Real blogs allow comments

Is blogging journalism? Journaling? A form of online community? Or is it just software?

It's a question I'd like to pose to those pseudo-bloggers who don't allow comments on their blog posts, or who pre-screen comments -- especially those who let through only a few hand-picked remarks. (I can understand moderating comments if your blog is being hit hard by commercial spam or a deliberate troll onslaught; I'm not talking about that, but a blog's routine practices and policies.)

Pseudo-bloggers range from new media stars like Andrew Sullivan to no-kill adversaries Wayne Pacelle and Nathan Winograd. Small fry do it, and folks on the A-list do it. For them, blogging is not a form of communication nor a category of journalism, but using a hunk of publishing software.

Obviously, there are bigger things to care about, such as the entire future of publishing and journalism themselves. But I can't help but feel annoyed at those who disable commenting on their opinion pieces. Because sure, the commenter can send the blogger an email, or rant about it on his or her own blog.

But every time we've had an explosive thread on Pet Connection, for example, the commentary has deepened and enriched the original post. It's given the bloggers an opportunity to refine our arguments, to stretch the parameters of our thinking, to change our readers' minds, or even, perhaps most valuably, our own.

It can be brutal and chaotic. It can be infuriating. But in the end, we're left with a valuable record of the evolution of ideas, a pool of inspiration for future thought and exploration -- and, you know, ideas for more writing, something professional writers can't ever have too much of.

I've asked a number of pseudo-bloggers about their comment policies. One or two blame commercial spammers. To them I say: technology can protect you from most of that. Our software at Pet Connection holds all first-time commenters in moderation; that cuts out almost all commercial spam. Typepad a few years ago tightened up its pre-publishing spam controls, and that eliminated about 80 percent of the commercial messages and trackbacks being posted to this blog.

Most are concerned about being attacked or criticized, either because they simply don't want public dissent and challenge, or because they're highly controversial individuals who would naturally attract a preponderance of personal attacks if they had a commenting free-for-all on their blogs.

I understand that concern, but is the only answer to not allow any commentary at all, or to control it so strictly that only a handful of "acceptable" comments get through? Maybe they should learn a lesson from the forum and chat room communities of web 1.0, that learned that a combination of user and staff post-publishing moderation were necessary to keep a community functioning -- that's what the wild frontier known as Daily Kos does. So does Craigslist. Amazingly, they both not only function, but absolutely dominate their fields.

The last, and lamest, excuse for disabling comments is, "I don't have time to deal with assholes."

So basically, you expect your readers to have time to absorb the deathless wonder of your prose, the Socratic perfection of your monologue, but you yourself don't have time to maintain any kind of public interaction in response? Please. That's a reason, perhaps, not to respond to your readers, but to refuse to allow them to comment on a blog post?

Just how busy are you, anyway? And how on earth do you find time to blog?

And lest you think I just don't know how asshole-ish some people can be, please: Have you ever read the comments on my SFGate.com columns? I know assholes. Trust me.

I'm not just suggesting you show respect for your readers by allowing them to comment, but that you show an understanding of your medium. Without user comments and relatively light-handed moderation, blogging isn't blogging. It's just publishing. You might as well do it on ground up dead trees.

Which is fine. I contribute to the Pet Connection syndicated weekly newspaper feature, printed on the aforementioned dead trees all over the country, and our readers have to resort to snail mail or email to respond to us.

But we don't call that a blog. We call it a newspaper feature.

So if you call yourself a blogger, and what you write a blog, turn on the comments. Use technology to minimize spam and disruption. Recruit help if your readership is so large and hostile that it threatens to make your comments section implode and renders it useless. Give your community tools to moderate itself, or give trusted users moderation rights for egregiously disruptive comments.

If you really don't want to do that, fine. Just find another name for what you're doing, wouldya?

In other news, know what would make my season bright? If everyone who blogs would understand that "blog" is to "magazine" as "blog post" is to "magazine article." This thing you're reading here, the one entitled "Real blogs allow comments"? It's a blog post, not a blog.

I thank you for your prompt attention to these matters.

Comments

[Travis]

Hmmm, I wonder how you would feel about the use of "blog" as a verb? I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. Of course, as you well know, I've never been a big fan of the word blog itself. Ugly sounding word. ;)

Travis

[Gina Spadafori]

Wow. It's as if I just had a similar conversation with ... hmmmm ... whoooo?

[Bsaunders]

Don't hold back!

[Nathan J. Winograd]

Ouch.

