Joel says:
When a blog allows comments right below the writer’s post, what you get is a bunch of interesting ideas, carefully constructed, followed by a long spew of noise, filth, and anonymous rubbish that nobody … nobody … would say out loud if they had to take ownership of their words. #
That is true, in so far as bloggers are incapable of handling their readers. The fallacy being that if you’re friendly with everyone, they’ll be friendly with you. Or that your comment section is some sort of digital speaker’s corner.
I ran this policy for a while, especially when Kubrick was at its height, and my traffic was through the roof. It resulted in many comments, for sure, but the overall quality was considerably lower than it is now. The key seems to be raising ones grouch’o‘meter to ‘low tolerance for morons’. Traffic goes down, quality goes up and in the long run quality of life stabilizes on a comfortable level.
Gone are the rather obnoxious ‘oh, ye, the mighty creator of teh Kurbirk theme, haha, u are so right and funny’ comments, of which there were quite a few, none of which help with anything but mild stroking of ego, and entertaining as that is for a while, it’s just not very fulfilling. For that reason I had comments closed on entries for a while.
The status quo is a returning core of (mostly ;) sensitive, intelligent readers who say what they have to say, if they have anything to say, and otherwise go about their business. From that, genuine valuable conversation can grow.
There is of course also the difference between expectations, in that Binary Bonsai is largely a social blog, whereas for instance Daring Fireball is Gruber broadcasting his analysis onto the world, no reply needed.
I would still write BB without comments and readership interaction, but it would be a quite different affair, no doubt.
So, the secret to the Binary Bonsai Success Sauce? You can’t be friends with everyone, so don’t be afraid to squash any wannabe-trolls early on. The social environment around your blog will be better for it in the long run.
Oh, ye, the mighty creator of teh Kurbirk theme, haha, u are so right and funny!
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Someone had to do it! ;)
I completely agree with you about people saying things that they would never say face-to-face, and I’ve found that it’s like that not only in blog comments, but also in email, IM, etc.; typing gives people huge egos and the courage to say anything which can be great or it can suck (usually the latter).
Given that my site usually only gets comments from people I know personally , this has very rarely been an issue for me. That said, the main reason I have a blog is because I want to get interesting discussions going and forums just aren’t quite right for what I am looking for.
So while I do want more traffic, the type of traffic I want is a lot harder to come by. Like you, that is I want people who don’t just post a comment for the sake of posting a comment. It probably doesn’t help that I hardly ever comment on other blogs, as that’s where most of the sort of people I am looking for tend to be.
Well, I’ve been see-sawing towards either end of the spectrum – on one hand I find comments useful and quite often insightful, and on the other I find that I much prefer someone writing something more structured for (or against) what I have written and posting it on their web site and wishing I could do without comments altogether.
(In fact, I’ve often thought about switching them off, period, since as Joel writes, people can get their own space and write there.)
Somehow I get the feeling that comments have become a drive-by affair, with people not bothering to really make a point and just tossing random sentences into a textarea…
Totally agree, you rock and kottke is a cry baby
We need a way to link blogs on an article level. For instance, Joe makes a post where he says something controversial. Mark makes a ten paragraph post about Joe’s post. Bill reads Joe’s post and Mark’s post and posts his thoughts on both, then adds some more thoughts to the heap. Now, how can someone figure out (quickly) how to read these thoughts in order? I’d say, logically, you could look at the post that this all stemmed from (Joe’s post) and then you could see the posts everyone else made about Joe’s post from there in a logical order that is easy to scan over. This makes an intricate network of articles related to a topic. Since these thoughts are actually published on their personal blogs, it both allows for greater social interaction and knowledge of who that person is (let’s see you give a one-sentence, hateful comment on your own blog, ha!)
Shakes head. Well, that was an interesting and complex thought. I think my head aches. Comments can be powerful on blogs that moderate and filter the water from the gold (gold-rush!) but they can also be a downer (your readers may show they can’t get more than a string of single syllable words out). Aw well. I still love the idea of having my readers being able to speak up. :)
I also mostly just get comments from people I know, amidst vast amounts of spam that is safely filtered. But now and again I get a comment that I’m not sure if it’s from some sort of spam company with a new technique I don’t recognize or a genuine idiot who’s command of language is so poor that all they can do is type meaningless drivel.
In such cases Tara, the standing order is: PURGE!
“I still love the idea of having my readers being able to speak up. “
Personally i couldn’t agree more. A comment is a contribution from a reader who’s taken the time to write it, be it big or small i appreciate it. It’s also a tool to get to know your readers a bit better and vice versa.
I think if you have a mature blog with a decent readership comments matter less than say someone who had a new blog, simply because comments are a clear indication your content is appreciated or at the very least thought provoking enough to warrant feedback.
It also depends on the type of blog you have. The guy that left the ‘oh, ye, the mighty creator of teh Kurbirk theme, haha, u are so right and funny’ comment didn’t come to read your blog etc he came to download the theme (like many others) in such instances these kinds of comments are expected by products and left to the bloggers discretion to do what he wills with them.
I’m against censoring comments in general but obviously in the extreme cases this is the only option. Perhaps blogs should have a digg like comment system leaving it up to the users to filter the good.
Just read my comment (above) again i apologize for my poor lack of grammar.
So do I fit under “mostly” or the “obnoxious” (or both) tags? :)
Comments allow for occasional brilliant moments engaging with readers. Sometimes. I’ve actually disabled comments on some of my posts now – primarily remainders.
But yes, you do make some very good points.
I turn off comments from time to time here as well, though less now that once. It’s a good practice; also keeps the readers no their toes :)
Hi! I’m rather new to the whole concept of blogging and agree with most of you about blog comments. Some people will post comments just because they can.
I don’t mean just spammers (though, they do….) but the people who are wandering around the Internet and will publish any rubbish without even looking at the site.
I allow comments on my blog but spend quite a bit of time moderating them. I think this is better than not allowing comments at all because it provides a chance to engage in interesting discussions (like this one) and come up with something useful.
Greetings to all!!!