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I wasn’t kidding.
Hello. Yes, this is where the actual post is hiding.
And the reason is that I’m talking about blog comments.
So. Seemed appropriate.
In the endless cycle of unanswerable philosophical questions about being a virtual citizen of the world is this old chestnut:
“Should my blog have comments?”
Here’s an example of the kind of discussion that results, over at ProBlogger:
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/10/12/should-blogs-have-comments/
Now, that’s a lot of comments to read.
(And to moderate).
(Poor Darren).
It’s unanswerable because “blog” is one of those initially specific terms that has come to define a swathe of the online world so vast and varied that it defies definition. You might as well say “should shoes be brown or not?”
(The answer to that is of course “no”. All shoes should be black. But just imagine some other question that’s genuinely impossible to answer).
And so the discussions go round and round, fuelled by opinion and by outraged exceptions. Is there any point to them?
You bet.
Well, kinda.
The problem in such discussions is the way that many people use comments.
In my ideal world, all comments would be 1) lengthy, 2) on topic and 3) insightful. This isn’t a world I live in, and sometimes it’s not a world I encourage, since I’ve broken all 3 rules willy-nilly.
But on *average* it’d be nice if, generally speaking, certain types of comments simply didn’t exist.
I don’t agree. I think comments r great. I like comments. People who don’t like comments are dumb as a stick.
I like comments. Anyone who sez otherways is a dumb sack of sith.
People who don’t leav comments or like them r like the space you’d be left with if u took paris Hilton’s brain out.
Which is, like, really dumb.
U SUCK
COMMENTS ARE USELESS LOL I HAVE NEVAR LEARNED ANYTHING USEFIL FROM COMMENTS EVER OH AND ITS EVER NOT EVAR COZ OBVIOURSLY U NEED TELLING BECAUSE OF THAT CRIPPLIN UNDERABUNDANCE OF SCHOOLING YOU GOT THERE
ROFLMAO
ANYWAY U SMELL OF OLD DOG BLANKETS
So there’s the type of comment where people have a pop at other people, slinging insults and nothing else. If they keep it relatively civil, it’s annoyingly lame but tolerable – otherwise, they start flaming each other and/or the post author and it’s time for Mr Moderator to delete their asses from the face of the Internet. (Ah, if only that were literally true. Like some kind of TRON hit-squad. Sorry, don’t mind me, just thinking out loud).
These comments convey nothing and achieve nothing.
However, they are on occasion hilarious.
I can’t believe you can be so stubborn oblivious to the Truth of this matter. Honestly, your lack of comprehension is a wonder of the modern world. It should be rendered in gold and lapis lazuli and placed on a velvet cushion inside a glass case, so people from all round the world could come and gape at its impossible glory.
Face up to the facts. You’re being narrow-minded. But that’s just the kind of thing I’d expect from the likes of you – and this isn’t exactly breaking a trend here, is it? About the only thing I’m feeling the urge to applaud you for is your consistency.
And there’s the more sophisticated kind of moronic proto-flamer, the kind that can spell and that has a flair for composition, but somehow still manages to convey absolutely nothing except tiresomely petty insults.
Done right, these comments can be fun.
However, they’re usually the work of people pompously labouring through life with the handicap of having an enormous stick up their ass. I sympathize: I mean, imagine finding a chair that accomodates. It can’t be easy.
Yes, I understand what you’re saying. I really do. Please see my blog post “I understand what Mikeachim is saying”.
But it all boils down to the fact that you’re arguing that there’s an argument whether comments are necessary or unnecessary, and it’s ***OBVIOUS*** to anyone who gave it ANY thought whatsoever that comments are necessary.
There’s no “my opinion is” or “let’s agree to disagree”.
It’s just WRONG. And always will be.
Then there’s the fascinating breed of folk who come into a comment stream with absolutely unshakeable opinions which they then proceed to foist upon anyone who will listen, and indeed anyone who won’t.
A lively comment thread is a place to challenge and be challenged. It’s two-way. You’re calling people out, but you have to be receptive to being called out. You have to start from a position of having an opinion that you believe but that *may* be flawed. Otherwise, you risk being accused of being narrow-mindedly arrogant.
And you have to respect that other people feel differently. (The keyword there is “respect”).
