Bitchute the new video hosting website, developed a new comments platform in order to get rid of Disqus.
They call it CommentFreely it is open source and it available on GitHub.
The Bitchute people are looking also for programmers to offer support on the further development of this comment platform.
If you want to see how it looks like click on any Bitchute video as they have launched this comment platform already on their website.
According to what they say this comment platform is compatible with Disqus too - but not related- in order to migrate the user comments that they already had on Disqus into the Comment Freely.
And here is my idea.
Why not modfy and use this comment platform as default on Classic Press. I mean replace the default WP comments with this one that is somewhat more advanced as it has edit button, upvote option, new old and popular comments etc?
As I said Bitchute people are looking for support and if CP team joins them that will be beneficial for both teams. CP can modify it as default comment platform or a plugin unique on CP and they can benefit from the developing and promote CP on their video channel, that is now the stronger competitor of youtube.
Check it out. I think it would make some sort of difference.
Here’s a direct link to a video referenced in the original post.
I would love to see a better commenting system in place, too. I took a lot of time to make my comments sectionlook perfect, but, additional features would be welcomed. In any case, the first step would be to create a petition to gauge community interest.
Please don’t ask me to create a petition because I don’t know where and how to make it. And I don’t know also if my idea can be done too.
I don’t have the technical background to tell you if the Bitchute comments can be modified for Classic Press. It might be impossible…
I just wrote an idea in order to contribute on CP project something.
What the video says though is true. They asked for donations and the people sponsored it and when Disqus started to heavily censor their comments, they started moaning too about the dalay on launching the new platform and so they forced the Bitchute developers to launch as soon as possible.
But they couldn’t do otherwise as some of the video creators brought thousands of people on Bitchute. Some guys brought up to 100.000 new subscribers on their channels when they moved from YT there.
I got an account two years ago when Bitchute was still new and now it has millions of people and these poor Bitchute guys have a difficulty to cope with all that people as they need more servers and have larger operational costs.
But they are doing fine because people support them financially with donations and paid subscriptions.
Me too because I don’t like the monopoly of super large corporations.
I don’t know what else to right on the petition. Is it ok to copy my first post? Because I have to explain the whole concept that isn’t only about modify the comments platform for CP but also have it as a default platform in order to make CP different from WP and aslo cooperate with the Bitchute for marketing purposes. Offer them the modifications to offer you the advertisement.
Are you aware that the code is in Python?
Did you have any sort of plan of what should happen with legacy comments if a user wanted to use a different system?
That is the reason why I said that I can’t tell if it can be done.
The guys on Bitchute said that they are going to load whatever comments they had from Disqus to CommentFreely. And as this CommentFreely has most of the features and looks way too much like the Disqus platform I think that they used the Disqus coding or they copied it.
Disqus now is compatible with WP . I know that because I had it at some point in my own website. You can load the old comments from WP to Disqus and download and import them back on WP.
The Bitchute now comment backup must be huge. They said that it was needed to get from Disqus the backup of the comments in two parts but they got it either way. So if they are certain that they can bring back that huge ammount of comments their users had posted on their website via Disqus, then these two platforms are probably either the one a copy if the other or full compatible the one with the other.
But why do you ask me and don’t you check it out by the time that you are more knowledgable on these matters.
I gave an idea because the WP comments are not the most convenient in this world and these guys developed something of their own.
If CP want to be different from WP it would be good to differenciate on other things than just an editor ( as we see already happen with the dedicated for CP plugins).
The comments platform is a very basic thing.
Plus that the Bitchute guys are looking for support and they can offer publicity. They currently have the second most popular video platform after YT.
If you can make it work it looks like a win-win case.
Unless you have another already made alternative comment platform available for CP and you are thinking to go for this.
Either way the WP/CP comments need improvement.
I don’t understand the mindset of " if this" “if that”.
The code is there to check it out. It seems to me that the Bitchute guys have already solve the compatibility issues with Disqus. That they have probably made an alternative open source Disqus and that is the reason why they are so certain that they can load the huge comment backups on their platform .
If they couldn’t do it they wouldn’t ask the Disqus people to work that hard to give them all that data.
If they have copied somehow the Disqus comment platform then their version is probably compatible with WP because Disqus is compatible with WP.
What they have changed for sure is that they have made something that looks like Disqus working with the users’ accounts of their website. I mean they have modified it not to have a universal account for posting on each and every website.
The biggest CP difference from WordPress is not to force to the developer’s decisions to all users. Like “from now, all of you should switch from TinyMCE to page builder”.
So,
is a bad idea. Sounds like Gutenberg 2.
But developing and presenting it as an alternative to the native CP comment platform - perfect idea, I support it.
I think that core should ship very basic commenting like it does already. And we can then have a core plugin (or several ones) allowing to add features to it.
The remark @joyously made about code being in python is because WordPress is built in php. Even helping them to develop it this commenting system can’t be integrated in CP as it is. It would need to be totally rewritten for our platform, using php @Marialena.S
What @LinasSimonis said makes sense because:
we need to gauge people’s interest on having a discuss alternative
we need to make then a specific plugin to implement the features, maybe inspiring ourselves to the one you suggested
we then give the option to install it to people, so that they can do whatever they want with THEIR site (unlike WP did with block editor)
As @anon71687268 pointed out, having a petition for this is very important. Not only you are suggesting something, with the petition you wrote now all people wanting a core plugin to improve commenting system have a place to contribute ideas.
Petitions in that sense serve as an incubator.
