Michael Arrington (Techcrunch) hits hard on Google for not allowing comments on it’s blogs.
And he nails it right :
But today bloggers are starting to ask if the Official Google Blog is even an actual blog. The reason? It doesn’t allow readers to leave comments. The Official Google blog does list links to other sites referencing any given post (a sort of trackback), but that’s it. The conversation ends there.
I would go on to say that Bloggers should not even moderate comments, i.e. No filtering of comments.
Let blogosphere be a democratic place where the www world isn’t broken by narrow domestic walls of selfishness (and adsense?)!
Many of the famous bloggers (especially a few Indians) tend to moderate comments – and what could be the possible reason for that?
- Are they worried about irresponsible comments on their post? Dude c’mon give me a break – we are talking of wisdom of crowd – and if you don’t believe in that- please don’t call yourself a blogger. For spammed comments, you can always enable CAPTCHA [i.e. image verification] and you are all fine.
- Blogging is not supposed to be 1-way communication – and if you want only positive communication [i.e. blah blahs..], you are just using your muscle power to your own benefit and sooner or later – you get a shift+del from the blogosphere. I do understand that at times, people tend to leave irresponsible comments and one should delete them – but not at the cost of moderating comments to one’s benefit. Never.
“At the end of the day, some of the biggest or controversial figures in the blogosphere, such as Mike Arrington, Jason Calacanis, or Richard Edelman may or may not be guilty of many things, but one thing they’re all great at is carrying on the conversation in some for or another.” [Tony]
So what could be the possible reasons for our fellow Indian bloggers to be worried about?
IMHO, they are damn scared of being exposed to the readers about their lack of originality. Few of the successful Indian Bloggers have been piggybacking on stories from Digg/Reddit/Blinklist – apart from shamelessly reproducing the stories and not linking to the original source, they shun [filter out] the comments that challenge their stories.
Infact , they even disapprove comments which point to better posts.
Why don’t they get caught? The Indian crowd isn’t too aware of these aggregators. Though the awareness is building slowly, these bloggers simply get away with their lack of originality and are infact carrying the mantle of blogging in India!
Hope 2007 witnesses the end of copy/paste phenomena in blogsophere and instead build some credibility! The copy cats should get shunned and originality should be encouraged.
Let sanity prevail.
Don’t agree with me? Let me know why (in the comments section) !
Blog comments should be monitored. If not you get all sorts of weird crap popping up.
So for example would you not delete an advertisement post?
Agreed with Shanghai Sam. But that can be a different kind of moderation. He’s talking about post commenting moderation which is very necessary in this age of spamming.
Pre-commenting moderation is not really necessary., the type where ur comment has to be approved to appear on the site. Like u said,the blogosphere shud be allowed to be democratic coz that’s wat blogging’s about. Putting ur opinion online for everybody to see.
Shanghai – Thanks for the comments. Well, you can always use a CAPTCHA to moderate those advertising comments. I used to get lotsa spams- but the moment I implemented CAPTCHA – they all are gone.
dude: Completely agree with you – esp. your last statement: “Putting ur opinion online for everybody to see.”
- People need not reproduce the same stuff again and again – what can work for Blogosphere in the long run is 1-post, and 1000s of bloggers expressing their opinion on the same!
- Democratically.
@Ashish:
1) CAPTCHA is not a fool proof way to stop advertisements sneaking in as comments. There are thousands of people out there to write advertisements manually on blog posts as comments.
2) How do you tackle anonymous buggers posing as someone else? Impersonation on the internet is extremely easy, especially when all your wordpress blog asks for is a name/url.
3) How do you tackle flamers? People who write inflammatory remarks against, say a particular community. And these people go on flaming the war until they’ve pissed off a lot of people. Check out any article comments on rediff to know what I’m talking about.
Democracy in internet is highly overrated. Everyone has one vote, everyone gets his opinion voiced – whether he is a village idiot, or an awesome scholar.
yeah..Mr. Know all..try wrting controversial stuff where an original idea is being explored and then try and use these fundas of yours.. your writing is at most mediocre to below zero , so obviously you have not been exposed to the jealousies, pettiness and idiocities of the bloggers who can ruin your post and your hardwork just cuz they enjoy doing it..Do you call guests to your house who puke on your sofa in the name of a democratic world..or do you let people come and abuse your mother because its a democracy???
