Using Hacker News for Blog Comments

Initially I decided to go without comments. I haven't considered Disqus in the first place as it's too much everything for me so I would have to go and hide various stuff via CSS (and keep it updated). Also I am not a fan of JavaScript loading after the fact. I also generally like blogs without comments and didn't want them on my blog.

But then it hit me, why not use HN for comments? Everything clicked in and I decided to go that route. At least experimentally for now.

Two downsides:

1. One has to have an account here. This is partially mitigated by having the reply box available even if you are not logged in or registered, encouraging to comment/log in/open an account.

2. One has to self-submit.

Additional benefit is that HN contains a target audience I am interested in, thus making comments better but also forcing me to post better stuff.

+1 - My playflow at the moment is to follow the HN rss in google reader, open the comments in one tab and the article in another, because the comments here tend to be way more interesting than the comments there.

Re: the comment about Disqus, I wonder if there is an integration of some sort to be had - Disqus really, really rocks, but the community on HN is better and more established than the commenters on any given blog.

I don't think it's likely that the creators of HN would support this, as it would conflict with a startup Y Combinator invested in (Disqus, http://disqus.com/about/), whose sole purpose is to provide coment system for sites and blogs. Of course, HN creators also founded YC, hence the conflict.

I would like to mix in HN comments, but I don't like that people would have to register to comment. So I guess I would still like to have another type of comment available.

I like it. In fact, I confess that lately I've been thinking of HN as Daring Fireball's comment feed.

I think this essentially what has started to happen. I would like to do this myself, at least.