Sigh . . . let it be so!
Conventional wisdom and advice from friends, family, colleagues, advisors, mentors, co-conspirators, professional associates, fellow activists, politicos and most importantly Rob, is that Brenda Konkel definitely SHOULD NOT enable comments on her blog. It will just allow the mean attacks on me and name calling to continue and open me up to be the subject of more nastiness.
The bloggers and techies I know seem split. While they would like to see my blog have comments, they CLEARLY understand the above concerns. Some say a blog is not a blog without comments, other don't agree. But most agree my blog is pretty good just the way it is, even if it doesn't have comments.
After much consideration, many technical glitches, deleting my blog and re-importing it and restoring most of the customizations I had in place (still need to add the links, let me know if you spot anything else), against all that advice, I have finally enabled the comments. It is going to be the grand experiment.
Is conventional wisdom correct? Will the trolls and nasty commenters ruin it for everyone? Will I end up with FAIL? Or can comments be enabled without it devolving into that nasty place that so many internet forums go? Will the comments end up being too time consuming? Will I end up disabling them and having to delete nasty comments? It's really up to you.
Meanwhile, I'm putting on my toughest skin and prepared to duck. Let the grand experiment begin!
I'll make the first one positive, and just say thanks for all of the blogging that you do.
ReplyDeleteCan you track comments by IP address so you will know if Mayor Cieslewicz posts a comment?
ReplyDeleteBill
If trolls are completely ignored they may lose interest.
ReplyDeleteAt anyrate, I hope it works. And I also would like to thank you for the blogging you do.
I really enjoy this blog, keep it up! please! :)
ReplyDeleteJust don't read the comments and turn off your email notifications. As with madison.com, a good chunk of the people who comment are the ones who have too much time on their hands and too much hate on their minds. And you're not a council member anymore, so you're not obligated to care what the public thinks anymore. ;-)
ReplyDeleteVery good decision. A blog gains legitimacy with comments.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about the argument about legitimacy. And how a "blog isn't a blog without comments"?
ReplyDeleteI think my blog had plenty of legitimacy before I enabled comments . . . how will this make it more legitimate and with whom? I'm seriously curious, which is why I am trying the grand experiment.
I think all it will do is drive more hits to my website that then make the numbers even more useless and I won't know how many readers I actually have.
And then there is the issue of moderating the comments which just seems like a slippery slope . . . but I'm going to have zero tolerance on name calling and personal attacks.
Because blogs are a departure from the traditional media, in which the reader is an invited guest at best, and can easily be ignored. The media's word should be checked, but so often isn't. What the blogosphere may lack in professionalism it can make up in dialogue. The readers hold the blogger accountable, rather than the advertisers, which is tragically the way the vast majority of our media operates.
ReplyDeleteIt was in this tradition of utter free speech that the blogosphere was conceived, therefore, when a blogger does not allow comments, he/she is often perceived as afraid of criticism and unwilling to engage in debate.
My advice (for all that's worth): don't moderate the comments. Let them be free and if there are any particularly bad ones you can delete them.
There's a difference between being OF the web vs. just being ON the web. Comments makes it OF the web. Otherwise it's just a press release. See the mayor.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the party, Brenda. ;)
ReplyDeleteI love reading your blog - thanks for keeping the little people informed!
ReplyDeleteGlad to see the comments. There are so many times that I want to jump in an add a couple of cents. . .
ReplyDeletePosted on behalf of Mike Barrett . . .
ReplyDeleteHi Brenda,
Below is what I tried to post to your blog, but it seems to be very persnickety about in insisting on some proprietary ID'ing system. I have a WordPress blog but it won't accept it given the format. Dunno.
. . . snip . . .
-Mike
**************************************************************
Interesting all of the anonymous postings exhorting "accountability" and "free speech...."
True, there can be no freedom without accountability.
But there is a corollary:
There can be no accountability with anonymity.
Thus, if this experiment in allowing comments is to have any chance of success, it would require a full name, verifiable as an individual in the community; i.e., a citizen. (I intend this in the broader sense, not the Immigration & Naturalization Service sense).
I admire Brenda for her complete candor and forthrightness as a fully identified citizen. It is a virtuous example to emulate. The bloggers and commenters who hide behind monikers fail the full citizenship test. Furthermore, this failure enables cowardice. Failure of accountability and craven cowardice are all too evident on the other major e-fora around here.
Sincerely,
Michael D. Barrett
http://urbanthoreau.com/blog/
There seemed to be a high (very high) number of people exploring the comments today. I suspect perhaps the City and State and few others have blocked commenting ability. If anyone else has issues with not being able to comment, I'd love to hear about it, as I do have it set so that people have to be registered in order to comment, but just having a gmail account or open ID should work for most. If not, let me know by emailing me at my gmail account. Ironically, it gets directly to Barrett's point above.
ReplyDelete