A few years back one of my EcoSalon posts attracted the attention of two gentleman who were keen to share their views on the work of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
http://www.ecosalon.com/controversial-peta-stunts/
Speaking personally, I’ve rarely seen a more comprehensive and dazzlingly literate display of inflexibility in a comment thread. I enjoyed it immensely and it made me think long and hard about some of my own assumptions, so, no complaints here.
However – I quote from one of these chaps:
“I have found myself in the same futile debates with people who haven’t learned the rules of logic. I realize what I am about to write is patronizing, but none-the-less I have discovered it to be true: You can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned in to in the first place. Moreover, the vast majority of people you are trying to reason with are incapable of reason.”
Okeydokey.
Feel free to butt in, by the way. I’m going to keep adding to this “post” until it’s done, and I’m far from done yet.
If you’re feeling bored and unenthused right now – here’s a jolly picture of some clowns.
In the days when I blogged complete rubbish (whaddya mean, ‘like yesterday?’, y’beggar), it was all about the quantity. Appearing on the big debates list was the pinnacle of achievement. Comments were rarely on track in those days – they would veer off course and around the houses, amusing and entertaining in the meantime. Given that there wasn’t really much of a topic for commenters to go off, it didn’t really matter that we invariably ended up bantering over what we’d all had for lunch. It passed a boring afternoon in work/uni for most of us.
Fastforward to today. I write a blog that has a strong theme and which, I like to think, is rather better written than Hi Diddly Dee in its original incarnation. Today, when I receive comments that are clearly there just for the sake of saying something, it grates. (Of course, if that something they say is, ‘Katja, you are a goddess amongst women, and the greatest writer I’ve ever clapped eyes on’, then that’s fine. It just doesn’t happen
very often, unfortunately.) I’m all for a bit of banter in the comment threads, but keep it on-topic, please. Give me something to work with.Comments are part and parcel of blogging, I think. If there are no comments, then it is not really a blog but a collection of journalistic articles, and therefore a somewhat different medium. If there are no comments, then did the blog actually happen? Certainly I’m guilty of deleting posts that haven’t received any comments. They may have been read, but there’s no evidence of it (well, apart from my StatCounter, but that’s for my eyes only, and therefore shockingly easy to dupe).
Ironically, given my pro-comments stance, I found your post quite hard to read in this format. I think comments are, generally, better kept short and to the point, although I’m beginning to change my mind on this one now that I have a Mac and two-finger scrolling – gosh, isn’t that BRILLIANT? I could scroll forever nowadays! – Er, where was I? Oh yes! Short and to the point. ALL commenters should abide by those rules. Yes.
Ahem.
You’ve never blogged complete rubbish. You’ve merely blogged less, and less thoroughly. This is denser blogging that I’ve seen from you, but your voice is as distinct as always. And that’s a damn good thing, I say.
It may interest you to know (and prepare yourself, this will sound ingenuine and sycophantic) that this ‘ere post about comments was partly a result of reading your new blog. I commented on your latest Alitalia post from my phone, the comment disappeared with no notification of whether it had gone to you or evaporated into a fine mist of 1s and 0s…and I decided to wait a day or so to see if it would be moderated and posted.
And that got me thinking about how often I comment, and why I comment, and why I enjoy it so much and why I find flamers, spammers and trollers so depressing. And hence this postmodernistically organic (which means “laughably slapdash”) post.
So – has the Italian experience changed the way you blog forever, do you think? Awakened the travel-blogger in you in a way that nothing has before?
Thee’s a writer, lass. Whatever you do with it is your business, and considering your fulltime job, writing may be the last thing you want to do. However – there’s your blog. So…well, it makes me wonder.
BTW, I can recommend dropping by Bleeding Espresso (see my links) and saying howdy – you’ll get to know a lot of Italian and Italy-oriented bloggers.
Regarding comments – ahh, the fond memories of me and Pete fighting over you, like two Errol Flynns.
Them were’t'days.
