Blogs have 3 primary characteristics that make them different from other media. 1) Blogs have a permanent resource identifier that does not change over time, 2) Blogs publish an RSS/Atom feed to notify services of updates, and (most importantly) 3) Blogs allow comments. What differentiates blogs from other published information is that there is a feedback loop.
I should note that there are now third-party services that let you comment on articles and blog posts without using the blog’s comment function. For example, Facebook allows comments via their platform.
For bloggers, comments add depth and insight to what would otherwise be a monologue. I think that it’s very important to make it as easy as possible for people to comment on your blog. However, too many services do just the opposite and I have passed on writing a comment many times when confronted by multiple-step comment forms. Captchas are one example.
I’ve made it as easy as possible to make a comment on this site and I get very little comment spam. First of all I use WordPress, designed specifically for blogging. The first line of defence is Bad Behavior, an easy plug-in for WP.
If this does not catch the bad guys, Akismet is the next line of defence. Akismet is another simple plug-in that will hold identified spam for 30 days or until you check it. It learns from the entire community of users, so it’s pretty darn good.
I also have my comment controls set so that first time visitors must be approved by me. I even allow pseudonyms and fake e-mails if the comment is relevant. Once approved, you are free to post at will, or until I revoke your privileges, which I have never done. This works very well and lets the conversation flow, even when I’m not online.
So if you’re wondering why you don’t get many comments, perhaps you’re just making it too difficult.
Your list at the beginning piqued my interest and got me thinking (and I’m sure you already know all of what I’m going to say, I just can’t help but comment)…
#1 isn’t particular to blogs, no? Perhaps the most defining trait is the canonical list of postings in time at that URI.
#2 I might reword as “syndication”, wrapping up each post or an excerpt of that post “to go” in order to facilitate “subscription”.
#3, I agree with that comments are part of the spirit of blogs, though there are certainly “blogs” that don’t permit it. IMHO, the “ideal” blog should provide a mechanism for engaging the author publicly in a conversation relating to the original material.
Any plans to implement OpenID?
While making commenting easy is important, another part of “feedback” is the author’s response. I have tried both moderated and unmoderated comments. Recently, I had a comment I was having trouble deleting, so turned on the moderate function until I could figure out how to delete unwanted comments (I’ve figured it out).
As I went back to moderating, I realized that I like the ability to see the comments so I don’t miss any. Blogger allows me to moderate comments posted after so many days. So I have gone back to having unmoderated comments, but only for posts less than a week old. This means I’ll be able to catch someone’s comment on a posting I might have written 2 months ago.
I think it is as important that those that comment have some recognition that the feedback has been received (either in a later blog post, or on the post itself).
Thanks for the additional thoughts, Marsh. OpenID is available as a WordPress plug-in, but I have found it to be a bit quirky from a user perspective, and I know that there are other open authentification systems coming along. I’ll let people with better technical savvy than me test them out for a while and I’ll keep adding best of breed add-ons when I can.
I’ve found that responding to comments is a bit of an art, Virginia. If the host replies too quickly, then other conversation may be stifled. Quite often I will let a comment sit for a while and see if anyone else wants to add to the thread. I also find that some comments don’t need a reply, so a standard “thanks for commenting” response seems a bit contrived from my perspective.
With my current WP configuration, all posts for the past 5 years are open for further comment and I can see these on my “dashboard”, so I’m not sure about the moderation function of Blogger.
I leave comments open on my blog, mostly out of inertia. It’s mighty rare that I get a comment on something that’s more than a week or so old.
My own opinion is that that comment forms should include a preview box (there’s a WP plug-in for this). I tend to reply to most comments, but I don’t want to be the only voice. I probably account for nearly half the comments (it’s those replies to comments from others).
I do wish WP wouldn’t include as pings my references to my own stuff; I suspect 80% of the alleged pings take that form. So it goes.
Harold, re Virginia’s moderation, in WP 2.7 / Settings / Discussion, I see you you can automatically close comments after X days, but I don’t see anything to set them to moderation after a time.
I’ll have to check out the preview box once I upgrade to 2.7, Dave. With self-reference pings, you can always delete instead of approving them and they won’t show on your comments.
Good to see this post still holds up after 1.5 years Harold (not that I would have expected otherwise). Blogs MUST have comments, otherwise they’re just like radio and TV: broadcast
My company has disabled commenting early this year because they couldn’t get spam-protect to work, and as a result I haven’t been posting there since: sad but true
Your tweet regarding my post on Amplify’s log-in / register swap (http://dlvr.it/1TZRF) shows how valuable blog comments are, really. Measnwhile, Tom Raftery is wondering how he can delete an Amplify account. Much like SocialMediaToday and Blogged, there won’t be such functionality, I guess
When will people learn? When we stop giving them what they want