Discussion were always important part of my blog. To share know-how with you, my reader, learn something new and look for better solution. Last few years the main "fire chat" place moves from private channels like comments under post, to public ones like Twitter and Reddit.
As knowledge becomes dispersed across various platforms, comments often become repetitive and diluted. Furthermore, Disqus has its own set of user-tracking issues. So, how can we make a change for the better?
You can see there are different groups expressing opinions under blog posts here. Disqus attracted users in very start, many years ago, when Twitter and other social networks were one-way sharing channels. This has changed. Twitter is becoming a public place, to share ideas, give feedback and to learn about new technology or approaches to coding.
I've been thinking about this for a long time, but wasn't sure the change is worth it. Removing Disqus means loosing old comments with valuable know-ledge, forcing group of people to join Twitter (if any) and changing their habits.
"If there are 2 ways to do one thing, the simpler is the right one."
On the other hand, my priority is to make discussion easy, with no entry level barrier. The discussion should be in present moment, but visiting Disqus requires extra attention, care and sometimes it takes me week or two to reply all the comments. People don't want to wait that long and they never reply.
We rarely visit single private home to speak with wide group of our friends. Instead, I like the idea of public places like pubs, coffees, bars or airplanes (where I'm right now), where you can talk with each other if you want.
Instead, there should be single place:
Majority of PHP bloggers have removed comments completely and moved to Twitter or other public channels years ago. I'm joning them today.
Twitter seems like the perfect choice, as I use it daily and can respond to you much more quickly. With one less social network to manage, I can focus on what truly matters - nurturing a collaborative community of PHP developers working together.
Happy commenting!
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