Dammit! Blogger really does play fast and loose with comments – I’ve been having a conversation on an Italy forum this very evening on the problems that a fellow expat blogger is having with comments on her blogger blog. Grr. Should I bite the bullet after all these years and go self-hosted? Hmm … (your comment hasn’t turned up, by the way. *very sad face*)
You’ve made me smile in a somewhat bashful and yet pleased-as-punch manner. I’d be lying if I said that writing wasn’t at the front of my mind nowadays. The current blog is – well – a bit of an experiment. I want to test myself a bit. See where things take me. Teaching won’t be forever, so …
I’ve beaten you to the punch on Bleeding Espresso – found her right back at the beginning of my Italy sojourn. One of the many that I found in my homesick trawlings of expat message boards. Finding so many new and exciting things to read was definitely one of the better things that came out of the misery of the early weeks here.
Michelle has developed a very welcoming feel to her site, and since much of her focus is expat life in Italy, I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t had a read already. Glad you have!
I can recommend self-hosting for many, many reasons. You’ll get a bigger readership. You’ll have complete creative control. You’ll have heaps of webspace to use to store your own non-blog stuff (great for archiving photos). And on and on. Don’t get me started. (Unless of course you want to).
I can also recommend Almost Fearless (http://www.almostfearless.com) who is a wise and well-travelled (in the geographical not dog-eared sense) lady called Christine, a globe-trotting writer who makes a writing income while – and from – the road. Inspiring stuff. If you subscribe right now you get her Change Your Life In 30 Days e-book for free, and although it’s slanted mainly at getting the reader to go travelling rather than get writing, it’s a great introduction to digital nomadism.
However, based on recent history, I bet you’re way ahead of me. Damn you. *shakes fist*
As a matter of interest (a) which platform are you using and (b) which host?
Oh – scratch (a). I’ve just looked at the bottom of the page. Good. That’s one I was considering. Tell me more, please …
And – oh! Sir Knight!
*swoons for old times’ sake*
I am here!
And I see that foppish scoundrel Peter is nowhere to me seen. HAH!
Probably licking someone’s shoes somewhere, or walking on stilts under a snake’s belly. I laugh at his swordplay and pour scorn and also hot oil on his battlements.
(That’s not some kind of vile euphemism. I’m a Noble Hero, we don’t euphemise).
All I’ll say is: ‘ware foppish scoundrels bearing shovels …
‘Zounds, Sir! Be on your guard; your blackguardly scandalising my good name has came again to my attention and I seek immediate redress with my rapier.
YOU! My nemesis! Back again to….nemesize.
Or something.
On guard, you worm! No more shall you plague me with your nemesisting. Nemesistery! Nem…nemesistication….
Oh for f…
Just hold on, please. Cower, or something.
*goes away to look up “nemesis” in a dictionary*
Cower? Before you? You of the numerous duels to the not quite death? You who has attacked me and forced me to defend the honour of this poor innocent thing (um.) on so many occasions?
Well, okay, maybe a little cowering, but just until you find your dictionary or sword!
I love this post that is all in the comments!
I can’t imagine deleting a post that doesn’t get comments. Most of my early posts didn’t, because no one knew about me. Sometimes a short post pointing to somewhere else doesn’t get commented on now – but it’s still there as a signpost.
I’ve only done it a few times in the six or so years that I’ve been blogging, and it’s usually been because I’d posted in haste for the sake of it, rather than because I genuinely had something to say. I’d obviously receive no comments, as the post wasn’t worth it. My subconscious would then itch with dissatisfaction until I deleted the post and rewrote it.
Sadly, I realise on reading my archives that an awful lot of dreadful posts made it through with nary a twitch from the ’sub-standard-post-o-meter’. But hey. It’s all development, right?
Thanks.
Even the “bad” posts (a subjective term) get the snuffling nose of a search engine running over them every once in a while. They’re useful for all sorts of reasons – such as shaming you into writing something better, or for resurrecting a topic that interested you but that you failed to get to grips with first time round.
And old posts are great for poking fun at yourself. I’ve got my first blog (Fevered Mutterings v1) archived on my laptop, and it’s…awful. My first few months of blog posts make painful reading. I’m so unrelaxed and so very, very…earnest. I am pure, unadulterated Noob. But then we all are, at first, until we reach a useful level of nonchalant flippancy and can write things that make us sound like we know our own minds. (That’s a useful skill to have when you’re winging it all the way).
