distributed commenting

[John Eckman]

Hello all. I'd like to describe a use-case I'm interested in and see if others are interested as well - not sure if this is orthogonal to the concerns of DiSo as a project.

Sorry to have my first post to the group be all questions and no code - hope to reverse that ratio at some point.

What I'm interested in is essentially remote commenting on blog posts.

Short version:

1. I author a blog post and publish it using Wordpress. (could extent to others later, but let's just assume Wordpress for now).

2. In addition to being published on my blog and feed, the post is also published (simultaneously or later as part of a scheduled job) to a number of other sites. For the sake of discussion, lets say A) Facebook, B) a Ning network using open social, C) a portable "widget"

3. Another user reads that blog post in my facebook profile (which she can see because she is a friend). She comments on the blog post *in facebook*

4.. When she submits her comment, the comment is posted to the blog entry *in wordpress* and marked as being from "Jane Doe on Facebook" or the like, with her name linked to her facebook profile.

5. The comment, associated with the blog post, is appended to the post everywhere the post is published.

Repeat steps 3 through 5 for contexts B and C.

In other words, keep the comments associated to the post: all comments regardless of source get associated to the post and displayed in all places where the post is published.

Comments should take the identity of the person composing them in the best format available - so inside a network it should be that persons ID in that network, outside any network leverage OpenID (existing plugin does this nicely on wordpress blogs themeselves).

In theory one could even allow comments from "friends" to go through without moderation - since they are known identities with whom you share some affiliation.

Right now all the Facebook Applications and Open Social widgets I've seen just pull feeds into sites by reading an RSS feed, and push the user back to the blog to comment.

So the problem is twofold:

A. How to inform third party apps when new blog posts are published AND updated with new comments so that they can refresh their view of the blog post.
(I'd think it would be preferable to leave moderation up to WordPress - not the external app - in order to have just one place to do it. But that means the external app should not just immediately post the comment but wait for it to be approved inside Wordpress).

B. How to post comments into a WordPress blog from an external context with some asserted identity derived from that context.

Does the Oauth server here provide the essentials for B?: http://singpolyma.net/oauth/example/index.php

I assume what will be needed is a Wordpress Plugin which knows how to accept comments from "outside" via Oauth or similar (XML-RPC using trackback like syntax?) and a set of applications (a Facebook app, an open social app, maybe others) which knows how to grab posts from WordPress with their comments and refresh them when the appropriate WP hooks are called. (Maybe another WP plugin needed to "notify" the subscribed external apps whenever a new comment is approved?)

Are there existing implementations which get close to this?

Thanks

John Eckman
http://www.johneckman.com/
eckma...@gmail.com

[Stephen Paul Weber]

> B. How to post comments into a WordPress blog from an external context with
> some asserted identity derived from that context.
>
> Does the Oauth server here provide the essentials for B?:
> http://singpolyma.net/oauth/example/index.php
>
> I assume what will be needed is a Wordpress Plugin which knows how to accept
> comments from "outside" via Oauth or similar (XML-RPC using trackback like
> syntax?) and a set of applications (a Facebook app, an open social app,
> maybe others) which knows how to grab posts from WordPress with their
> comments and refresh them when the appropriate WP hooks are called. (Maybe
> another WP plugin needed to "notify" the subscribed external apps whenever a
> new comment is approved?)
>
> Are there existing implementations which get close to this?

It's a start anyway. If you look at
<http://singpolyma.net/oauth/example/wp_auto_client3.php>

--
- Stephen Paul Weber, Amateur Writer
<http://www.awriterz.org>

MSN/GTalk/Jabber: singp...@gmail.com
ICQ/AIM: 103332966
BLOG: http://singpolyma.net/

[James D Kirk]

Great concepts, John. Your thoughts, in my mind, are exactly what
OpenSocial "should" end up being all about. And as your concepts fit
into the DiSo paradigm, it really does begin to remove the container
constraint (my self hosted blog being the destination of all things
pertaining to my blogging activities.) I rarely go to a site now,
unless it is to actually comment on that blog. Not that I don't want
to see their sites look, feel and layout, but because there is SO much
to consume on a regular basis. I rarely go into my facebook account
unless I have a notification that someone has left me a message,
however, I realize others do spend a lot of time in there. Same with
Ning.com and the various communities there I'm either running or a
member of.

From my perspective, and I'd guess others round these parts as well, I
want to be able to "broadcast" my message to you wherever and whenever
is the most convenient for YOU to receive. If that means having the
outlet to reach you via these various other sites, then I REALLY want
to be able to set up and do that. And I want to be using WordPress as
MY hub of operations.

As my guys and I are currently building a new entity online and
attempting to think outside of the classic 1.0 and 2.0 paradigms of
having an online destination that requires you to go to, we're
starting to think in (what we believe to be) 3.0 paradigm of providing
our content where you want to be. We'll use the tools to bring you to
our destination when we have to, but being able to create and maintain
mindshare, we're all going to have to start thinking like you're
thinking.

I think ;)

Stephen, on your OAuth Test Client, the blog URL is the entire blog
post or just the site's domain?

I've forgotten the self hosted WordPress API URL; is it
http://your_domain.com/xml-rpc.php ??

And finally, the post id your form requires is the actual numerical
post ID or the post slug?


Thanks!

James.

[Stephen Paul Weber]

Ah, sorry, I always provided filled in values before :)

Blog URL is the URL of the blog home page
API URL is actually WPURL/wp-comments-post.php (not using
XML-RPC in the example)
Post ID is the numerical ID

The most recent version of my OAuth plugin must be installed for that to work.

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