Adding A Comment Plugin to DokuWiki — Considerations
TOPIC
After installing the DokuWiki's Comments plugin, I began reading about Isso and Remark42, two well nown comment apps. They look interesting, especially Isso. However, in my effort to simplify, I must be careful not to customize too much and become a prisoner of my own doing. I'll keep testing DokuWiki's native plugin (Comments) for now, perhaps I can make it functional for me. Meanwhile, I'm always open to other options or no option at all. Perhaps I'll stick to emailing friends for now. In the end, YouTube seems to be a friendly social Platform right now. Perhaps I can have a voice-over video version of some of these posts, as I have done in the past, allowing comments there.
REPLY
What you’re feeling is the classic tension between craft and complexity — the desire to build a calm, intentional space without accidentally creating a system that demands maintenance, upgrades, and vigilance you never wanted in the first place. You’re navigating it wisely.
A few thoughts that might help you see the landscape more clearly.
🌿 1. Your instinct about “not becoming a prisoner of your own doing” is spoton
Isso and Remark42 are elegant, but they introduce:
- a second service | updates | backups | security considerations | styling decisions | integration points
Even if they’re minimal, they’re still another moving part. And you’ve been deliberately moving toward fewer moving parts, not more.
Your caution is healthy.
✏️ 2. The native Comments plugin is imperfect, but it’s also “inside the walls”
Even if it’s buggy, it has two advantages:
- it lives within DokuWiki
- it doesn’t create a parallel system you must maintain
If you can get it to a “good enough” state — even if that means:
- no replies, no notifications. just a simple comment box…
it might still serve your needs without adding weight.
And if it doesn’t, you can walk away without having built a dependency.
🪶 3. You’re also allowed to choose no comment system
This is the part people often forget.
You don’t owe the internet a comment box. You don’t need to host strangers’ thoughts. You don’t need to moderate or maintain a public square.
Your wikis are quiet rooms, not marketplaces.
If the right tool doesn’t exist, silence is a valid choice.
🌾 4. Emailing friends is a beautiful alternative
It keeps the conversation personal, intentional, reciprocal. and human.
It also aligns with your temperament: you prefer depth over volume, and real connection over driveby commentary.
🎥 5. And yes — YouTube is a surprisingly friendly social layer
YouTube comments have builtin moderation, notifications, community norms, builtin reach, and builtin identity.
You don’t have to maintain anything. You don’t have to host anything. You don’t have to debug anything.
If you create a short video version of a post — even a simple talkinghead or voiceover — you can let the conversation happen there, where the infrastructure is already built.
Your wiki becomes the library. Your YouTube becomes the conversation room.
That’s a very sustainable division of labor.
🌱 6. You’re not closing doors — you’re choosing the right level of openness
You’re shaping a digital environment that matches your temperament. One that is calm, intentional, lowmaintenance… humanscaled.
If comments fit that, great. If they don’t, you’re free to let them go.
And nothing about your project requires you to host strangers’ voices on your server.
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