Now that I’m sufficiently frightened of commenting here…but I enjoy and support healthy doses of criticism in this world, so why would I avoid the possibility of being criticized? I could always argue with you about it later, anyway! Problem solved.
Since, as you noted, there’s technically no definite answer to the question, “Should my blog have comments,” the only worthwhile way to attack it is to ask yourself what purpose and goals lay at the foundation of your blog; basically, ask yourself, “Do I want to speak to people, or do I want to speak with people?” If you choose to interact with people, you have opened yourself up to the possibility of being faced with a multitude of comments, or with none. You’re also open to being analyzed and criticized, misunderstood, understood, disagreed with, agreed with, judged, accepted, abused, complimented, ignored, and listened to. This is a basic fact of living in society, amongst other people, so, you have to accept what comes (well, you don’t have to do anything, but the Manual for Maintenance of Mental Stability strongly advises doing so). As several wise people have pointed out, “good” does not exist separately of “bad;” the presence of one means the possibility of the other. All perspectives, however, may be of value; they may solidify what you already believe, or help you to change direction, which makes them worth exposing yourself to. Welcome the senseless, rude, and ignorant comments because they aren’t entirely worthless; they help you in defining what it is to be senseless, rude, and ignorant, they may motivate you to act otherwise, and their presence means that you may recognize, appreciate, and use perspectives of wit, clarity, respectfulness, and insight.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
And thank you for commenting.
Beautifully put. And you’ve preempted something I was going to say later, which is: what’s your blog for?
I take it you’re a blogger yourself?
Well, thank you kind sir!
I’m actually not a blogger. I did try it for a while, but it’s not something I’m doing currently. I find (and how appropriate is this for the subject at hand) commenting suits me better right now. Call me a nomad of the blogging world.
Commets (whether good, bad or insane) are a positive thing – they mean that you’ve reached out and contacted someone and got their attention.
It’s a bit like academia… you slave working on a piece of research for months. You publish it… and hear nothing from anyone ever. That’s awful – is the work so good that no one can find a fault? Is it so humdrum that no one cares? Is it so dreadful that everyone is too embarrassed to respond?
I’d rather have someone disagree than have no comment. Of course, disagreement can be hard and sometimes downright hurtful or just plain irritating. On the latter, something of mine was reviewed recently in a single line where the reviewer said ‘… and Jimbo in his paper failed to reference my paper on this topic I wrote in 1973′. Seriously.
Shame on you for missing that one. I mean, how many archaeological journals can there be? And most of them are smooth, breezy reading, so you can’t use time as an excuse here. Tut.
And you can trust my opinion on this: I’ve been a centerfold in Current Archaeology, and you don’t get much more academically respected than that.
….
It’s a horrible thing to really, really sweat over a piece of writing, to trim and hone it until it conveys exactly what you intend it to, to the widest possible audience in the tightest, most engaging way possible…and then fail to provoke the response you feel it deserves. I suppose in academia you can at least be sure that it will be photocopied and liberally crisscrossed with highlighter pen by some sleep-deprived students at some point….
Beyond publishing, what are the offline mechanisms for promoting your work? (With blogging, it’s easy to fling it a hyperlink lifeline every now and again – and I guess the same thing goes on with papers that refer the reader to an earlier piece of work).
…”is the work so good that no one can find a fault? Is it so humdrum that no one cares? Is it so dreadful that everyone is too embarrassed to respond?”
You speak my mind. Ah, that horrible whirl of thoughts that comes with a deathly quiet comment stream. What did I just write this for? What did I just invest part of myself in this piece of writing for? Is it so nondescript that it deserves no response at all? The floor crumbles away and you fall through it into Blog Hell, where all your insecurities are turned into sharpened sticks which poke you until you shriek.
But with blogging, there are ways to get the attention of people that are firmly within your control. That’s part of the point of social media. That’s the fickle, superficial game of it all, to promote yourself in a way that doesn’t stray into narcissism or vacuous self-marketing.
On the flip side, on the Web there are no journals, no shelves heaving with archives. No matter whether you write something off the cuff or invest a month of your life creating something that you can’t imagine ever bettering, it’s still slung into the midst of chaos. It’s still dependent on you hosting it, nurturing it and protecting it from hardware errors. Like most things on the Internet, it’s not designed to endure.
