Adding GitHub comments to this website

I came across Giscus at the bottom of a Cosma listing on kausalflow.com. Giscus provides a simple way to add GitHub comments to a Jekyll website (like this one). This allows anyone to comment on my website using GitHub Discussions! The setup process was surprisingly simple, only taking me about 10-15 minutes to complete and troubleshoot.

To add comments via GitHub Discussions to an academic pages website (like this one), go to Giscus and follow the step by step instructions in the configuration section. Be sure that the repository meets all three criteria listed in the Repository section for Giscus to work.

Step by Step Instructions on https://giscus.app

1. Repository section: Enter the repository name (e.g. mtillman14/mtillman14.github.io).
2. Page <-> Discussion: I recommend leaving the default.
3. Discussion Category: I recommend either creating a new Comments category in your GitHub repo’s Discussions (be sure to set its type to Announcements), or using the Announcements category that Giscus recommends.
4. Features: I only selected Enable reactions for the main post and left the others blank.
5. Theme: I left the default Preferred color scheme.

Adding the Giscus script to the Academic Pages website

1. In the _includes/comments-providers/custom.html file, paste the Giscus script from the Giscus website. It should be customized to your repository information after filling out the configuration.
2. In the _config.yml file, set comments.provider to "custom".

That’s it! After committing and pushing these changes, you should see a comments section at the bottom of your posts. Moderating these posted comments can be done by editing/deleting posts in the GitHub Discussions section of your repository.