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SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Monday November 21 2016, @01:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the over-to-you dept.

Off and on for several years I've been part of a local political forum using Blogger.

Usually a new topic will be posted every week, and group of thirty or forty enthusiastic people will generate fifty to a hundred comments.

The challenge is that we're overwhelmed by Anons, who go off wildly in all directions, dwell endlessly on personal vendettas, and lately get far too close to outright libel of other people. Consensus in the past has been that allowing Anons is good thing, but we're realizing that we really need to be able to moderate their comments.

What we really want is something simple enough for non-experts, not needing our own hosting, that will allow us to:

  1. Post topics for discussion
  2. Let "named" posters comment without a delay for moderation.
  3. Allow Anon comments but hold them for moderation.

The good thing about Blogger is that it doesn't seem to get blasted with comment spam, as seems to be the case with WordPress blogs for instance. The bad thing is that your only choice with Anons is either all-in, or all-out. Either you cut them out entirely, or you give them full rein to wreak havok.

We'd appreciate being pointed to something similar to Blogger, but just a little bit more featured, and not part some large environment like Google Groups or Facebook. Although letting people log in using Facebook, Twitter, or Google IDs (or Open ID, whatever) is good too.

I'm in the process of checking out Weebly and whatever else Google throws at me, but am hoping that the Soylent community can suggest something more appropriate that can be up and running with minimal fuss.


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  • (Score: 1) by RS3 on Monday November 21 2016, @05:10PM

    by RS3 (6367) on Monday November 21 2016, @05:10PM (#430659)

    I have no direct experience with wordpress.com, but I would also recommend it. Several years ago I fell into being admin for a small web hosting provider, including WordPress sites. I built some servers and do all the "back-end" stuff. A fresh WordPress install allows all comments, so I go in and turn off all that stuff, then turn it over to the customer's site admin. As with many people I have many criticisms with WordPress- mostly that the database calls are very inefficient, but if you go with a hosting provider like wordpress.com, it won't be your problem.

    Some of the advantages: very proactive bug-fixes and overall updating; practically infinite themes and plugins; comes with a spam filtering plugin "Akismet" which commercial customers pay to use but it's very inexpensive; plugin "wptouch" which makes the sites amazingly useful on a smartphone / small screen "device".

    There have been some bugs which have allowed some vulnerabilities to spammers- mostly through "trackback" mechanism. I just turn that stuff off too. The spam has been minimal.

    It's easy to set up exactly what you want re: immediate posting by registered users, holding AC comments for moderation, etc.

    I don't allow users to install plugins or themes, nor any auto updating.

    Again, "wptouch" plugin is amazing.