And the same thing goes with comments, only vastly moreso. Which is why I can understand some people not wanting to spend a lot of time and effort commenting…
The point is that it doesn’t matter whether something is written in an academic journal and refereed (an uneasy process), or written on a blog, or on a newspaper or on the wall of a lavatory it’s all the same process. We’re trying to communicate and the frustrations of that process are apparent. At best the WORD is meant to clarify and be understood yet is completely malleable depending on who reads it.
On a slightly tangential point have you come across ‘bibliometrics’? It’s a term and process that could make me lose faith in humanity – most recently touted as a way to idenifty who are the ‘best’ researchers… http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=198
So, Bibliometrics assesses your output and makes a judgement on your status as a researcher? Based on “citation indexes and co-citation analyses”? Oooh, it’s a proto-Technorati.com. That’s going to go very wrong, very quickly. Cue academics clamouring for colleagues to cite their paper just to get their rating up (if this system takes off, of course). And if departments and funding bodies start using this system? It’s all one big popularity contest propped up with stats.
I share your horror.
**…completely malleable depending on who reads it.**
Can’t agree with the word “completely” there. That’s the populist challenge: to put words together in a way that conveys what you mean to the widest audience with the least ambiguity while avoiding dumbing down your topic. Malleable, yes, but there are shades. Least to most.
For me, the frustrating thing is that the popularity of top-quality composition too often depends on the right mixture of luck, opportunism and sly marketing. I’m cynical enough to accept it on some level and to want to play the game like everyone else, but it fills me with horror when I see great writing (online and offline) fail to engage, and shoddy writing (hi Dan Brown – love your books) rocketing to fame and adoration despite its glaring faults.
Talent isn’t enough these days. (If it ever was).
So why disable comments at all?
Here’s one suggestion: some of the people who would comment are going to link to you instead.
http://cdevroe.com/notes/benefit-disable-comments/
(Lovely, lovely traffic).
i’ve fallen into a rut where I don’t post very often (I blame university and a four hour a day commute) and I suspect my absence has knocked my readership, bigtime. That and the loss of Nigella-driven posting, which brought by googler’s quite a lot.
Consequently about 85% of my comments now come from my dad. Which is on the one hand nice because he never writes something where he wouldn’t have said anything. But on the other hand I feel like the third on the bill at a Battle of The Bands night where everyone in the audience is someone’s aunty, mum or girlfriend’s older brother that’s giving her a lift home.
For years I read someone’s blog and commented diligently, when I had something to say. She has never once commented on my blog, and I often wonder if she’d ever read it.
Four hours a day? Two hours there, two hours back – I’m presuming on the train?
Any room for a laptop there?
Do you feel like you need to write something, or that you really *should* write something? ie. that it’s an obligation to yourself?
I remember the brimming enthusiasm that powered Sacred Art. Lady with a mission. And we all need a mission, especially when life keeps intruding – otherwise we’ve no reason and no energy to push back…
Let’s say you started blogging every day from next Saturday: what, and why?
Tell me your answer in here next Friday.
I Challenge thee.
I have often commented on a blog that needed some help getting off the ground. The recipients often don’t seem to feel the need to cooment anywhere.
What is/was the blog on, topic-wise? Was it a topic that would benefit from conversation?
(Leading question, yes – because all topics benefit from conversation. But is it meant to be personal to the point of exclusion, or trying to engage readers? In which case, not commenting on other blogs is fatal).
i’ve disabled commenting. while i know i have random readers and i appreciate them all, they just don’t interact with me. in the almost two years i’ve been blogging i have not really garnered faithful commenters (i hate hate hate the comments that just say “yum” or “that looks great”…). there is just no value to the comments i receive. they’re not asking me questions or having me clarify on anything (i’m not so big-headed to think i’ve written stellar recipes or whatever, i just think they’re not reading it…) nor is anyone giving me tips on how to improve myself.
i’ve thought about it, i wonder if i’m just not approachable, do people really think i’m that “angry” and they’re scared to comment lest i virtually kick them in the crotch? who knows and i’m done worrying about it. fine, i don’t get comments, i’ll just disable it completely.
so it brings the question, why blog at all? because it tickles my fancy and sometimes i just want to boast when i’ve figured out a complicated recipe, or i’ve taken a decent picture. plus, my real life friends would kick my ass if i stopped blogging.
further, i get more feedback via twitter, facebook or private emails anyway. having to moderate comments too got annoying.
