| d2r diego's weblog |
comments: to close or not to close?A strange blog-effect I've noticed has been happening more often recently is that, if comments are left open on archived entries, people that arrive to the entry much, much later (either through a search engine, or through an old link on another weblog) will add their comments as if the topic was still ongoing. This is a problem, not only because they might check back waiting for a reply that will almost certainly never come, but also because as the number of entries with topic that could elicit discussion grows, it can easily become a burden for me to monitor them and, for example, make sure that the comments are not posting advertising or something like that. Sometimes the comments are a note of appreciation for information given on an entry, or clearly made by people who know they probably won't get an answer since the discussion is not ongoing, but just want to add some more information. Other times though, those that post the comments almost certainly don't understand that this is a weblog, and as such it's personal. Some comments have asked more questions about the topic, others have criticized that more information isn't available on a given topic (!), others have at times asked for pricing information or wanted to purchase a device outright(!!), and so on. One thing is for sure though: I have to think about a "comments policy", particularly for those that arrive here and don't know what a weblog is. ... And, yes, yes: comments welcome :) Categories: technologyPosted by diego on July 16 2003 at 11:11 AM Comments (please see the comments & trackback policy).
What I've done on my site (copied from Russ) is to consolidate the last X comments on one page (http://martinlittle.com/comments/), and also one RSS feed. Additionally, when I get a new comment, I get an email, so I know immediately when something has been updated. Surely someone must have implemented something like this in MT. Posted by: Martin Little at July 16, 2003 11:42 AMMartin, yes, MT has reporting capabilities like that, but I wasn't talking about notification, but rather about closing the comments to all the entries after a certain date from the time of the post, automatically (or semi automatically). My question is how (or if) to stop the comments from being added, long after the entry has been first posted. Posted by: Diego at July 16, 2003 12:34 PMDiego, as I said some days ago (http://www.cristianvidmar.com/2003/07/08.html), I had the same doubt as you, so I built something different as an experiment: on my weblog you can now leave a comment that, instead of appearing on the weblog itself, is sent to me as an email. The advantage should be that I'll be always aware of comments, I can filter them, answer them directly via email, or in most cases, make a new post reporting the comment and my opinion on it. I believe this could keep the topic alive for longer, all posts and comments will be part of the same feed. This system could also be an incentive to commenting since when you leave an interesting comment, you'll be linked on my subsequent post, of course. Posted by: Cristian Vidmar at July 16, 2003 1:29 PMDiego: I think what Martin is getting at is your concern about keeping up with a large number of open discussions. If you're notified via email or aggregator whenever someone posts, keeping up becomes something of a non-issue, doesn't it? Posted by: Roger Benningfield at July 16, 2003 1:30 PMRoger, Cristian, thanks for the comments/clarifications. I'm beginning to see that I didn't explain myself clearly. Martin's comments, as well as yours, are good. However, what I'm referring to is not keeping up with the discussions, which MT lets me do (by receiving comments in email and by showing the last X comments posted in the admin interface), or even a concern that people post comments at all. My problem is that in some cases people tend to arrive at a page because they got there through a search engine, and they think it's ... well, something else :), or they got there through an old post, and they might post a comment that only I will read, even though many times they are answering to other people in the comment thread (that will likely never read the reply). Cristian's way is probably close to what I want, in a sense I would become a kind of "filter" for the comments by reposting. But there are comments being posted here regularly by people who clearly don't understand that this is a weblog, and as such personal (I'm wasn't kidding when I said that some comments have asked for my price and shipment options on products or things I am discussing), or even if they do, they are adding to a discussion that has (because of the nature of weblogs) as almost certainly moved on to other posts since. I think this topic is one of those cans of worms in weblogs: comments, no comments, our relative insularity in the weblog world (after all, 99% of the planet still doesn't know what a weblog is), the nature of what is weblogging itself. Hm. More to think about. :)) Posted by: Diego at July 16, 2003 2:18 PMCopyright © Diego Doval 2002-2007.
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