Same Spirit, Refreshed Tools
If you search for static site generator
in a search engine, you’re unlikely to come across any mention of "Blosxom"1. However, an article from 2012 states that Blosxom is the original open source static site generator
.
A long ride with Blosxom
I could not agree more. Since October 2003, this blog has been statically generated with Blosxom. Back then, I ran into issues with some plugins that I had to debug or rewrite, which led me to package a Blosxom starter kit for anyone willing to try out Blosxom's "static rendering".
There never was a strong enough reason to change, so I stuck with my system. However, some frustrations emerged over time:
- the state of abandonment of the Blosxom website2;
- concerns about potential legal and privacy issues which might arise from the use of an external commenting system (though I never had specific problems with Disqus);
- a relative decline in the blogging ecosystem, which led to a shift in conversations moving to social networks;
- a feeling that I could get better interactions with open web standards.
Attraction to the Fediverse
I was aware of WebMentions, but was never motivated enough to give a try at implementing it.
Then two flushes of motivation came from discoveries :
- @rolle's blog, with this particular post : Comment to a WordPress blog post via the Fediverse;
- a portion of Coralie Mercier's interview on the history of the Web and her relationship with W3C (starting at 14:50)
A new commenting system based on Mastodon
After the ensuing conversation, I had a tentative timeframe for implementing a solution.
The initial setup was quite manual, but this post marks the "official" release of the fedifeedback plugin for Blosxom.
Once installed, using the plugin is straightforward:
publish your blog post, without enabling Fediverse discussion yet (i.e., no toot ID).
write a post on Mastodon (or any similar system that supports the Mastodon API, like GoToSocial, PixelFed, Pleroma, Friendica, Iceshrimp, Sharkey, etc.). This post (“toot”) should link to your blog post and help increase its visibility. It will allow users to easily share and engage with your content by boosting your “toot” to their followers or reply to it.
grab the “toot” URL and update your blog post to include it.
republish the website.
Example: the source text of this article can be found at: https://github.com/barijaona/com.barijaona.blog.source/blob/master/posts/web/fediverse/en/Fedifeedback-plugin-for-blosxom.txt.
Some of the code (Javascript and CSS) is derived from Daniel Pecos Martinez's web component. However, I modified it significantly to align with my vision of Blosxom's philosophy. And for the first time in my life, I have included a part entitled ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL CONSIDERATIONS in a software documentation…