Well, I guess my commenting on your blog is hypocritical since I am one of those you listed as not allowing commenting on my (pseudo-)blog, but you allow it and I don't so I will.

I'll put aside the arguments about the lack of rigid rules in the social media, about what a blog is or isn't not being defined by any interest group or person in particular.

My reason is simply that I do not want to provide a forum for anyone to advocate the killing of animals. As someone who believes that animals have a right to live, it simply comes down to that for me.

[Christie]

But Nathan, why couldn't you just remove those comments when they appear, or empower trusted users to hide them, as they do on other controversial blogs?

[K.B.]

One blog I read has a "policy" that goes something like this:

"My blog is like my living room. You are allowed to disagree with me, but you have to be respectful".

And that is pretty much my own policy - I moderate comments, but will publish anything that is not abusive.

One "well-known" dog blogger is infamous for heavily filtering comments, and watch out if you attempt to post something that goes against his statements - you get some pretty nasty, immature e-mail. And that's one blog I no longer bother with, no matter how "important" his message.

As for people like Nathan not allowing comments, I read his blog more like an editorial column of a newspaper - it may result in conversations elsewhere (a virtual water-cooler, I guess), but not being able to comment on that blog directly doesn't bother me.

[Susan Fox]

But Nathan, what a tremendous opportunity that would give you to make your point directly to those people in a forum that the rest of us would have access to.

At the least, you'd draw them out into the open where you could destroy them with your compelling prose.

Insist on civility of expression as a condition of being allowed to comment.
------

There's a couple of blogs I don't bother with anymore because they apparently don't allow comments or at least not those that aren't from a select few. One is a nationally known artist whose workshop I was seriously considering....until he round-filed my comments. Phooey on him. I'll pay my money to study with someone else.

[Christie]

KB, that is how I read Nathan's blog, too. And I have no problem with him making that choice, I just think it makes it not really a blog.

Which is, you know, just an editorial category, not a moral judgment, LOL.

[Mike Fry]

Have you folks READ the comments on most blogs? I have. I publish a couple of blogs. I admit that I keep mine "open". At the same time, I have no issue with people who do not. This is not a black/white issue.

A person's blog is whatever they want it to be. A blog is that person's LOG of their world. They have no need to provide comments on their world view at all.

[Susan R.]

I also don't really even think of Nathan's posts as a "blog," but as an opinion piece. And when I read articles and blogs in political publications, the sheer volume of the commentary means that I simply do not have the time to wade through the morass, and miss whatever in there might be truly worth reading. Unless I wanted to make reading comments my full-time occupation.

[Christie]

Mike, what would you say defines a blog as distinct from other forms of media?

[Mel Freer]

I have no problem with comments on my bog. I think it enriches the discussion, but the spammers are relentless!

[Christie]

Gina Spadafori used to advocate spamming become a death penalty offense. Not sure if she's softened on that, or become more convinced of it. ;)

[Mike Fry]

Since this is all in good fun and all, I thought I would ask the following question: I answered your question to me in a comment I made quite a while ago... it is not yet on your site.

As a result, I suspect that you filter comments on your site. And, actually, I believe you said that you do.

So, my question to you is this: what is different about filtering some comments? Or filtering all comments? One of these choices seems less biased than the other. Which do you think I mean?

[Christie]

Mike... ME? I don't filter comments here at all! Do you mean someone else?

[Mike Fry]

If I am mistaken, I will answer your question again...

A blog is a weB LOG, in effect a personal diary of someone's experience in the world. This is different from other media. It is like a personal diary. A good blog includes personal experiences, feelings, etc.

Expecting that a blog include comments is like demanding that Ellen come out in front of a jerry falwell fan club, and the she sit back and take their feedback.

Whether or not someone wants to do that is their own choice, not yours. If they chose not to, it implies nothing about what they are saying.

You are conflating news and blogging. Two totally different concepts.

[Christie]

Okay, let's start with the comments thing. You are absolutely mistaken; I don't have any kind of filtering program set up on this blog whatsoever. None. Typepad blocks known spammers from the whole service, but at the individual blog level, I got nuthin'. I just zap spam when it's posted. If you posted a comment here that never appeared, it was eaten by a glitch. I never saw it.

Of course it's someone's own choice what they do with their blog. It's also someone's own choice if they wear Crocs, and I have criticized that, too.

I'm simply saying, in an over the top kind of way, that I don't really consider it blogging if someone is just publishing an opinion piece without any interactive component. I believe interactivity to be essential to what a "blog" is rather than another form of publishing that is not interactive (although non-interactive publishing is getting rarer every day). You disagree -- that's fine. But there's no question here of CHOICE. I have no power or desire to make anyone do anything!

