Day 9: Should We Be Commenting on Blogs?
Well, it looks like I have Day 9 and Day 10 of the Comment Challenge mixed up. As life happens, I have not had as much time to devote to the challenge as the days are flying by. I am trying to work backwards, having done Day 10 earlier and now moving on to the Day 9 challenge, when I realized, that without knowing, I already reflected on some of the issues of yesterday’s challenge
Day 9: Should We Be Commenting on Blogs?
Now that we’ve spent several days trying to build up conversations through blog comments, I’m going to challenge you a little with a question–should we be using the commenting capacity to generate conversations between bloggers, or should we be interacting through our blog posts?
Check out this article and the many references to bloggers who think that comments should be disabled on blogs. Read through those posts and consider whether or not you think it’s better to build community through comments or through conversations occurring across blogs–or maybe a combination of both. What, to your mind, is the purpose of comments on blogs and are we better served by encouraging people to respond to ideas on our blogs or over on their own blogs? Then write a post on your reflections. Be sure to tag it with "comment08."
I read with great interest Rethinking the blog comment policy on Eloquation . Sameer Vasta , the author of the post disabled the ability for the readers to leave comments. Here are some of his reasons behind that decision.
- My blog was a personal publishing platform
- Nobody was leaving comments
- People had other places to respond
His reasons reflect some of my own points why I blog that I made on my previous post . Blogging for me is about:
- jotting down my ideas, my learning journey, and my discoveries
- serving as documentation of my lists of site links that I am encountering, hardware and software that I am using or contemplating in using
- helping me clarify in my head a strategy, a path, a mistake, a success or a pattern that I might not have seen or reflected upon without having it written down
- helping me becoming a better writerS
- allowing me to vent… it allows me to write things off my soul
I believe that receiving comments should not be the only reason why someone is blogging. On the other hand blogging is supposed to be a conversation. How do you expand your learning, if you are not receiving feedback or are able to question what you are reading or being questioned about what your are writing?
Sameer Vasta says he can be part of a conversation by allowing
the conversation to grow around my writing. [...] I’ve always been a big fan of the concept of trackbacks. Creating a cross-linked compendium of related ideas (rather than collapsing ideas in one comment thread) across the web feels like a much richer way to create conversation to me. In the past little while, I’ve experimented with adding Technorati links or Twitter replies to my posts as well, to show how conversation happens outside the blog.
I must say that I like his angle of looking at the conversation part of blogging and the level of importance that comments are playing in this conversation. I am reading from his post that he feels that he is still a part of the conversation, even though he might or does not receive any comments. No matter if this is due to people choosing not to leave comments on his writings or because he disabled commenting on his blog. He is still part of a conversation, expanding his learning, through following trackbacks to his post and using other tools such as technorati and twitter to connect his points of view and writing to others.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not foreseeing disabling the commenting function on Langwitches. I do enjoy receiving comment. The conversation Sameer strikes up supports the question Who Do you Write For?
The success of your learning and the connections you make with other angles or points of view that DOES NOT depend on the amount of comments you receive on your blog posts.
Has the conversation, that started on Rethinking the blog comment policy on Eloquation stopped because I chose to reflect on my own blog, instead of leaving a comment on his (The comments were disabled)? Will I have learned less from reflecting on this issue if no one leaves a comment? Will I feel left out of the conversation if no one leaves a comment? Very interesting questions and thoughts…
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May 10th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Hi Silvia. I appreciated much of what you said here, but want to play the contrarian on one statement: “On the other hand blogging is supposed to be a conversation.”
Says who? There were blogs well before there were commenting systems, much less trackbacks. The first weblogs were mostly link dumps and chronicles of people’s discoveries on the web (i.e., web log). Sure, that’s evolved and diversified considerably, but I don’t think that people who are not intending to have conversations are failing to blog. They just have a different intent to their blogging.
Of course, I say this as someone who is all about conversations. But to each their own.
