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Proposal: A new kind of blog comment system

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Re: Proposal: A new kind of blog comment system

#41

Post by hibrian »

randallsquared wrote: post #18
ryanelkins wrote: post #13

To me this is a very old school, closed off way of looking at things. Who are the comments for? Just the author? If so, why make them public at all? If they are for the readers, how many readers are going to come back 24 hours later to check out the comments? The idea that if you disagree or have a lot to say you should create your own blog post is also a bit ridiculous. Is it OK in that case to leave a comment sayin…

The idea that if you disagree or have a lot to say you should create your own blog post is also a bit ridiculous. Indeed. If you want interesting conversations about your blog posts, have commenting (threaded is better; saves a lot of time). If you don't, just don't have them.

from tfa: "I know some people think that blogs are conversations, but I don't. I think they're publications."

It's not about interesting conversations.

It's about on-topic replies to the author's post. IE people being able to read and comprehend a post before making a comment on it.

Re: Proposal: A new kind of blog comment system

#42

Post by billmcneale »

My prediction: he implements his experiment for a few weeks, notices that nobody comments on his posts any more and then he backpedals.

If you don't already know Dave Winer, he's very bitter about not getting the recognition that he thinks he's owed (read the first sentence of the linked article, it's actually quite representative of the guy) so he keeps coming up with these "revolutionary" new things in the hope to invent something.

He'll come up with another wacky idea in a month.

Re: Proposal: A new kind of blog comment system

#43

Post by billmcneale »

pohl wrote: post #16
WiseWeasel wrote: post #8

Meh, 24 hours is too long to wait. By that time, I likely no longer care to read any comments on the subject, so they all go unread. I mean who is going to return to a blog post a day later just so they can read comments? Might as well just leave the comments off. Let's face it, the author is still working through his trauma from a time when he apparently left comments unmoderated and unrestricted and got burned, and…

I'm not sure why someone who posts a comment would have to return 24 hours later to sniff their own droppings in order for the comment to have value. (I'm responding to "Might as well just leave the comments off" here). That perspective might make sense if 100% of a blog entry's audience arrives within its first day, but I would wager that the bulk of any blog entry's audience are lurkers who arrive later.

Actually, if you came back 24 hours later, it wouldn't even to see responses to your own comment (since nobody can see it during that period): it would be purely to see if other people commented.

What a sad, sad prospect. I certainly hope the blogosphere never goes there.

Re: Proposal: A new kind of blog comment system

#44

Post by photon_off »

Every blog post, every URL, and every domain should have it's own forum. Make that forum universal enough, fast enough, and easy enough to use, and you have the twitter of forums.

This has been blatantly obvious to me for about 4 years now. The only reason I don't pursue it is because I get distracted by easier and more interesting "low hanging fruit".

Re: Proposal: A new kind of blog comment system

#45

Post by daychilde »

sjs wrote: post #24
WiseWeasel wrote: post #8

Meh, 24 hours is too long to wait. By that time, I likely no longer care to read any comments on the subject, so they all go unread. I mean who is going to return to a blog post a day later just so they can read comments? Might as well just leave the comments off. Let's face it, the author is still working through his trauma from a time when he apparently left comments unmoderated and unrestricted and got burned, and…

I think he means that comments are disabled 24 hours after the post goes live.

I don't.

>1. A fixed commenting period for each post of 24 hours. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

>2. Until the period expires, none of the comments would be visible to other commenters. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Seems pretty clear to me that for 24-hour period following a post, comments can be made, but are invisible. After 24 hours, comments are made visible, but can no longer be made.

#5 on the blog makes this more clear - #1-#5 really explain this concept.

As an aside, I hate the idea. :shrug:

Re: Proposal: A new kind of blog comment system

#46

Post by dagw »

silentbicycle wrote: post #17
nphase wrote: post #15

Or just turn off comments altogether and let people comment on HN (et al). This happens inevitably, right? Many times the comment thread for an article is actually longer and more rich here than on the source website itself.

