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August 7, 2007 at 1:18 pm
hugh
funny, as this convo blipped across my screen I thought: OK, kill the anonymous comments, if you can’t stand behind what you say with a URL, then I’m not that interested.
Yet Teamakers is a good example: people are afraid that they can’t a) say what they think AND b) keep their jobs.
I work for myself, so I don’t have to worry about what I say online… but many people might be legitimately concerned about potential impacts their commenting might have on real life.
the other thing to note is that guys like winer et al probably get orders of magnitude more comments than you or me…. so they are trying to deal with a problem we don’t have.
but in general I totally agree with you: the most interesting (for me) of my posts are always the ones that generate debate in the comments, which helps me work through the issue myself, by commenting on comments.
August 7, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Patrick
Blogs are better with comments.
But at a certain readership level, comments become useless, lost in flaming, illiteracy, trolls and idiocy. I can’t blame Winer and others for deciding not to deal with it (as Hugh said).
Free speech? It’s not any blogger’s responsibility to offer a forum. There are free platforms for blogs, if the morons destroying conversations have enough internet access to troll, than they can create a blog for themselves.
I encourage bloggers to keep comments for the value they bring to each blog, once the value is lost though, drowned in troll doodoo, why should they keep up with it?
The problem is with uncivilized masses joining the conversation, with the disconnect the internet can offer, not with a few giving up the fight. I think more bloggers when faced with the problem should have some kind of policy and, yes, be heavier on the delete button before quitting comments completely and that blog tool makers should look into solutions but overall, I can’t blame the bloggers.