Comments

*We must respect the policy of the owner of the Blog.

*It depends what the owner sees as the Blogs purpose. Blog owners who don’t enter into a discussion presumably use their Blog as an information giving process.

*My own view is that a Blog is a conversation. I respond to every comment on my own Blog and have done that for the last two years (550 posts). I take the view that if readers take the time and trouble to comment on my posting then I owe them at least the courtesy of a reply.

*Having said that I fully appreciate large Blogs (such as TP) cannot acknowledge every single comment. I do feel however the author of any posting (even on TP) could at least summarise their own views following or during a comment thread. Tom himself is excellent at chipping in with his own comments but few other authors at TP seem to do that. (Meant to be a constructive and helpful suggestion not a negative one)

*The richness of different Blogging techniques should be encouraged – like everything else in life it would ruin the whole concept if every Blog owner acted in the same way - how boring would that be?

Posted by Trevor Gay at January 23, 2007 12:50 PM

1. Who Let the Blogs Out reminds me of the pesky dogs that talk to me & mock me each morning as I 5am run a cool run ...

2. ... actually le "dogs that mock" as the French might say inspire to $3M net worth ...

3. ... and maybe the fascinating new Time [Jan. 29] on "The Brain" yields clues: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/current

Posted by sean_le_dogs at January 23, 2007 1:09 PM

Great subject! Last year I was lobbying Roger McGuinn (folk singer, founder of the Byrds) to open up his blog (run by his wife Camilla) to reader comments. But Roger and Camilla prefer not to have to deal with any of the negativity that's occasionally expressed in reader comments. Quite understandable, but a loss to us McGuinnophiles. I suppose that's what motivates some bloggers - especially celebs - to preclude a comment feature. In other words, it's not just the time it takes to read and respond to comments, it's having to deal with criticism - which can be pretty off the wall at times. (NEVER on this site of course.)

Posted by John O'Leary at January 23, 2007 3:06 PM

Without comments, it's not much of a conversation, is it? The democracy of blogging as well as tapping into the diversity and intelligence of your readers is what it's all about!

In addition, a large percentage of my readers come from comments that I make on other blogs:
http://www.douglaskarr.com/2007/01/10/the-long-tail-of-commenting-never-blog-alone/

Regards,
Doug

Posted by Doug Karr at January 23, 2007 4:17 PM

Clothes make the man--comments make the blog! (Apologies to S. Godin and J. Kottke, exceptions that perhaps prove the rule.)

Due to a site redesign, my blog's comments have been cut off since September and my readership has fallen. Hopefully they'll be restored in a few weeks. I miss the interaction.

Please keep comments enabled here. I enjoy the dialogue.

Regards,

Glenn

Posted by Glenn (Customer Service Experience) Ross at January 23, 2007 7:29 PM

For me, a blog post is just a way to make your readers think about a certain subject. When looking at the blog of Seth Godin, you will see that most of his posts are very minimalistic and can be applied to almost anything. By doing so, Seth invites others to use his blog as a starting point for their own blogpost.

When you're 'forced' to create your own blog post to make your opinion known, you usually invest more time in creating your own perspective and doing background research. The outcome is always better than a few words as a comment.

So, in the end; I believe in conversations between blogs instead of conversation on 1 blog.

Posted by Pieter at January 24, 2007 7:02 AM

Bloggers who do not allow comments epitomize arrogance.

Posted by Mike at January 24, 2007 7:47 AM

I think of this in market terms.

Just in the conversation above, you can see someone saying the "right answer" depends on the writing (comment on Godin), it depends on the desire of the blogger, it depends on the scale and scope of the effort (e.g. TP can't respond to all), it depends on the democracy of the blogosphere, and so on. (including it doesn't depend on anything, it's just wrong. Or right. Or whatever.)

The inescapable point is that there are many opinions about what the "right" thing is. In such cases, I generally conclude there is no such thing as the "right" thing, and things will evolve to pretty much reflect what people want.

Possible conclusions:
a. everyone will move to commenting,
b. everyone will move to non-commenting,
c. we will have a blogosphere full of both types,
d. we will invent new forms of integrating commenting and non-commenting.

Stuff will happen. Bokonon says, busy busy. All will be revealed. Move away, folks, nothin' to see, ain't no ethical issue here...

Posted by Charles H. Green at January 24, 2007 9:55 AM

Charles has a great point (and thanks, Pieter, for the shout out). Blogs used to be BLOGS, now they are just blogs, the same way that books used to be BOOKS but now they're just bound paper.

In other words, as every medium matures, it develops flavors and niches. Nobody argues that a sitcom must have a laugh track, or that a movie must have three acts any more.

Blogging is a tool. Different destinations, different tactics.

Posted by seth godin at January 24, 2007 2:49 PM

Please check http://carpentier.wordpress.com/2007/01/24/unique-voices/ :-)

Posted by Ronald at January 24, 2007 3:05 PM

Great blogs make you think!