Haven’t known you very long, Lan, but I can see you’re a good blogger if ever I saw one. (And not Angry by any means).
I’ve just been looking at the comments left at Chez Pim….
http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2010/01/heremushroom-mushroom.html#comments
…and there are a fair few of the “great post!” variety. It’s nice when people show their appreciation, but also frustrating too, yes. And even the huge-traffic, big-profile, media-loved blogs get them…..
If you had comments enabled on your site, what would you like people to be saying and discussing in them?
i like interaction, i get that on twitter much more and it boggles my mind cus it’s so limited in characters/words. i prefer comments that are real (and i realize that what i wrote below to your last question is a smidge contradictory…), i’d love it if someone would tell me if what i did/made SUCKED, how i could it do it better or how they’ve done it before and what the results were.
my cousin is a photographer and he gives me tips/pointers on my picture taking, but he doesn’t do it publically. he emails or texts me. i’d like it of he did it in the comments sections because 1. someone else who is reading could learn off that 2. it’d draw more attention to his awesome photography site 3. why the hell not?!
ok, so now i will work on commenting better than i have been. i’m not guilty of leaving just YUM comments but i do sometimes NOT comment because i don’t know how to phrase something “nicely.” i shouldn’t be so worried about being misunderstood cus really, the worse that could result from it is an interaction, which is basically what i want out of my blog anyway.
Oh, and your food photography is terrific. I will accept no argument to the contrary. This comment thread is all about sharing different opinions, but this isn’t opinion, it’s fact. So no arguing. Thx.
you’re too nice! seriously. but keep flattering me.
Mike, superb stuff. I think comments are vital. Without comments wouldn’t we all just be writing diaries?
Ta.
And yes, we would. And we all do a bit of that, but unless we’re really brave/daft (like the guy a few years back that blogged about his Waterstones colleagues and got sacked by them), they’re not *really* diaries. They’re only kinda.
And that’s because we know that if we spoke unwisely and failed to censor our thoughts, there would be consequences. And in a way that’s how comments help us keep on the straight & narrow, I guess. They keep us real, but not *too* real – in other words, we remain respectable.
(Arguably).
Some blogs reach a point where they don’t seem to “need” comments.
I’m speaking trafficwise. If a website gets enough links and search engine lurve, it gets enough eyeballs and doesn’t have to engage in the more time-intensive methods of attracting visitors that involve commenting at home and away. Perfectly understandable…
…if you see comments purely as a way of getting readers rather than engaging with or (let’s not bandy words here) using them.
If you’re a blog writer, your readers can keep you honest and grounded. The best mechanism for getting that kind of feedback is a comment. Big sites that have a passionate, knowledgeable, opinionated readership and a ton of comments on every post…they’re a collaborative effort (arguably). The comments are read and pondered behind the scenes or mid-thread, and they inform future content. In measurable and excitingly unpredictable and gnarly ways, the comments create the blog.
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and Harry realised that in fact, Hermione was quite right – the Death Eaters were on the march! He grabbed his wand and
“In measurable and excitingly unpredictable and gnarly ways, the comments create the blog”
I might amend that to say that comments are part of the growth and evolution of the blog. For a blog that is open to comments, the blog entries and the comments have a sort of symbiotic relationship. Any meaningful comment is born from the seed of engaging material. In order for material to be engaging, the blogger has to be able to effectively communicate and has to have knowledge about or interest in what they’re talking about; in other words, the blogger has to have something to say and know how to say it. On the flip side, a blogger will starve in a comment desert. It’s exceedingly difficult to give as much as is necessary to a blog without getting anything in return to rejuvenate and motivate a writer. So, if both elements are present in fine form, a blog is bound to be an enriching experience for everyone involved.
While I tend to agree, I’ve seen a fair few blog writers who either don’t need comments to get the feedback they need because they get it elsewhere (perhaps another blog or magazine or supporting company) – or they just don’t care about what people say. I find it difficult not to judge the latter, even though I know some of these folk are certainly good people and good writers and therefore don’t deserve to be looked down on.
