[FoRK] My refusal to have a blog per se, comments, technorati, and icon-mania

[Jeff Bone]

This bit from 37 Signals struck a chord:

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/93-its-the-content-not-the-icons

This is related, but not equivalent to, another bit of blogosphere
ettiquette that I feel strongly about. And it's not clear to me
whether my position on this other matter is Cluetrain-consistent or
not, RageBoy be damned if he disagrees.

Call me anti-social, but I have a standing rule for that day --- oh,
that day, may it be far away --- when I feel the need to have an
actual "blog" per se. (Well, it's probably not that far off, it's
just that my own peculiar psychology is requiring me to re-write
large parts of Clickfeed before then, so...) That standing rule is:
there will be NO freakin' comments. NO COMMENTS, do you hear?

Why, you ask? (Well, maybe you didn't ask, but you should have.)

Because the Web is built by human interaction through interlinked
expression via discrete, named pieces of content. Which is a fancy
way of saying: content's valuable, but links are equally value, as
they express a variety of things that are not directly expressed in a
single piece of content (i.e. page, to the extent that this concept
even makes sense in the abstract "web.") Which is a long-winded way
of saying: if you want to comment on something I say that I deem
sufficiently important for allocating a URI, get your own damn blog,
give your own statement a URI, and link to what I said; we both ---
and everyone else on the Web --- will profit from this transaction,
it's nonlinearly positive-sum.

$0.02,

jb

[James Tauber]

That was my attitude when I first started blogging (using homegrown
software that eventually became Leonardo).

But I got hardly any links and only the occasional private email.

Once I implemented comments, I got more response than I was getting
via email and way more than I was getting through responses on other
blogs.

I wish it weren't the case. But I just got much better "conversation"
having comments than not.

James
--
James Tauber http://jtauber.com/
journeyman of some http://jtauber.com/blog/

Post by Jeff Bone
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/93-its-the-content-not-the-icons
This is related, but not equivalent to, another bit of blogosphere
ettiquette that I feel strongly about. And it's not clear to me
whether my position on this other matter is Cluetrain-consistent or
not, RageBoy be damned if he disagrees.
Call me anti-social, but I have a standing rule for that day ---
oh, that day, may it be far away --- when I feel the need to have
an actual "blog" per se. (Well, it's probably not that far off,
it's just that my own peculiar psychology is requiring me to re-
write large parts of Clickfeed before then, so...) That standing
rule is: there will be NO freakin' comments. NO COMMENTS, do you
hear?
Why, you ask? (Well, maybe you didn't ask, but you should have.)
Because the Web is built by human interaction through interlinked
expression via discrete, named pieces of content. Which is a fancy
way of saying: content's valuable, but links are equally value, as
they express a variety of things that are not directly expressed in
a single piece of content (i.e. page, to the extent that this
concept even makes sense in the abstract "web.") Which is a long-
winded way of saying: if you want to comment on something I say
that I deem sufficiently important for allocating a URI, get your
own damn blog, give your own statement a URI, and link to what I
said; we both --- and everyone else on the Web --- will profit
from this transaction, it's nonlinearly positive-sum.
$0.02,
jb
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Lucas Gonze]

There's a paper on this topic which makes a pretty good case that blog
technology has a significant impact on blog popularity. (Sorry, I can't
dredge up the keywords out of my memory right now).

I turned off comments because I can't be bothered to filter out the
spam, but I know that has an impact on how many reactions I get to the blog.

-Lucas

Post by James Tauber
That was my attitude when I first started blogging (using homegrown
software that eventually became Leonardo).
But I got hardly any links and only the occasional private email.
Once I implemented comments, I got more response than I was getting via
email and way more than I was getting through responses on other blogs.
I wish it weren't the case. But I just got much better "conversation"
having comments than not.
James
--
James Tauber http://jtauber.com/
journeyman of some http://jtauber.com/blog/