May 10th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
It’s always nice to be acknowledged for your thoughts, whether people agree with them or not. It’s the difference between talking to yourself or to a friend or 10. Comments are an acknowledgement that someone is “listening” and perhaps expanding their own thoughts, just as you have expanded yours through blogging. Is it necessary to have comments? Probably not. But it is nice to know that people think that what you have to say is worthy enough to respond to. You can find out if people looked at your page through site meter, but to really have read and to have taken the time to respond, that’s just plain old courtesy and acknowledgement of your efforts and ideas. I love the commenting feature. I don’t always use it as a consumer of blogs but as a producer, I thrive on comments. Love them. Wish more people would use them.
May 10th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
@Greg-
I am in complete agreement with you “Says who?” That is why I added the word “supposed” to the sentence.
Every blogger will need to find, decide and learn to be comfortable with his or her intent to blog and not feel pressure by comment numbers or technorati rankings. You wrote:
It think that it is perfectly OK to blog for your own pleasure and even disable commenting if you are getting your conversation “fix” and connections through different venues or if you choose not to be part of a conversation. A blog is after all an online journal/diary too and not everyone expects or wants to have other people’s opinions or graffiti on their pages.
It all comes down to the blogger’s intent for their space.
May 10th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Hi, It seems like ages since I met you at FETC. I have had trouble just keeping up with all the reading letting alone thinking, reflecting commenting and generating my own posts! I think that controversy is the key to generating numerous comments. Some people are very comfortable with confrontation and they enjoy the intense dialog of argument. Their blogs become great sounding boards for a wide range of opinions and ideas. On the other hand, when I think about why I felt compelled to respond to your post which found via Twitter… Well, I think you are genuinely interested in collecting opinions and feedback in a more ‘research based’ sense. I don’t detect the baiting that goes on and generates knee jerk (sometimes regrettable) comments. I also commented because I know you, respect you and knew a visit to your blog would enlighten me in new and unexpected ways. My own blog seldom elicits comments but it doesn’t stop me from logging my own ideas and opinions. It helps me to think more clearly about topics or to retain a record of the passion I have for a topic, person or cause. In short it helps me with self reflection. Perhaps I am not bold enough to elicit the kind of reflection one gets when they delve into controversy or engage in finger pointing. That being said, I do like the drama of this kind of verbal engagement as long as people don’t get nasty. I love a good intellectual debate. I think a blog can spark conversations that never appear in print. Does that kind of comment count?
May 10th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
@Lihonda you write:
I absolutely agree with you. Being acknowledged is a driving force for many people in whatever you are doing. The question that @greg on his comment above and Sameer Vasta on his blog post have brought up is, if a blogger who is not intending to have a “conversation” on his or her blog and who is perfectly content in logging their thoughts and learning paths without expecting or wanting any comments still considered a blogger? Is blogging equal to posting AND commenting? Are you less of a blogger if you receive or want/need little or no comments or your thoughts?
Just trying to wrap my mind around if anyone can or should define what blogging constitutes in general. Maybe that is the beauty of it? You can make blogging what you want out of it. Maybe the best advice is, especially new bloggers, not to feel pressured to be what others appear or want to be for themselves.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
@Kathy Thank you for leaving this comment. Yes, FETC seems like such a long time ago already. Meeting so many of you f2f for the first time was very exciting…
I am working on to not pondering too long when leaving responses on Langwitches or commenting on other blogs, because experience has shown me that sometimes the special moment passes to respond with your first impression and intuition.
You wrote:
Why do you think that is? Human nature? Does that stand as the opposite of @Lihonda’s “Comments are an acknowledgments that someone is “listening” and perhaps expanding their own thoughts”.
I also like engaged discussions, but when they turn to drama, I find myself immediately turned off when reading posts or comments that are pointing fingers or are turning “nasty” as you say.
From what you are writing above, it seems that you have exactly figured out what your blog intent is and that you are comfortable with that. That is all that matters in my opinion.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Silvia-
I have been so awful with this 31 day challenge!
I am delighted when people comment on my blog, but I don’t do it with the expectation that anyone will. Most of my comments are either 1. questions, 2. amplifiying /supplying more info of in the vein of the post, or, most often, 3. notes of appreciation for what I’ve garnered from the post.
-Skip