That, too, has its downsides. Raganwald has a lucid post about it here: http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/07/thanks-for-submitting-my...

If bloggers want the discussion to happen on their blogs and not on HN or reddit, then they really need to offer something better than HN or reddit. Hell if you can't even do threaded comments or something similar to make it easier to follow the flow of discussion, it is obvious to me that you don't care too much about getting comments.

Re: Proposal: A new kind of blog comment system

#47

Post by randallsquared »

hibrian wrote: post #41
randallsquared wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that if you disagree or have a lot to say you should create your own blog post is also a bit ridiculous. Indeed. If you want interesting conversations about your blog posts, have commenting (threaded is better; saves a lot of time). If you don't, just don't have them.

from tfa: "I know some people think that blogs are conversations, but I don't. I think they're publications." It's not about interesting conversations. It's about on-topic replies to the author's post. IE people being able to read and comprehend a post before making a comment on it.

I also view blog posts much like publications, but the comments on a blog post are not part of the publication. Or, they don't have to be.

It's not clear to me what metric is being sought, if it's not interestingness.

Re: Proposal: A new kind of blog comment system

#48

Post by superk »

Ardit20 wrote: post #26
NathanKP wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that comments on blogs themselves are slowly being replaced by comments on sites such as HN, Reddit, etc. I notice again and again, at least with personal blogs, that a post with 90 comments on HN will only have two or three comments on the post on the original site. Additionally the posts on HN are more likely to be negative than the posts on the original site. Perhaps it is because people feel less inhibited…

"Additionally the posts on HN are more likely to be negative" What exactly do you mean? That people do not comment on here, ohh this is brilliant, we love you, you're our god, even if the guy said something obvious or something which isn't brilliant at all, or do you mean that here people write down their thoughts as they are not biased. I do not see why the latter would necessarily mean negative however? There are c…

I think he means "the posts on HN are more likely to be _critical_"

Re: Proposal: A new kind of blog comment system

#49

Post by pohl »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #40
pohl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why someone who posts a comment would have to return 24 hours later to sniff their own droppings in order for the comment to have value. (I'm responding to "Might as well just leave the comments off" here). That perspective might make sense if 100% of a blog entry's audience arrives within its first day, but I would wager that the bulk of any blog entry's audience are lurkers who arrive later.

If that's truly the case, then it feels like it would be rewarding the lurkers and penalizing the loyal readers, as the lurkers would get a much faster effective response rate. But by far the worst offense to me is that it kills the community aspect, elevating the words and whims of the blogger much too high above the rabble's hobbled forum; they should consider themselves lucky to have been tossed these few scraps.…

I agree with respect to the proposed stodgy environment, but I find it strange to suggest that lurkers are, a priori, somehow less loyal than chatterboxes. To me loyalty and a willingness to post are orthogonal to each other, for the most loyal reader I can imagine is someone who comes every day to check for something new and expects nothing out of the exchange beyond what they read, and one can also easily imagine drive-by commenters who never return again, or - worse still - those who persist and actively drag down the forums in myriad ways.

I wonder what it is about the web that makes people forget and/or denigrate the silent majority. It seems to be something unique about the web, mind you, because no one would imagine that the handful of cranks who write weekly letters to a newspaper's editor are, ipso facto, its longest-running subscribers - except, perhaps, the cranks themselves. Maybe I've just answered my own question there.

Re: Proposal: A new kind of blog comment system

#50

Post by ifthen »

Ardit20 wrote: post #28
ifthen wrote: post #10

“I think they're publications.” Old-school thinking, alive and well.

what's the new school thinking?

I should clarify. It's more that the old newspaper/publication opt-ed mindset where a columnist writes a piece that goes out to readers in a one-way form of communicating that doesn’t facilitate responses easily, has given way to a more open exchange of thoughts between reader and/or author. It’s his blog and his rules of course, but I don't see the value in discouraging a full-on discussion that may arise out of something compelling which someone wrote. I’d like to think that’s one of the great things about blogging, in that it democratizes the development and sharing of ideas.
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