I don't understand why you think I'm conflating news and blogging.

[Mike Fry]

Because I think you are. The term BLOG or weB LOG implies a publishing, not a comment period.

The huge success of blogs that do not accept comments proves this form of media works without them. Some readers (myself included, even though my blogs allow comments) believe that comments can distract from the blog, especially when the content is very new and fresh, which is what blogs are supposed to be.

Fortunately, there are no blog police. You and I can accept comments. Plenty of others don't. They are all "real" blogs.

Now, go see "Much Ado About Nothing".

[Christie]

Well, I still don't agree with your definition of a blog, and what sets it apart from other media... but I'll allow myself to be distracted by Shakespeare. ;)

[No Kill Houston]

Comments or no comments, it doesn’t bother me either way. It does bother me when websites such as HSUS’ ask for comments. So I take the time to post a comment, see it on their website, then later see that it has been deleted... I'm guessing because I didn’t agree with the HSUS statement.

I use a Blog and don’t allow comments either. I use a Blog mostly because I like the format it provides. I tried using our website for updates, but it didn’t work well. It was hard to keep updates in chronological order without quite a bit of work i.e creating new web pages and updating links etc. Blogs are a better/easier tool for this purpose, in my opinion.

I don’t allow comments because I post information about our no kill efforts in Houston and it can be a very controversial, highly emotionally charged issue. Unfortunately, many people can’t just state their difference of opinion, they resort to personal attacks. For example, after online articles in our local newspapers about no kill efforts, I’ve seen attacks on me personally even though the article had nothing to do with me, I wasn’t mentioned or quoted and hadn’t even posted a comment yet myself. (I’ve also seen personal attacks on my mother and her religion, even though she has nothing to do with my no kill efforts). I’ve also seen personal attacks on several message boards. If I allowed comments on our Blog, I’d have to deal with this type of mindset and drivel. Frankly, I don’t have the patience for it. It would end up annoying me and distracting me from the dozens of other things I’m working on that are more important to the “cause”. I also don’t want to waste time moderating comments and deleting those that are personal attacks.

If there was a better tool to easily post running updates, I would use it. For now, I’m using a Blog. FYI: You can read our Blog, comment free, at http://nokillhouston.wordpress.com :-)

[Christie]

I guess, having cut my teeth on Usenet in the early 90s and AOL in its heyday -- working in their HIV Support area, no less -- the kind of attacks I see on the blogs don't really seem all that hellish. But I do think there are community management strategies that can be adopted by bloggers to keep their comments productive and prevent spam and disruption. Again, the examples of Daily Kos and Craigslist come to mind. Also, at PetHobbyist we have a user reporting system and volunteer and paid moderators -- and believe me, things get heated there, especially in the reptile areas!

It's not that I think there should be no rules, I'm just questioning if using blog software to publish is really the same as BLOGGING as an editorial category...

And I'm certainly not saying there's something wrong with using blog software... just saying those don't "read" like blogs to me, but more like journals...

[Cheryl]

Hmm - After reading all these posts - I remembered a story about the Xerox lawsuit. Something about losing one's brand due to allowing their name to be used as a verb. Ie: Can you xerox this for me? Once that happens - you can't sue for copyright infringement. Been a long times so that is the gist of it as I remember it.

It seems to me that there are a variety of pages that get called blogs but depending on a viewpoint - either aren't or are a distinct subset of blog. So blogging has become a verb that has lost it's original copyright/meaning perhaps??

[savingpets]

I'm interested in writing, researching and sharing information.

I'm not interested in managing an online community. So I have restricted comments.

If people want a discussion, they can take it to one of the four bazillion other places on the web, where someone else can deal with the infighting, trolls and politics.

For me it's about having limited time & needing to prioritise.

[Laura]

I'm sorry, but I disagree. The VAST, VAST majority of blog comment areas are dominated by wingnut assholes who value screaming over thinking. You're more lucky than most - in fact, yours is one of the few blogs where I actually read the comments. In most cases, a quick glance is enough to put anyone off the internet for good.

If I wanted to read what trolls had to say, I'd go to a site they frequent - like, say, Digg. But I don't. It's a waste of time that adds absolutely nothing to my understanding of the world.

I think moderated comments are the way to go, assuming one has the time to oversee them. Yes, you have to trust that the author will post smart comments even when they disagree with her/him - but if I didn't think that were the case, I wouldn't be reading that blog in the first place.