvi]

If we introduce gravatars or automatically generated identicons, the lack of a profile isn't going to register, I don't think.

If you don't like the vocabulary, is there some other word than verified you think works better?

[onli]

Maybe a simple "(extern)", or even "unregistered".

[ninetydegrees]

+1 for unregistered. It's simple and clear.