User comments on python.org

[A.M. Kuchling]

[CC'ing to pydotorg-redesign, and setting followups there, too.]

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 19:19:41 -0500, 
	Ian Bicking <ianb at colorstudy.com> wrote:
> I don't really know how the Python site is set up now, but could 
> comments be included inline as an SSI?  Like

I don't think SSIs are currently enabled, but it wouldn't be hard to turn
them on.  However, I have two worries about this:

1) Fitting the comments into the page design -- a page with a lot of
   comments would be really, really lengthy.

2) What if people post obscenities or harmful material?
   Showing comments by default would be embarrassing; if you have to
   explicitly choose to view them, this is less worrying.
   Python.org has a really good Google PageRank, I expect, making it
   a good target for link spam, so this is something to worry about.
   
The Wiki has mostly escaped such vandalism; presumably it's unobtrusive
enough that spammers haven't noticed it.

> the page content and the barest of controls).  I think it would be best 
> done as a separate wiki, maybe with a namespace that fits the library 
> documentation structure better.  Or maybe both are possible.  It would

Perhaps.  Wiki names can contain '/', so we can have annotations for every
single page on the site by just using the full path name.  The question is
whether we need that level of support; perhaps the docs are the only place
where comments are valuable.  I do think that comments on the reference
manual or the Distutils manuals would be useful.  (Possibly PEPs, too?)

I did a bit of experimenting with the separate page, adding JavaScript to
ht2html's output and adding an ugly 'view comment' link.  If we're
interested in pursuing this, I'm willing to do the following:

1) Make a set of experimental pages with comment links, so we can see 
  what they look like and how they work in practice.
2) If 1) looks worthwhile, then I'll make a new Wiki for user notes that has
   minimal styling.

What I'd really need is presentation suggestions: *how* to show the comment
link?  

--amk