Day 9: Should We Be Commenting on Blogs?
Check out this article and the many references to bloggers who think that comments should be disabled on blogs. Read through those posts and consider whether or not you think it’s better to build community through comments or through conversations occurring across blogs–or maybe a combination of both. What, to your mind, is the purpose of comments on blogs and are we better served by encouraging people to respond to ideas on our blogs or over on their own blogs?
I read the article. Interesting. My short answer to the big question “Should we be commenting?”: it’s up to the blogger. Perhaps you want interaction on your own blog. Perhaps you don’t. Consider your purpose and audience and go from there. Incidentally, lots of non-blog websites offer a space for people to share and interact. Again, it depends on the purpose and what you hope to achieve. And perhaps you can turn on / off comments for a particular post, allowing you to play it by ear.
My perspective
If I didn’t want people to interact with me, I wouldn’t have started blogging in the first place. Whether that interaction comes via a trackback, a Tweet, or a comment makes little difference to me — I just want to connect. And enabling comments is an easy way for that to happen. As I said earlier, I have also realized recently that I often say more interesting and substantial things on other people’s blogs than I do on my own. I’m better at being invited than being the invitee, I guess.
Note to self: I have just realized that perhaps I need to make the desire to connect more clear. Thus, I have edited my About page. I am happy with my new version, but at the same time I imagine I will be changing it again in the future. That’s part of what’s exciting about the developing and interactive nature of web and learning 2.0.
Good luck tomorrow. Let us know if you do get in. I used Screen Movie Recorder to help with my iMovie for Google. It was super easy to use though I did use a lower frame rate, but for what I wanted, it was fine.
Not everyone has their own blog (yet). Starting a blog means making a commitment of time and stepping over a somewhat scary threshold into the blogosphere. Many teachers are not quite ready for that yet. Shutting off comments shuts them out of the conversation. And for those of us who do blog, many prefer to make posts that are a little more developed than a one or two-sentence comment on someone else’s thoughts. I blog a couple of times a week at most and they are usually my own questions and thoughts, not reactions to what others are saying. Comments are a drive-by; posts are a sit-down. I think both are necessary.
@Mike,
Thanks for stopping by! You are definitely right about the time commitment and the difference between posts and comments. Posts definitely take more time and require more forethought. As such, I appreciate you taking the time to comment on mine! 🙂