Is it posiible to add a sort of a form in essays in a future version of Backlight so readers can leave comments and reactions?
I think that’s probably out-of-scope for what I’m trying to accomplish with essays.
Instead, I suggest linking to a contact page or forum thread at the end of your essay. Else, you should be able to use a third-party forms provider, like TypeForm, to embed a form using HTML.
IMO, public-facing comments are problematic, and potentially, increasingly dangerous. Spam is one problem, and it’s one we’re already combatting with forms on contact pages; I’d hate to deal with it on individual essays as well. But – at least here in the US – there are bipartisan attempts to hold platforms more responsible for user-posted content on their sites. I wouldn’t want our customers to be put in the position of being responsible for an unmoderated or poorly moderated comment on an essay. Nor do we really have the manpower, necessity, nor will to build full moderation tools for a comments system. I don’t even want to know what’s going on in Europe; GDR is enough a pain in the ass.
There is some possibility we could maybe handle comments similarly to what we do with the client response features – a private commenting system – but that’s somewhat different. If you get a comment, you’ll maybe want to reply to that comment, then we’ll be asked for a two-way messaging system, then we’ll just be recreating email. Again, more work than I think we want to take on, there being only two of us, and Backlight being what it is. If email is what you want, then I would just invite folks to email you using a mailto: link or something.
OK Matthew I get it… don’t take on that hassle. Then maybe something like a 
and a 
and a 
thing with a counter?