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Comment or Blog Post?

by Micah on December 24th

So many of you might know that I am relatively new to the blogging world. This blog was started in 2007, and really didnt get started until the fall.

I have read again and again that blogs are conversational media, not single points of information, like an online newspaper. So, when I see a post that is interesting to me and feel I can add to the conversation, I comment on the post.

Rarely is that comment responded to. So, I installed Intense Debate and I have seen a slight increase in conversation in comments, but not very much. There is definitely a ton of value to the system around reputation and threading.

Earlier this year, I read a post by my friend Gwen Bell about her thoughts on Startup Weekend which is a project that I have participated in both as a member of the community and in the discussions of “what could it be.” I felt I couldnt respond completely in a comment, so I wrote a post that (I felt) existed to continue the conversation.

Instead, it has the unintended effect of hurting a friend.

So, I began to question, if blogs are supposed to foster conversation, how best to do it?

Jason Calacanis wrote about turning comments off:

At the end of the day this blog is a conversation between me and the people I care about. It a place to share ideas and discuss them. It just doesn’t feel like that any more. It feels like the comments are a place for the same five wacky folks to use sockpuppets to debate themselves and spew bile while linking back to their adsense honeypot.

Dave Winer wrote that comments may make a blog not a blog:

Do comments make it a blog? Do the lack of comments make it not a blog? Well actually, my opinion is different from many, but it still is my opinion that it does not follow that a blog must have comments, in fact, to the extent that comments interfere with the natural expression of the unedited voice of an individual, comments may act to make something not a blog.

But, on the other hand, there are many times when I learn more from a blog’s comments than from the post itself. More often than not, this occurs when the post is a request for information (but then there is the argument that its not really a post)

Chris Brogan opines differently (sort of) about the use of his content:

Collaboration and sharing are the building blocks of what most people call Web 2.0. Sites like mine are made better when YOU take a post of mine and riff off it on your own site, or when I come along, find something cool you?ve written, and reference it here.

But he writes that he will reference good content on his site. Makes it sound like that he too doesnt put much value in comments. (UPDATE: Apparently, I didnt read Chris’ blog as closely as I should, given his post (and comment below) to the contraire, mon cher bear.)

So, I have decided that I am going to do five things:

  1. Write my weekly Friendly Intelligence post;
  2. Periodically write an Around the Web type post;
  3. Write a post in response to a post, when warranted.
  4. Only comment on posts if its short and valuable.
  5. Leave comments open, but ask the commentor to think if its better to respond via a post of your own. I want to be part of the conversation, not hoard it here.

UPDATE 2: I have removed Intense Debate from my site. It was a hard decision, given I think very highly of the Intense Debate team. Given my new conversational model, the lack of trackbacks reduced the value of the Intense Debate system. I plan to re-install as soon as that is resolved. (Also, I dont care about the SEO value of trackbacks, etc. its really an indication of the flow of conversation.)

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