Post by Jeff Bone
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/93-its-the-content-not-the-icons
This is related, but not equivalent to, another bit of blogosphere
ettiquette that I feel strongly about. And it's not clear to me
whether my position on this other matter is Cluetrain-consistent or
not, RageBoy be damned if he disagrees.
Call me anti-social, but I have a standing rule for that day --- oh,
that day, may it be far away --- when I feel the need to have an
actual "blog" per se. (Well, it's probably not that far off, it's
just that my own peculiar psychology is requiring me to re-write large
parts of Clickfeed before then, so...) That standing rule is: there
will be NO freakin' comments. NO COMMENTS, do you hear?
Why, you ask? (Well, maybe you didn't ask, but you should have.)
Because the Web is built by human interaction through interlinked
expression via discrete, named pieces of content. Which is a fancy
way of saying: content's valuable, but links are equally value, as
they express a variety of things that are not directly expressed in a
single piece of content (i.e. page, to the extent that this concept
even makes sense in the abstract "web.") Which is a long-winded way
of saying: if you want to comment on something I say that I deem
sufficiently important for allocating a URI, get your own damn blog,
give your own statement a URI, and link to what I said; we both ---
and everyone else on the Web --- will profit from this transaction,
it's nonlinearly positive-sum.
$0.02,
jb
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Luis Villa]

Post by Lucas Gonze
There's a paper on this topic which makes a pretty good case that blog
technology has a significant impact on blog popularity. (Sorry, I can't
dredge up the keywords out of my memory right now).
I turned off comments because I can't be bothered to filter out the
spam, but I know that has an impact on how many reactions I get to the blog.

FWIW, the combo of akismet and bad behavior seems to get me a pretty
spam-free blog.

Luis (wishing he didn't have to depend on a black-box spam service like akismet)

[Tom Higgins]

So now I babble on about blogs.....

Blogs at best are journals of note (with or without comments) and
metooism memastic s/n splatter with flashing anis and click the monkey
for a free ipod at worst...ok there may be worse but thats the pits
for me.

Blogs in their best form inform and while it could well be an exchange
situation that is not essential to being good blogs just as books
and other printed material are often fantastic informational devices,
not to mention entertaining, without having massively multiplayer
messaging systems.

All this though is based on the source of the blogs content creation
having things to publish that are informative and or entertaining.
While I have seen countless zillions take on this task I have found
only a small amount able to wear that crown.

There are some basic types of blogs, and while some will blend and
blur these are the cores I see in most blogs.

There are the blogs that speak to a personal experience of life and
living. The ones I tend to read are subjectively more telling of who I
am than any metric of net literate worthiness, but that has been the
case with all personal reading whether it is on or off line.

There are the link blogs, these are the reporting of things found and
often have comments of a personal nature. Again the like or not of
these is subjective to the reader as the blogs creator is voicing an
expression of personal likes and dislikes given what they are
reporting on. I look at these as newspapers or magazines, the blogs
creators act as editors.

There is the portal blog, a excuse to push an agenda or focus traffic
for a particular ends.

Then there is the everything to everyone blog. Not many of these interest me.

I have tried my hand at most of these types and mostly failed to even
keep my own interest let alone that of others.[0] Comments vs no
comments...when comments are on the spam flood is enough to drown out
any worth such that comments are best via a mailing list of like
interest (you are here --->. ) and email for more personal or small
group convos. There is cal for the use of IRC on some occasions, as in
the mindvox chan that Ive been on since 93 (13 years of commentary is
a nice thing)

As for the blogs I tend to keep reading over time some are a force of
habit [1] and others on again off again haunts [2] I notice when
looking at these that there are very few big name news sites. Maybe
this is because i get my news via the radio/netcasts more so than the
web as of late sitting down to read the screen has become a hight cost
activity. I wont even tell you what it takes to sit down and play a
few rounds of Tribes [3]

As for blog software and features making a blog better, I still hold
that the content is king. I have found it easier to do blogs with
certian software but these are personal skews rather than empirical
metrics, many hate blosxom while I loved it for a while, some swear by
wordpress while I am very happy with my many years using blogger.