But yes. Blog comments are a help. They support the writer in all sorts of way. Feedback has not only helped me write, it’s saved my ass on a few occasions. And more on that later.
Sticking with “why disable comments”….
1. Go look at the average entry on Digg.
2. Go look at the average Perez Hilton blog post.
3. Go look in your e-mail’s Spam folder.
Yep, it’s true: comments can attract idiots. They can attract linguistic vandals, thoughtless graffiti, potty-mouthed nonsense.
And that’s because it’s very easy to hide behind fictitious identities on the ‘Net. It’s easy to dodge the social consequences of being a loudmouthed fool when you’re doing it virtually rather than in person. Compare logging onto a website and telling someone he’s a ****ing idiot (IN CAPITAL LETTERS) to shouting the same thing at him through the window of your pub.
So the worry is: if the Internet encourages “unrealistic” social behaviour in that some people can say things they never would in a real-life context…what does that make comments on the internet? Less repressed and therefore more honest? Less thought-out and therefore less useful?
Compare the things you say in blog comments with the things you’d say in real life. Is there a difference?
And if nobody could comment anonymously and everyone was instantly trackable back to their real-life identity, would a large part of the internet shut up and stop being so angry?
Compare the things you say in blog comments with the things you’d say in real life. Is there a difference?
great question! i find that i am much nicer on the internet than i am in real life. that’s not to say that i’m mean but i am aware that a lot can be lost in translation. when i am speaking, i use my facial features, my body posture and voice inflection to help me communicate and maybe soften a blow or in most cases, drive a hard point home. in writing, anything and everything is up to interpretation and i try to err on the side of niceness. which i guess makes me an internet pansy but at least i’m not doing it anonymously.
It makes you as diplomatic virtually as you are in real life, which I say it a good thing and something to be happy about.
And it’s wise, too, when your offline persona is easily trackable by your online one. If you’re not anonymous, you’re the official online representative of You, surely?
Blimey, must try and keep up.
I think you’ve missed out quite a few of the annoying inhabitants of the commentosphere – like the guys (I think they usually are guys) who don’t have their own blogs so they hang out in the comments of someone else’s, dominating the conversation and never letting even the owner have the last word. And the communities with their own in-jokes and catchphrases (see PassiveAggressiveNotes.com for a particularly annoying crew) who barely let the post itself get a look in. One thing I’ve tried to avoid on my blog is that sort of an in-crowd feel (and I hope I’ve succeeded) so that new readers don’t feel they can join in in case everyone falls silent and stares at them the minute they open their mouths. Of course, it’s nice to have regulars too.
I think blog owners can do a lot to influence the tone of the comment thread. Some don’t respond to commenters at all, some are punctilious in keeping the conversation on track, or making sure people play nice. And there’s always the delete button…
Disgruntled –
Aye, I need to keep up too.
(Have to ‘fess, I’m a terribly inconsistent commenter on other blogs – and aware it’s not doing me any favours).
Yes, you’re right. I should have mentioned the folk that allow their private conversations or running in-jokes to completely swamp the post topic. Taken to an extreme, that’s really feeble-minded. Why do it? (Why allow it?) Go on IRC and open a chatroom instead. (With the emphasis on “go”).
/ rant
So, have you ever felt the urge to step in and divert or even shut down a comment thread that was going AWOL?
So far (correct me if I’m wrong) there’s been very few times that my own comment threads have gone badly off topic (or at least, in an unamusing way – if it’s funny I’ll let it run). There’s been times when I’ve got a bit annoyed with people who either are rude to other commenters or who just keep contradicting me (the cardinal sin!). The former I’ll slap on the wrist if I think it merits it, the latter, I just ignore and let them have it their own way. I do try to keep on top of the comments, and respond to each one individually if possible which I think helps keep things on track in some indefinable way. (And yes, I do spend all my waking hours checking for comments, responding, obsessing over statistics and clicking on commenters’ links and commenting on their blogs, why do you ask?) Most over-excited commenters tend to calm down after a few weeks, and fall in with the rest of them.
I’ve never yet had to delete something, apart from spam, but I will if its offensive according to my own privately defined standards of taste. My blog, my rules.
As you can see, I’m not *quite* as on-the-ball with my replies as you are.
