DISQUS

Tony Hung · 1 year ago

Nice post -- I like your idea that comments can be nuanced, and it may be a function of the topic or niche at hand.

My feeling is that comments are what you make of it, and in turn proportional to the kind of community that the blog owner has fostered.

Plus, there's nothing wrong with moderating them as you see fit; moderation encourages the interesting and noteworthy contributions, while discouraging the ones that sound like they're from the inebriated mouth-breathing masses.

cheers
t @ dji

Jude Fiorillo · 1 year ago

I agree absolutely that the greater the scale, the greater the volume of poor comments. I believe that the proportional number of poor comments increases with size, because greater scale normally results in more opportunities for disagreement, which can otherwise derail comments into flame wars.

I would take your 'topic area' thought a step further and say that it's the demographic that plays a large part in the quality of comments. Consider for example, who might read this blog, compared to say, YouTube (some of the worst comments on the Internet). Although topic area may be an indicator of who the demographic is at a broad level (e.g. sports: male), it would not identify the demographic specifically (e.g. I bet male teens post less engaging comments than male 30 somethings).

An interesting discussion to be sure.

Chris Brogan... · 1 year ago

Comments have become the best part of my blog. It makes me angry and fist-raising at RSS, because comments aren't part of the back and forth that gets captured via RSS. I read this post, but what if I didn't read Jude's comment? I'd miss the next evolution of the story.

The story doesn't stop at the end of the post. That's why Jeff Jarvis and Rafat Ali get to blog almost daily about newspapers falling off.

We've discovered the next step. They just don't know how to get rich off it yet.

I love your thoughts on my blog as well as on your own. Thanks for the kind words.

Andy Warren · 1 year ago

No comment