You have a long way to go before you even come close to what the nature of blogging is. If people can behave themselves, the need for moderation would not arise..but freedom for those who hide behind anonymity to abuse attack and be vicious is an immature, underdeveloed lop sided idea of democracy!!
and btw smartass..the first principle of democracy is honest voting!! Can you be allowed to vote anonymously?? the blogosphere is full of masks..who the hell is speaking with their name in full view??
Want to sell the idea of democracy to the taliban??
And then Why on earth DO YOU HAVE word verification on your blog??? Hypocrite..
Grow up ..till then..stop from spreading your trash.
I don’t like comment moderation myself. It can promote more problems because the commenter knows it might remain private.
Word Verification is useful however because it stops the automated spam – which isn’t about comments but filling comments with junk.
Mr. Anonymous
You seem to be technically a dumbass.
Word verification (CAPTCHA) is to block spams ! – Don’t you know this?
What’er you have said sounds completely confusing – democracy to taliban? Anonymous voting? Where the hell did I talk about that?
You did the comment anonymously because you don’t believe in democracy? You wanna send flowers to Taliban? Lick their ass – because if you don’t they will ruin you?
Grow up dude – why the F did you have to write anonymously? Probably you are one of those who copied the digg/reddit and scared of being exposed.
Anonymous buddy,
I will be surprised if jealousies, pettiness and idiocities of the bloggers can ruin your blog!! Dare to share your *delicate* blog?
Ok, shall we all fling wide the floodgates of spam comments? I think not. I’ve got moderation turned on for my blog. Why? Spam comments. I’ve never once failed to approve a non-spam comment. Even if I disagree with the commenter.
Recently, I made the move to WordPress, at which point I found a feature that allows you to mod comments from individuals that have never had a comment posted before. Once they’ve had a comment approved, they can post comments without moderation.
Also, Akismet does help quite a bit.
and btw smartass..the first principle of democracy is honest voting!
Well said anonymous, this guy is calling for trouble.
Dude, u need to have moderation else negative screw up ur blog
Anonymouses fellas! [Could you please share your names?]
Let me ask you guys a basic question – Why do you ppl think that if somebody is trying to challenge your post (like the way you guys are doing with me), IT’s A NEGATIVE COMMENT?
I agree that irresponsible comments should be deleted, but not the ones which challenge your thought process!!
If all you want is +ve (‘Oh my God!This is an amazing post’ types), I am sorry – I completely DISAGREE with you. I want ppl who challenge me – who present a diff. point of view.
Why be scared of criticism?
I would really appreciate you guys sharing your names [you can email me: ashishk.sinha@gmail.com] – not because I want to take any revenge, but I am glad that we are having this discussion.!
-Ashish
I think the anonymous guys are being deliberately offensive – just to see if you will delete their comments.
Happy new year!
I think I know whom are you talking about!!
..Its a tech blog..which copies/paste the standard stuff!!
All I have to say is before I had moderated comments, I had a new spam comment every day. Now, none. I keep all other comments, unless they are completely off-topic and personal.
You forget those non-automatic spam posts, with porn and rape links. There are people doing that manually. If you don’t moderate comments, it’s your risk.
I think the rules change somewhat when it comes to product/shopping blogs.
If you don’t moderate comments, PR people and self-promoting small business owners try to come on and essentially use your blog for free advertising.
If their comment adds something of value to the conversation, I don’t mind letting it, through. It shouldn’t be let through, however, when the comment is barely relevant and is filled with statements like “I love X product, it’s the best product I’ve ever used. And if you’ve ever wanted something fantastic, try X Product because X Product is great!!!”
In my opinion, statements like that are…and why should I give them free advertising and allow them to degrade the user experience for legitimate readers?
I follow your blog for quite a long time and should tell you that your articles are always valuable to readers.
I think the moderation is necessary otherwise the the spammers will destroy your site. I also have a and all comments are moderator.