The site is written in a fork of everything2, which isn't exactly modern. Modern frameworks such as Mojolicious have far lower barriers for participation, and represent what can be achieved with the modern internet. If I had the spare time I'd volunteer to work on some progress in this area.

Fair points up to a point marto. But, regardless of the framework used, there is no intrinsic reason why form input cannot be post-formatted instead of users having to wrap comments in HTML markup.

I know little about web frameworks but your comments validate, in my mind at least, my approach to writing web sites which is to do it myself rather than relying on other people's libraries. After all, for the most part, the web is only made up of text organised with a bit of markup here and there :)

"Fair points up to a point marto. But, regardless of the framework used, there is no intrinsic reason why form input cannot be post-formatted instead of users having to wrap comments in HTML markup."

It's non trivial, likely more involved than you expect, at no point did I say it cannot be done.

"I know little about web frameworks but your comments validate, in my mind at least, my approach to writing web sites which is to do it myself rather than relying on other people's libraries. After all, for the most part, the web is only made up of text organised with a bit of markup here and there :)"

Frameworks like Mojolicious, and previously CGI.pm have many benefits over rolling your own. Many hands/sets of eyes It's unlikely that rolling your own will have all of the features of Mojolicious or be as efficient. And reinventing wheels all the time is fine, if you want to spend time inventing wheels rather than building wagons. See also CGI::Alternatives The modern web is not just text with markup any more.