The issue of comments or no comments, again I will say that it is not
necessary and in some blog's cases not wanted. In others though it has
made more interesting reading with the comments but without the
experience still would have been grand. Now wikis, thats a differnt
beast since the whole thing is about post it notes atop post it notes
:)-

[0] http://wsmf.blogspot.com is the longest running
http://wsmfsounds.blogspot.com/ is one i was using to keep track
of sound sources
http://jeanshepherdpodcast.blogspot.com// to disseminate jean
shepherd casts
http://screamingbaby.blogspot.com/ a great idea with no time to
actually do like i want


[1] http://www.boingboing.net/
http://www.amsam.org/
http://greylodge.org/gpc/
http://blog.wfmu.org/
http://www.furiousnads.com/

[2] http://www.parenthacks.com/
http://news.google.com/

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starsiege:_Tribes (under wine on
ubuntu works like a charm)

[Tony Finch]

There are the blogs that speak to a personal experience of life and
living.
There are the link blogs
There is the portal blog
Then there is the everything to everyone blog

I like technical blogs. Most of the ones I read are more or less personal,
depending on how much the author is writing a diary or describing cool
stuff they have invented or encountered. (Mine is less personal - my
wife writes about the personal things.) At the other end of the scale is,
for example, lambda-the-ultimate, which is somewhere between a link blog
and a portal blog.

Tony.

[Adam L Beberg]

A blog w/o comments is just... journalism. Which as you know is lame and
only OLD people do it. Like email. It's sooooooooo bubble 1.0.

It's important to understand that blogs are an egocentric thing,
otherwise you call it a column/article. Since they cater to the same
primal need as sex, it's a group thing too.

Blog with comments = ego orgy.
Blog w/o comments = ego masturbation.

I'm waiting for dot-com 3.0 - revenge of the fact finders. Where people
pay other people to go find facts and report on them. We could call it a
News Agency(TM). It will be cool as hell, and of course XXXHTML with
direct Rectal Simple Syndication (RSS) 4.0 feeds!

[Luis Villa]

Post by Adam L Beberg
I'm waiting for dot-com 3.0 - revenge of the fact finders. Where people
pay other people to go find facts and report on them.

http://newassignment.net/

Luis (always excited to make Beberg's day)

[Tom Higgins]

Post by Adam L Beberg
I'm waiting for dot-com 3.0 - revenge of the fact finders. Where people
pay other people to go find facts and report on them. We could call it a
News Agency(TM). It will be cool as hell, and of course XXXHTML with
direct Rectal Simple Syndication (RSS) 4.0 feeds!

Then of course there is dotdiggycomblognetthing 4.0 where in facts
will be made for you given the answer to a simple 10 question form.
(ajaxoff driven). Your personal set of blogs all tied together
thematically will tie into a bloglines/tecnocratization/whuffie system
that will debit/credit your account upon dissemination of your data.

Come on forkers, some one should be able to VC that paragraph for at
least 1st round burn through...if you do a nice gift basket with 100$s
and a nice fruit assortment is all I ask..well that and an account:)-

-tomhiggins

[Justin Mason]

I actively stopped reading blogs that don't allow comments. It's
effectively saying "here are my thoughts -- your reactions, however, are
not worth hearing". Bad etiquette.

--j.

Post by James Tauber
That was my attitude when I first started blogging (using homegrown
software that eventually became Leonardo).
But I got hardly any links and only the occasional private email.
Once I implemented comments, I got more response than I was getting
via email and way more than I was getting through responses on other
blogs.
I wish it weren't the case. But I just got much better "conversation"
having comments than not.
James
--
James Tauber http://jtauber.com/
journeyman of some http://jtauber.com/blog/

Post by Jeff Bone
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/93-its-the-content-not-the-icons
This is related, but not equivalent to, another bit of blogosphere
ettiquette that I feel strongly about. And it's not clear to me
whether my position on this other matter is Cluetrain-consistent or
not, RageBoy be damned if he disagrees.
Call me anti-social, but I have a standing rule for that day ---
oh, that day, may it be far away --- when I feel the need to have
an actual "blog" per se. (Well, it's probably not that far off,
it's just that my own peculiar psychology is requiring me to re-
write large parts of Clickfeed before then, so...) That standing
rule is: there will be NO freakin' comments. NO COMMENTS, do you
hear?
Why, you ask? (Well, maybe you didn't ask, but you should have.)
Because the Web is built by human interaction through interlinked
expression via discrete, named pieces of content. Which is a fancy
way of saying: content's valuable, but links are equally value, as
they express a variety of things that are not directly expressed in
a single piece of content (i.e. page, to the extent that this
concept even makes sense in the abstract "web.") Which is a long-
winded way of saying: if you want to comment on something I say
that I deem sufficiently important for allocating a URI, get your
own damn blog, give your own statement a URI, and link to what I
said; we both --- and everyone else on the Web --- will profit
from this transaction, it's nonlinearly positive-sum.
$0.02,
jb
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

