Comments on: 31 Day Comment Challenge: Days 8-11

By: Michael Clarke

Michael Clarke — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:45:29 +0000

We’ve been trying different policies according to the nature of the blog we’re working with. The tendency has been to be a bit cautious in some areas (admittedly the student facing ones, being as we’re part of a university) and leave comments on approval required but open to all comers on some other blogs. I’m hoping to move to an open door policy everywhere as people’s comfort level rises. And yes, all I ever get from neophytes is “What if someone writes something bad about us?”

By: maggie

maggie — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:18:26 +0000

I’m sorry, Mark. I had to explain to the PR department and the IT department in closed door meetings over-n-over that bad comments could be removed by the administrator at any time. It was a full year before they allowed me to start blogging with open comments. Press on!

By: Mark K.

Mark K. — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:58:27 +0000

“I harp on the libraries that don’t allow comments b/c they are cutting the communication off at the post.”

Alas, some of us work at libraries where the marketing department decides what our comment policy will be, instead of the librarians.

By: Sameer Vasta

Sameer Vasta — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:57:32 +0000

Meredith,

Thanks for the link. Just thought I’d give you some context as to my thoughts revolving around trackbacks and pingbacks.

After blogging for over nine years, sometimes you need to re-evaluate things. Part of the reason I stopped allowing comments is because I was around when trackbacks and pingbacks were still nascent technologies and were promising big changes in web conversation. They didn’t really end up doing everything we all had hoped them to do, but it was worth trying it out at the time.

I do, now, offer commenting on my blog, but we’ll see where that goes once new tools and new ideas keep coming up in the web world. That is, in fact, the power of the blog, right? To adapt and change as necessary?

By: Meredith Farkas

Meredith Farkas — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:34:01 +0000

Yeah, I think it’s a blog regardless of whether it accepts comments open or not (or doesn’t get comments even though they are open). Blogs are a lot of things to a lot of people, and I think giving it a narrow definition would discount the great variety of blogs out there.

I don’t know why people feel the need to have such strict definitions for such fuzzy things in the first place. I find it a good thing that blogs can take so many different shapes and fill so many different needs.

By: walt crawford

walt crawford — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:58:41 +0000

Besides, Dorothea, I don’t have another absolutely 100% perfect counterexample for the idiot idea that “if it doesn’t accept comments it isn’t a blog.”

(No, I’m not arguing with your decisions re commenting–you’ve explained them well, not that you need to. I’m just sayin’: If CavLec isn’t a blog, and a damn fine one, I don’t know what is…)

Yes, I did use just that example, over at Open stacks. SO not directly participating in this ongoing exercise, though…

By: Dorothea Salo

Dorothea Salo — Sun, 11 May 2008 01:38:38 +0000

Well, “afraid” isn’t the same thing as “irrationally afraid.” Consider some of the stuff I’ve written about the experience of women in general and me in particular with IT. You remember the Kathy Sierra debacle. You tell me what kind of reaction I can expect.

That’s exactly the kind of thing I desperately don’t want to deal with. It isn’t the likes of YOU I’m walling off.

By: Meredith Farkas

Meredith Farkas — Sat, 10 May 2008 23:46:21 +0000

Yeah, I can understand that, Dorothea. I totally respect your choice, but there are times when I SO want to just comment on one of your posts and it drives me bonkers that I can’t. I can’t imagine you fitting into category 3; controlling I can see… afraid, not so much.

Yes, a lot of libraries have that feeling too. Even those of us who have comments do exert some control. I’m starting to be more willing to delete comments that are nasty or offensive, because it’s just not the sort of environment I want to encourage here.

By: Dorothea Salo

Dorothea Salo — Sat, 10 May 2008 22:14:50 +0000

Possibility 4: people who are kinda control-freak about THEIR SPACE, even on the freewheeling Internet.

I make no bones about fitting into categories 2, 3, and especially 4. I’ve sometimes considered hanging a BBS off the blog as an ersatz comment system, but I haven’t found an easy way to hook that up yet.

What that would do, though, is put the discussion in a separate space. My blog is MINE. MINE SPACE. I get, you know, territorial and stuff about it. As I think some libraries do theirs as well.

By: maggie

maggie — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:25:31 +0000

I harp on the libraries that don’t allow comments b/c they are cutting the communication off at the post. The bloggie world is used to commenting on comments, now. The blog takes on a life of its own when merely left alone. It is also one of those unspoken rules that if your comment will be longer than a couple of short paragraghs, write a post and give a link back to the originator. But you knew that, I’m just reinforcing this post! ;D