Technosailor.com Readers! Donate today to assist the CHF International Haiti Relief in their efforts.

26 January 2006 15 Comments

Kottke Can’t Handle It

Perhaps a misrepresentation, but when I read a recent entry from Jason about blog comments, I sighed and told myself, “Self, if he’s having problems, he’s not doing it right”.

First of all, commenting is the currency of blogs. At the risk of sounding like a broken record. If a blog doesn’t want comments or feels like the two-way dialogue between readers and blogger are irrellevant, then they need to satart a magazine… or a newspaper… or star in a television show. Blogging is all about the dialogue that happens between you, the reader, and I, the blogger.

Jason comes to the defense of the Washington Post who recently turned off comments on their blogs due to their inability to manage their readers and trolls, and explains why comments are off on his blog:

If you’re wondering why the comments on kottke.org aren’t on more often, this is the reason.[1] This site is a one-person operation and even though I work on it full-time, I don’t have the throughput to manage a lot of threads. Comment gardening (as I call it) is hard work if you want to maintain an appropriate level of discourse. And as Xeni said, the current technological and user experience solutions suck. Approved commenting, sign-in to comment, Slashdot-like comment moderation…they all have their problems.

Jason is obviously not doing something right because I have 5 blogs, work two jobs plus freelance and still have commenting on. My moderation of comments is not something that takes up a large portion of my day. In fact, my method is quite simple. Leave it alone and it works. Seriously!

Granted, I don’t have the traffic that Jason has, but I still get 10,000 unique visitors a month at this blog alone. First, I use Akismet for my spam filtering. That catches 99% of my trackback and comment spam and lets all other comments through to the next gate. At the second gate, I’ll get an approval notification for first time commenters. If there are any trolls, I can decline them here, but I might get one troll a week. That’s it.

Everything else is wide open. Once you’ve been approved to comment, the comment is instantly there. I understand Jason has alot of traffic to his blog. It’s too bad he doesn’t have the “throughput” to deal with the issue and allow commenting. If it were me, I’d rather have one of those authentication services that I agree is a pain, before I’d have no means for commenting.

But that’s just me and I value my readers too much. Perhaps the issue really isn’t trolls and is more along the lines of not wanting to deal with opposite opinion. Or maybe, Jason just likes to hear himself talk.

Pick up your copy of the WordPress Bible, a wildly popular resource for beginners and experts alike.

Written by Aaron Brazell on January 26, 2006

Popularity: 1% [?]

15 Responses to “Kottke Can’t Handle It”

  1. BC 26 January 2006 at 3:33 pm #

    i aint agree with that:
    ‘First of all, commenting is the currency of blogs’

    the storyline is important and that’s counting..

  2. BC 26 January 2006 at 3:33 pm #

    i aint agree with that:
    ‘First of all, commenting is the currency of blogs’

    the storyline is important and that’s counting..

  3. BC 26 January 2006 at 3:33 pm #

    i aint agree with that:
    ‘First of all, commenting is the currency of blogs’

    the storyline is important and that’s counting..

  4. paige 27 January 2006 at 6:22 pm #

    There have been days when trolls piss me off so much I consider turning off comments. Then I think “Uh, then what?”

    I don’t think I could ever do that. I like hearing from people who stop by too much to cut it out.

  5. paige 27 January 2006 at 6:22 pm #

    There have been days when trolls piss me off so much I consider turning off comments. Then I think “Uh, then what?”

    I don’t think I could ever do that. I like hearing from people who stop by too much to cut it out.

  6. paige 27 January 2006 at 6:22 pm #

    There have been days when trolls piss me off so much I consider turning off comments. Then I think “Uh, then what?”

    I don’t think I could ever do that. I like hearing from people who stop by too much to cut it out.

  7. Aaron 27 January 2006 at 7:21 pm #

    And if you’re comments are off, I can’t comment on how your new hairstyle looks… lol

  8. Aaron 27 January 2006 at 7:21 pm #

    And if you’re comments are off, I can’t comment on how your new hairstyle looks… lol

  9. Aaron 27 January 2006 at 7:21 pm #

    And if you’re comments are off, I can’t comment on how your new hairstyle looks… lol

  10. paige 27 January 2006 at 8:01 pm #

    My point exactly. :)

  11. paige 27 January 2006 at 8:01 pm #

    My point exactly. :)

  12. paige 27 January 2006 at 8:01 pm #

    My point exactly. :)

  13. Aaron 27 January 2006 at 8:03 pm #

    Haha. Well met.

  14. Aaron 27 January 2006 at 8:03 pm #

    Haha. Well met.

  15. Aaron 27 January 2006 at 8:03 pm #

    Haha. Well met.