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it would just require that common web platforms allowed their current comment systems to attach comments to paragraphs in the article, and show these comments as side notes

I think that's a somewhat view of what a user contribution could look like. Adding feedback is great, but imagine what the web could be if users could do more than just comment. I'd love to see a blog application that supported user contributions like fixing spelling/grammar, adding links, injecting additional paragraphs to explain complex topics, captioning pictures, etc. All those things could be suggested as comments that the author would manually use to improve their article, but I think it'd be better (faster at least) to do it automatically.

Idealistically I'm thinking of something that's the best parts of Medium and Wikipedia.

How is that different from a wiki? :-)

Mediawiki, the software behind Wikipedia, already has all those features, includeming the possibility of moderation by privileged users or automatic updates, on a per-page basis. You'd just need to use the software for blog content rather than encyclopedic content.

How is that different from a wiki?

Every app is a CRUD app if you ignore enough detail.

I'm asking you about the details that make them different, and which you consider relevant for a "web with user contributions" in the way you described.

The difference is that those features would be implemented differently in a blogging context. I think that they're things that would improve a collaboration on blog to move from simply getting feedback from users as comments for the author to use to actually collaborating on something to make it better. I haven't thought about what those implementation differences would be; it'd be a lot of work.

> constrains the use of links.

https://www.w3.org/TR/xlink/

No it wasn't. The "Web 2.0" was all about DHTML (remember that?) and AJAX. (The wikipedia article about this seems very confused by the way.)

That was the technical Web 2.0. Apparently you missed how it was seen by marketing and media people, who couldn't care less about DHTML and Ajax.

http://hypothes.is/

Right; we just need everybody, everywhere to adopt hypothes.is; instead of one of all the other competitors.

Adopting a single protocol by the masses is something that rarely works. It's much easier to gain critical mass if a server platform (like Wordpress) included an annotation module as part of its default modules, so that it appeared at many websites as soon as they update to the latest version. Then, it could catch on as a popular feature, and other platforms would start to build their own implementations, making it more visible and gaining traction all over the web.

(That Wordpress module could very well be the hypothes.is software, if they're compatible. But it really needs to be adopted server-side by a popular service to gain traction).

Not at all. You can adopt it by yourself.

There aren't any competitors.

Seems to be something the author would like. Then again, hypothesis is a browser extension..

It doesn't seem to have much critical mass. Looking at the HN home page there were two comments

>well, news is news after all.

made in 2013 and

>മലയാളം!! കൊള്ളാം!!

in 2015 which is "English !! Wow !!" in Malayalam, a language spoken in Kerala.

" it's the Comments section of any blog-shaped site."

Something I never read on any site. It's just pure racism/muppets talking shit. If there were a plugin to block them I'd use it; I feel dirty even knowing they're down there. L

You're reading the comments section of a website right now.

Places like Ars Technica or Stack Exchange have a healthy environment in the comments section, so it can be done.

This site works because of the small numbers of people who are educated and there's sensible moderation.

Yes, precisely.

So, it can be done.

So what? I should start reading Nazi's comments on other sites now?

> Something I never read on any site.

I feel sorry for you - the original early-'00 blogosphere was actually very good, with all sorts of people building connections and intelligent debate through comments. After a while, the conversation was so deep that comments ended up being too short, so they had to define Pingbacks so that people could post elsewhere while still connecting with the source material.

And then spammers and the political sphere co-opted the technology, and it all went downhill.

I think there is still space, for defensively-minded geeks, to create ways to communicate that can keep debate open while shutting down the trolls. It's clear we don't have such a thing at the moment. I fear, however, that well-intentioned researchers like OP will simply end up building new systems that will replicate the mistakes of somewhat-naive early pioneers.

I remember those blogs. Somewhere between Usenet and Facebook. I found the ping back things annoying. If I remember rightly it was four or five pages of a copy of the first line of the article plus a link to someone else's blog but with no reason given for why I'd want to roll my sleeves up and start clicking on them.

Pingbacks were a 0.1 implementation of a concept that never got a second chance, because then the walled gardens arrived and destroyed the ecosystem. The main problems they had were what you mention: each ping would contain only a few lines (which i think was a limit in the standard, to limit spamming) and the automation mechanism was a bit stupid (every reblogging ended up generating a superfluous ping). People who cared could fix the first issue (with a sort of "above the fold" summary), but the second was enabled by over-eager engines and ended up ruining it for everyone.

The reason I never added support for comments on my blog.

No patience to manage them.

You can use Ghostery or uBlock Origin to block comments sections on many sites. I found Ghostery quite easy to set up for this.

I always read them on any site. I want to know even about racism and muppets talking shit, rather than be surprised when it appears in real life. And usually it's just real people, living real comments, from their own viewpoints.

No, I'm talking about actual Nazis, racists, climate change deniers, conspiracy theorist and other idiots. I'm more than familiar with their "typing" - I don't need to see it at the bottom of every story I read.