Comments on: Comments, Blogs, and You

By: dan

dan — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:13:58 +0000

@Eric -

An interesting turn of events. Were you having problems with comments, or were there other reasons for turning them off?

By: Eric Wiley

Eric Wiley — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:05:08 +0000

hehe - yeah, save the world. A lot of news sites have taken down the ability to comment on news articles because they just became dominated by comments from two most extreme sides of the political spectrum, arguing back and forth.

I cam back here to comment on the irony in that two weeks after my above comment I now have feedback turned ‘Off’ on my site.

By: Nate Klaiber

Nate Klaiber — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:30:31 +0000

@Eric
You hit the nail on the head. The biggest thing I am realizing lately is I don’t strive for popularity in the blogging world. For my personal blog, I would much rather have comments from people I know - as there is more context to the conversation. This avoids always having to try and explain yourself.

I have just seen so many comments go awry and way off topic. Many of which go into heated debates, debates that have been going on for years. I really think some people try to save the world and the Internet through their comments.

Still has me thinking about the next rendition of my site and commenting…

By: Eric Wiley

Eric Wiley — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 15:12:16 +0000

Reading your article brought to mind a particular post Eric Meyer made on his site a while back.

It was a personal entry about a conversation with his daughter and I noticed that he had turned off comments. I thought it was very appropriate that he had done so - pretty much any comment would have ruined the mood.

Intelligent feedback from readers is a rewarding aspect of using this kind of medium. For the first time in recent modern history publishing has evolved from a one-way broadcast to a conversation of sorts.

Popularity in the blogging world is not something I would ever wish for, but it’s nice to know that if overtly deviant comments do find their way to my site then I’ll still be in control of what happens to them.

By: Nate Klaiber

Nate Klaiber — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 02:40:57 +0000

I think this will always be an issue. If you allow comments and moderate, are you really letting people have the freedom to speak their mind on the topic? If you pre-moderate, are people as inclined to check back or continue to comment? (I think in the case of Eric’s site, it would be yes - people will still be actively involved).

I have been thinking about this myself lately as I develop a new iteration of my site. On one side, I think the comments help as it allows me to easily engage with the readers. Even with book reviews, there can be some good discussions. On the other side, it is nice to just keep the content in place and not worry about managing comments that are spam - or comments from people who don’t read the entire subject matter.

The news sites that refer you to a forum topic are nice - as they prevent the anonymous comments from spiteful people. It forces people to be responsible for what they write and let the community make up their mind about their worth to the conversation.

Maybe some posts should have comments, and others have it disabled.

Good topic that has me thinking even more about the worth of comments….

By: Brad Dielman

Brad Dielman — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 01:35:27 +0000

Great post, Dan. While I do enable comments on my blog, I have also moderate them. At first it was because I mistakenly left the option enabled, but now I just leave it there to filter out the random spam comment. Even with with the Akismet plug in installed, some spam does get through.

For any other comments I always approve them. But then, I don’t get that many comments so its not like I have to contend with the problems that Joel mentioned in his article.

If the comments ever did get to that point on my blog then I would really have a tough decision to make. I would probably let all but the most offensive comments through. I’ll refer to the comment disclaimer on the The Big Noob:

Posting vile or biggoted remarks will get you banned from commenting in the future. It’s pretty simple: don’t be a buttwipe.