Comments or No Comments That Is the Question - or Is It?
Buy Colchicine No Prescription Cymbalta No Prescription Aricept For Sale Buy Nicotinell Online Buy Online Green Tea Buy Oxycontin No Prescription Femcare No Prescription Ophthacare For Sale Buy Cialis Online Buy Online Rogaine Buy Tricor No Prescription Maxalt No Prescription Diflucan For Sale Buy Loprox Online Buy Online Rocaltrol Buy Seroquel No Prescription Speman No Prescription Cytotec For Sale Buy Urispas Online Buy Online Cardura Buy Yerba Diet No Prescription Indocin No Prescription Brahmi For Sale Buy Triphala Online Buy Online Female ViagraApparently is there about once a year an omnipresent war on words going on about whether a blog that doesn’t allow comments is indeed a blog. As with most heated discussions is the interesting aspect not so much who is right or wrong, but what you can learn from it. The real substance lies in the middle so to speak. It is thus more interesting to look at why you would lean in one direction or the other as in which direction you are actually leaning. Matthew Ingram, one of the most prominent bloggers who was against calling a blog without comments a blog, seems to have reached the same conclusion after having read and considered the arguments. A blog without comments may thus very well be a blog. Only is it perhaps not the best blog that it could possibly be.
As to what I think about the choice between blogs with and without comments do you have to look no further than my article about why blogging can be and should be about more than mere publishing: Why You Should Blog With Community in Mind and How to do it. I do not take sides. There is no point in taking sides as that only divides. What does make sense is contemplating what you think is best and what you enjoy the most. I practically only read blogs with comments. Not only because I want my say, but because I thoroughly enjoy reading what others think as well. Even if the blogger is an authority on the subject and have put everything he or she can into communicating it is there almost always someone who can add to it in some way or another. That you would be missing on a blog without comments and I do simply not see why you should.
10 Reasons Commenting is Good For Bloggers
“Blogging is not just about saying your piece, it is also about going out and joining the conversation where it is happening. It’s about reaching out to people and exposing yourself (steady!) to new ideas. Some giving as well as all this taking back we focus on.” Chris makes a good point when stating that commenting is a great way of giving something back. Unfortunately do not many of the more prominent bloggers think that way. In fact it is mostly those who already had this philosophy when starting out who are doing so. Regardless of your status and experience should you try to meet the challenge that he poses: posting more comments each day for a week. Even if you fail am I sure you will have a great time doing so.
New Bloggers: An Idea To Get The Conversation Started
“…what do we want from our blogs? If we want comments we probably want conversation. And if we want conversation, we likely want to create relationships. And through relationships, there’s even the chance we could create community.” Dawud Miracle and I seem to think alike about a number of things and this is one of them. Try not seeing comments as the goal, but as the start of a journey. In this post, which in itself is a link post with more possible journeys built in, he seems to add a dimension to Chris’ challenge (see above) as he asks every commenter to return the favor. As you can imagine am I just thrilled when seeing someone else embracing circular communication and actually seeking to practice it.
Business Blog Design: Comments
“Being able to open up a dialogue between author and readers by leaving comments is one of the key aspects of a blog and one of the elements that make them as effective as they are. They open a door onto the interactive side of the web and give the opportunity to engage with people, start conversations and create connections.” I could not have said it better myself. Which isn’t the same as saying you cannot blog without comments mind you. Underlined is however also that not allowing comments sends the signal that you or your business are unapproachable, which is rarely seen as something positive. The tips how encourage comments and to deal with them when they start coming (including comment spam) is well worth checking out.
Got Comments? How to Get More Interaction on Your Blog
“… a company that blogs should be doing everything possible to encourage its readers to leave comments. The more input from its readers, the more valuable feedback the company can collect.” Mark Collier suggests six things that you can do to maximize the number of valuable comments on your blog. He does argue from a company point of view, but the tips can be used by any blog. I particularly like his fifth tip, which I haven’t seen anywhere else, where he suggests seeing someone commenting via a post on their own blog as something which can be integrated into your own post and thus help couple the two conversations. The other points are all valid and insightful as well.
Why You Comment on Blogs
“On most websites or blogs, the ratio of readers to commenters is gigantic. On this blog, a post that garners 40 or 50 comments is considered quite a bit, even though there are many thousands of readers. The stream of comments can take many shapes, depending on the nature of the post. And, once again depending on the nature of the post, the commenters here can seem like a fairly diverse lot. But lately I got to thinking: what kind of person comments on a blog, and why?” Having asked that and used the comments to find the answers is this the post presenting them. First of all do I like the circularity about it. Asking the readers to comment on why they comment just has something about it don’t you think? There is more to it than that, but it really seems that the obstacles sometimes are higher than the desire to comment and that you therefore really have to do everything you possibly can to encourage conversation for it to actually happen.
Blogs are sometimes criticized for being poor community platform, but truth is that they are what you make of them. The same goes for comments. As a famous Chinese proverb states does every journey start with a single step. Consider every comment you make such a step and you will be going places. As you can see is there more to the question about comments than merely if they add value to the articles, which you can only applaud regardless whether you are the writer or the reader. If you are a blogger is a blog with comments an entirely different experience than one without any. You get feedback, get to know new people and expand your reach. You get to play host for conversations or even builder of a community. As a reader do you get to have your say, get to know new people and expand your universe. You get to converse or even become part of a community. For those of us who are both writers and readers does the benefits multiply and not simply double because each of the factors reinforce each other. Last, but not least, would I like to mention Maki’s tip on How to Use Blog Comments as a Personal or Blog Branding Strategy where he helps you decide if you should focus on yourself or your blog, how to brand consistently and how you start actively engaging others through interactive commenting.
PS: Within the last couple of days have seen a heated debate on a number of the blogs that I read about a new service offering to make comments on your behalf in exchange for money. Perhaps I should be just as outraged and infuriated about this as the bloggers whom I admire, but I am not. It is not that I don’t care or that I not against it, but simply that I firstly don’t want to help promote the service (which will prove itself to be a disservice with time) and secondly believe that it is not worth debating something, which you can’t do anything about anyway. Those who came up with the idea service providing paid comments as well as everyone who would even consider using it are in my opinion outside pedagogical reach. We would therefore only be discussing this within the community of people who agree on disagreeing with it (which the ongoing discussion already proves) and regardless of how passionately we do that it wont change a thing. Since it goes against anything positive you can say about comments and commenting do I hence, this time, choose to remain silent.
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5 Responses to “Comments or No Comments That Is the Question - or Is It?”
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I think your last point about blogs being what we make them is spot on. Of course, that’s really true of most things in life as well.
I also think that
bloggingsocial media is very much in its infancy. I’m excited to see how we all grow up.Thanks for the link love.
The whole point of a blog is to start and continue a conversation between multiple parties. Taking away the comment system is more of an authoritarian approach.
Dawud, thank for stopping by. I enjoy reading your blog and appreciate you taking the time to comment. I realize that the statement about blogs being what you make of them are true for most things. Many people seem to criticize or complain before even trying to make the most of it though. That was the point. I am excited about how we grow up too
Dan, thanks for the comment. To me and you that may seem obvious, but some (and some very prominent blogs at that) work just fine without comments. That’s alright. It is not for me, but what works for some may not work for all. Hence I suggest to embrace the diversity and enjoy the journey…
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