loved this blogpost ! (I relate huge)

Thank you strawberry-transneu <3 for reading and relating

Also I just added the comment you submitted to the blog and added a reply as well. :)

I know the Wordpress migration experience myself, the first version of my site was ALSO there, but I ended up relearning HTML and migrating to Neocities after getting fed up with Wordpress's editor. My site started to actually feel like my own after doing that, as opposed to just feeling like a Wordpress product.

I just read your post and it's pretty good. I still use wordpress but only for my blog section and even if you're making your own theme like i do, it's pretty restrictive indeed. And about the comments i agree it would be better to not need accounts... I'm planning on adding my own comment system to my microblog but I'm scared of spamming and people trying to take down my database for no reason :')

So I'm adding a sign up feature, but I won't be saving qny other personal data aside from email and a chosen username. I will also be making other features, maybe for saving your progress on games, points and whatever related to the website. Whats your opinion on this, pixelglade?

@overclockworked yes, I always had the feeling that the Wordpress blog wasn't really mine either so getting started on Neocities was exactly what I needed

@kuroi, so atm my comment system doesn't use a database, comments get sent to an email address and I manually upload. If you have a database of your own you will want to make sure you protect against script attacks that can interfere with your database. Even though my system is email based some of the spam I get is malicious SQL code so you'd want to be extra careful.

@kuroi I think using a database to keep track of game progress and theme settinga etc is a valid use of cookies or saving browser data. Personally I understand the reason for collecting emails on comments in case they want to delete their account later and extra protection against spam, but I personally prefer a system where that information isn't necessary or you have the option to comment anonymously.

The caveat of the email approach is it's not good if you get a lot of comments. I would probably need to make a database to handle comments further down the line. I also know that Wordpress (I think?) ties into the OAuthentication thing which is a neat idea n terms of making comments federated.

I did think of allowing anon comments, like i do with the likes on my microblog, but there's always that fear of ill intentioned people abusing that system xD but now that i think about it maybe i could limit the comments of anon user to a certain amount per day 🤔 then choose to sign up if they like. While i was coding the sign up process i kept thinking how boring it is having to sign up and do all the steps xD

I think rate limiting anonymous comments could backfire on someone wanting to post anonymously in case they were constantly blocked because spammers decided to comment anonymously that day. I haven't tried it myself but you could include some additional checks like a moderation queue or flagging comments with URLs in them to make it easier. I notice spam mostly comes in groups with the name input changing occasionall

Since I added a spam label to the form submission emails when they include a URL it's been quicker to find legitimate comments among the spam. Also, unfortuanetley I noticed some spam bots using my likes form (on thr homepage)which a little annoying.