As a direct result you start conversations on the original blog site, within the family, at work, at the gym, etc.

It seems blogging is "alive and well"...

Richard

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at January 24, 2007 10:48 PM

I think the Kottke story is a great example of a fundamental truth - you really can't prevent people from commenting.

You can't stop the conversation. Wasn't that in the Cluetrain Manifesto somewhere?

All you can do is pretend to stop the conversation, or wall yourself off from it, or ignore it, or risk becoming irrelevant by deciding the conversation is irrelevant (it isn't).

As Steve Yastrow says, "Your brand is not what you say you are, but what your customer thinks you are." And whether you listen to them or not, they're going to think whatever they want to think.

Posted by Dan Ward at January 25, 2007 11:03 AM

Very interesting post, Shelley. Something that poses a dilemma to each blog/community that is about to spark off another. "Is abundance going away?" rises the head of suspicion.

These things are organic. They just grow and take a life of their own.

I think the life of an Internet community or a blog depends upon the leadership of its owner/writer/moderator. Social networks and organically growing communities/ blogs only strengthen with an abundant attitude... by creating more bonds even with their off-shoots... TomPeters.com is an example in itself. In Tom's blog roll, there are many a blogs/ websites inspired by Tom and his ideas. Some are direct competition. Does this affect Tom? No, it only makes tompeters.com the alpha-source.

Yes, some attention and audience might chip away, but Tom gets back from all the people on his blog roll. He has more links and references "coming in" than others might. And his life is not the worse for letting others grow.

Dan's reference to the Cluetrain Manifesto sums it up. Conversations will grow. Communities will spring up. Groups will self-formulate. So much the better.

The life of a blog/ community does not diminish by giving birth to its child. The family only grows. But yes, each to watch out for their own health.

Posted by Ramla A. at January 27, 2007 3:03 PM

BTW it's a truly interesting story. If I were a Kottke reader, I couldn't help but comment. He is losing on the interaction - but truly, for some blog managers, the onslaught of abuse and spam is not manageable.

I used to write at a city blog for Karachi, where readers are always edging to contribute. Comments take a life of their own, and readers often successfully direct the content of the blog. It sometimes lead to "pandering" and abuse is common - but together the community is evolving and creating a dialog.

BTW I just happened to have blogged about the related phenomenon of "communities" (real life/ virtual) today. I am going to write about the "organic" nature of communities; this is the kind of story I was looking for.

Posted by Ramla A. at January 27, 2007 3:22 PM

One way dialog strikes me as pontification.

Posted by Jon Robbins at January 29, 2007 10:04 AM

I'd like to see if I can post to this site without the post being moderated.

Posted by Jon Simpson at February 2, 2007 6:08 PM

There's an old saying on the Internet "The Internet intreprets censorship as damage and routes around it" (I believe, said by John Gilmore.)

For those of us who live in Democracies, we are broadly able to say what we want... and the flip side is that people can say what they want about us.

If someone is going to criticise my material, I'd far rather they did it on my blog, where I can respond, argue, and clarify (and when needed, change my own views in the light of better evidence).

The only comments I ever delete/edit out of my blog are blatant adverts.

Posted by Mark Harrison at February 4, 2007 8:03 AM

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I am a blogging neophyte. This is in fact the first time I have participated in a blog. I am driven by curiosity about whether blogging can help me achieve my goals. Now, to my comment on "A Need to Be Heard." It seems to me that blogging is a form of communication, and that there are basically three forms of communication: Publication, Notification, and Conversation. (In thinking about this, I am deliberately thinking back to the Scottish Enlightenment, and the forms of communication prevalent then; this tactic might help separate the forms of communication from the forms of technology.) Publication refers to books, newspapers, and magazines. Notification refers to posters, banners, advertisements, and the like. Conversation, well, is just that, conversation. Conversation was implemented primarily through the various societies (e.g., The Poker Society) during the Scottish Enlightenment, and such venues remain just as important today (e.g., scientific conferences). Now, it seems that there is another social function that is also important, and that is related to communication. That function is Connecting, which in some sense dictates "who communicates with whom." As an aside, I like Malcolm Gladwell's analysis of connecting in The Tipping Point. Anyway, blogging seems to be a form of conversation that is coupled with technology that allows amazing connectivity. But the functions of conversation are different from publication and notification, and it seems to me that blogging will serve those conversational functions best. Two of these are perhaps paramount: Influence and Feedback. Conversation is, in my view, first and foremost about feedback, because this is what conversation does better than any other form of communication. But Conversation is also about influence, for your ideas (if they are good) just might spread through the "blogosphere" (not sure that is the right term).

Cheers,
David

Posted by David Cross at February 11, 2007 11:29 AM

Anyone who takes the option to put their opinion out there for the public should provide the right to respond. The blog is a conversation and therefore comments are essential.

Span is an issue but the value of legitimate comments outweighs the hassle of zapping the spam

Posted by Bill Quinn at February 12, 2007 1:18 PM

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