[Matt Jensen]

Post by Jeff Bone
NO COMMENTS, do you hear?
Why, you ask? (Well, maybe you didn't ask, but you should have.)

But you said "NO COMMENTS"! :-)

Coincidentally, I'm working on a little project I hope to turn into a
paper for ICWSM [1], doing blog analytics on comments versus
blog-to-blog links. Researchers have so far tended to ignore
comments. (Lucas, if you can dig up that paper reference you
mentioned, I'd appreciate it a lot.)

Matt Jensen
http://mattjensen.com
Seattle

[1] International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media Mar. 2007
http://www.icwsm.org/
(As with previous conferences, BlogPulse can provide researchers
with gigabytes of blog data.)

[Russell Turpin]

When I feel the need to have an actual "blog" .. there will be NO freakin'
comments. .. Why, you ask? .. Because the Web is built by human interaction
through interlinked expression via discrete, named pieces of content.
Which is a fancy way of saying: content's valuable, but links are equally
value, as they express a variety of things that are not directly expressed
in a single piece of content.

Hmmmm. To me, this argument overlooks an issue of granularity. Should
each sentence should be its own page with its own URI, only composed
into one document by virtue of links? The answer isn't trivially "no,"
because I can imagine applications where it might be useful to
reference individual sentences within documents. Requirements tracking
software often does something such as this.

Still. Is the useful unit of granularity for blogs each individual
comment, or the entire sequence woven into a discussion? In the ideal
world, the answer is: view it however you want. On the web as it
exists now, those boundaries are real, even if soft, and at least for
me, I prefer blogs that are discussions, though I make exceptions for
a couple of writers.

Of course: your blog, your rules. ;-)

_________________________________________________________________
Find a local pizza place, music store, museum and more…then map the best
route! http://local.live.com?FORM=MGA001

[Jeff Bone]

Post by Russell Turpin

When I feel the need to have an actual "blog" .. there will be NO
freakin' comments. .. Why, you ask? .. Because the Web is built by
human interaction through interlinked expression via discrete,
content's valuable, but links are equally value, as they express a
variety of things that are not directly expressed in a single
piece of content.

Hmmmm. To me, this argument overlooks an issue of granularity. Should
each sentence should be its own page with its own URI, only composed
into one document by virtue of links? The answer isn't trivially "no,"
because I can imagine applications where it might be useful to
reference individual sentences within documents. Requirements tracking
software often does something such as this.

Right, there's an issue of granularity. It only makes sense to
"name" the unit-of-interest, whatever that it. Who should define
it? Well, I cannot suppose that anyone is more qualified to do that
than the author himself.

Previous responses re: commenting and popularity are well-made. Unf.
I see the blogosphere as less a universe of whuffie than a resource
of some interest, whose findability is impeded by on-page
commenting. And frankly, the usefulness of any given page --- or
better, any "blog" as defined as a semi-consistent collection of
pages by some semi-consistent authority or authorities --- isn't much
impacted in my experience by comments. (It's never "improved" from
my perspective, as I never *read* those comments anyway.) I hope
it's relatively non-controversial to claim that the signal-to-noise
is much higher in the average blog article's comment threads than in
the main body of the article. (The only place I've seen this *fail*
to be the case is in fairly focused how-to articles of high value to
everybody, where the author actively carries on with the
conversation. But those are few and far between, IME...)

Perhaps I'll reconsider at some point...

jb

[Jeff Bone]

I hope it's relatively non-controversial to claim that the signal-
to-noise is much higher in the average blog article's comment
threads than in the main body of the article.

^higher^worse

Grrr....

jb