WriteFreely VS utterances

Mastodon is a microblogging service, so not meant for large bodies of text. This is why the text entry box is small, the columns are somewhat narrow (especially in deck mode) etc.

Platforms like https://writefreely.org/ , which are designed to be for blogging and long-form writing, are the place to write this. Write Freely federates so one can follow accounts and interact with posts via Mastodon etc.

Write Freely, open source writing space

Docs - https://writefreely.org/

It's all about federation, in these federated networks all these servers talk to eachother and exchange messages about stuff going on on the servers. So it's easy to set up a hidden service for the webui of one of them, but it's sometimes quite obscure to try and set up the federation for one of them. It depends on what settings they honor and what other types of encryption and authentication they require and stuff. But, if you put some effort in ahead of time, you can make it really simple: I don't know how to do it in rust(lemmy is written in rust), but here's a neat example of how to do it in Go: https://github.com/writefreely/writefreely/pull/710 which requires no complicated configuration.

An alternative to Plume is WriteFreely, which is a pretty clean & simple experience. Just don't expect to much regarding customization.

I also wish write.as were more popular. It's like old Medium, but less popular but with a more reader-friendly business model and self-host-able (AGPL v3)

And since you've mentioned you want to write a blog, take a look at WriteFreely: https://writefreely.org/

Handling New Comments: There are excellent lightweight comment utilities available for managing comments on your eleventy blog. I personally use Utterances, but Giscus is also a great alternative.

We can use utteranc.es, a lightweight comment widget built on GitHub Issues to integrate authed comments in our blog.

utterances (open-source)

Typically, a comment requires server side code and a lot of messy management. It’s a pain. These comments rely on a tool called utterances. Utterances uses GitHub’s issue tracker which was designed to track bugs, as part of that it includes extensive comment and discussion capabilities. If an issue doesn’t exist, utterances will automatically create that issue for you. It created this issue for the comments in this page...

I've installed utterances on my GitHub repo. I've configured it and given it the appropriate permissions. At the end of setup, it provided me with an HTML script and the following instructions:

Fortunatly we have free, lightweight and efficient options to add comments in blog website or any website. I am talking about utteranc.es. A lightweight comments widget built on GitHub issues. Use GitHub issues for blog comments, wiki pages and more!

Go to https://utteranc.es and follow the instructions to set up the commenting system.

Giscus drew significant inspiration from utterances, which utilize an issue-based comment system instead of discussions. I experimented with utterances initially, but I found it less convenient due to its reliance on an issue tracker for conversational purposes.

If you're building a blog for developers, you can use a third-party commenting service that requires login with github, for example https://utteranc.es/