>>> And yes, I do spend all my waking hours checking for comments, responding, obsessing over statistics and clicking on commenters’ links and commenting on their blogs, why do you ask?
I never do that that kind of thing. *Never*. Not me.
Well, maybe a bit.
Well, maybe a lot.
(And I find it frustrating when so many lurkers stop by, glance at something I’ve written and move onwards without even a “oh boy, that sucked”).
What topics or posts of yours have generated the most discussion, and the most comments (if they’re two separate things, which they might be)? What hooks do you use to snag commenters? ‘Fess your secrets. I won’t tell anyone, I promise. Or use them myself. *ingenuine grin*
the easiest way to provoke a lot of comments is to ask for suggestions… simple and a little crude, but effective. It makes for good follow up blogging as well, when you act on them and report back. Something controversial works but can get heated, or just something that people can chime in with a ‘me too’ or (depending on your commenters) a ‘pah, you think that’s bad…’
Have you ever made a statement that you don’t believe, just to wind people up and get them talking? Or have you ever outlined a devil’s advocate argument without telling everyone that you’re playing devil’s advocate?
And have you ever created a fake commenter and argued with yourself, for the sheer hell of it or to show extremes?
(I’ve never done these things in this blog, but elsewhere….I might be a little bit guilty. Just a tad, mind).
Oh, I agree with disgruntled! Asking people questions is the best way to get them talking. It is opening the door into their world. Everyone loves to talk about themselves, and sharing thoughts and opinions is, in a way, doing this as those thoughts are an extension of the self. If there is one thing that may be counted upon by everyone forever, that would be the dominance of the ego. Unfortunately, if a surge of comments is a delightful strawberry shortcake (which happens to pair perfectly with your orange pekoe), the mass of people that came along with them have taken a seat upon your fork; this method of encouraging comments is almost one hundred percent guaranteed (including the lifetime warranty) to “attract linguistic vandals, thoughtless graffiti, potty-mouthed nonsense.” And, please, feel free to add to that list! Arrogance, ignorance, impetuousness, narcissism…Such is life, though. That is why simply saying “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” is such a tired phrase; because in oh-so-many cases, it is completely true. So, if you are unwilling to put up with the “loudmouthed fool[s],” then, yes, you should turn off the comments or just avoided keeping a blog. Personally (despite how I may sound), I am an advocate of asking questions and welcoming comments because they may inspire and motivate those who would otherwise resign themselves to remaining silent with the thought that no one cares about what they have to say or that they have nothing worthwhile to offer, and also because patience and light-heartedness are both valuable skills and virtuous.
Yes, we’re in agreement.
Part of the natural consequence of having a blog open to discussion is a certain amount of spam – both the mindless scattershot kind we get from strangers every day, and the more specific flaming/trolling etc. that comes from people with too much time on their hands.
I reckon it’s worth putting up with it, every time. And Wordpress is heavily supported by reliable, clever apps in the war against spam. TanTan Noodles (http://tantannoodles.com/toolkit/spam-filter/) has reduced the spam I moderate to around a tenth of what it used to be – and I don’t even have to use Akismet and Captcha and all the other second lines of defence that are available. (Maybe I will have to when traffic is brisker, but for now, no need).
The word-vandals are a hazard of the profession.
And sometimes even they contribute something positive, even if it’s by accident.
Everyone:
As you might have gathered by now – I sometimes get a bit behind with answering comments.
However, I do answer them all. Stick with me and you’ll get an incomprehensible, meaningless reply in due course. I promise.
Hello everyone
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Dear Michelle,
Firstly, you told a porky-pie, a patent untruth, a tarradiddle. I followed your supplied link and ended up in an entirely unrelated corner of the Internet lacking merit and perhaps best defined by its sheer absence of free iPads. It was peering through into an alternate universe where Apple didn’t exist.
(Well, maybe you messed up the hyperlink. These things happen. In which case I apologize for suspecting you might be of the reformed-luncheon-meat variety of visitor. Let me know if it’s so, and I promise I won’t be proud of myself).
I appreciate the time you took to drop in here and leave a meaningful comment. Truly.
And yes, that was a real spammer whose comment I just mutilated.
Felt cheap. Felt good.
It is useful to try everything in practice anyway and I like that here it’s always possible to find something new.