BlogHer - Better Comment Systems Needed to Facilitate Conversation - Comments

But, this is where I always inject a reality check

Elisa Camahort — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 09:22:29 -0500

But, I felt that the blogging world had matured to the point where alternate points of view would be heard no matter what any corporate blogger did.

This is the one part of the comments moderation discussion that always raises a red flag for me. The last 3 Pew studies show that the ratio of blog writers to blog readers is holding pretty steady at around 1 in 5. (IOW: Only 1 in 5 people who self-identify as reading blogs actually writes one.)

Granted that ratio might be a lot higher for you, Robert, I don't know. Have you ever done a demographic survey?

Still, it always seems rather cavalier to me to say that if someone wants to say something to you they can blog about it. And it's an easy way to "protect" yourself from 80% of readers.

I actually don't think that's what you want to do at all...I read your comments, so I know the kind of tiresome dreck you're talking about, and I say delete away!

But I really don't like that "if you have something to say, blog about it" attitude...it's highly anti-customer, especially for a business blogger to say.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

This is such a huge question

Liz Henry — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 01:20:58 -0500

This is such a huge question for women's forums - where the decision to limit or moderate often... almost always... turns to a discussion of what's wrong with women, or what's wrong with feminism, or being PC, etc. The decision to moderate gets linked with the suppression of dissent. Or, going for the personal attack route - the moderator is accused of being "too sensitive". You know what I mean?

In fact - without even suppressing comments, just being a woman and objecting to something another person says is often labelled as that same suppression of dissent. In other words... if you even hint that you think some guy is obnoxious, people call you a feminazi and start screaming censorship!

I agree that it's a personal decision how to structure your public interactions - but it's interesting how that decision gets automatically linked to gender for women, and not for men.

-----------------
Liz Henry
lizzard@bookmaniac.net
Badgermama - personal & mommyblog
http://liz-henry.blogspot.com

The challenge of comments moderation

Laura Scott — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 00:01:16 -0500

Sometimes the comments ratings can end up becoming a distraction. "Why did you downrate my post?" "Because it sucked." --and they're off and the thread is hijacked.

I've seen communities with visible ratings where entire threads are created just to boost everybody's mojo. Probably worst is a community that claims to be a community, but then has an autocratic owner step in and ban people for personal reasons. That can really put a chill on the conversation. That's not so much an issue on a personal site, where it's clear whose show it is, but it seems there are precious few community sites that are truly governed by the community itself.

Except on business sites, my own feeling is that, unless the person is a troll, let the inane comments stand. The best moderation is clear and insightful response, not a ratings system (imho). Going through and rating comments can be exhausting, especially on a busy site. Then again, I've had sites that were magnets for trolls -- the nasty kind, with calloused knuckles, who live to sidetrack the discussion with ad hominem attacks and disingenuous arguments. Ugh.

It seems to me that if the blogger is off and deleting comments he or she simply doesn't like, then he or she isn't the kind of person to really hear what's being said anyway.

Laura Scott
design, snap, blog

BlogHer site admin

If they zap them all then they'll turn boring

Scobleizer — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 23:27:36 -0500

What do we call something that only says nice things about us? A press release.

So, if I start deleting everyone who disagrees with me, that'll make my blog boring. What happens when a blog turns boring? People stop reading. What happens when that happens? Any interesting business aspects stop happening.

But, I felt that the blogging world had matured to the point where alternate points of view would be heard no matter what any corporate blogger did.

Here's a proof point. I saw Shelley Powers talking about me even though she didn't comment on my blog, or leave a link to my blog. Why? Memeorandum picked her comment up.

If you want to get an anti-Scoble or an anti-Microsoft point of view across there are plenty of places to do that. Just start your own blog and it'll get picked up.

But, a blog's comment area is akin to your place of business. Or, in my case, my family room.

I agree with moderation

sarahintampa — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 22:30:37 -0500

I agree with Robert's decision to moderate. I had made a quick post one day about a movie I didn't like; months later, the post had turned into a forum-like discussion about Hollywood, complete with cursing and racist remarks. Luckily, I had moderation turned on at that point, so the worst comments never made it online. I finally ended up removing the post. That was certainly a learning experience for me about how nasty commenters can be. I doubt I will ever go back to open comments now.

Also, moderation is a good way to keep spam comments from getting through. It's good to have some control over that.

Update: after having moderation on for some time now, I find that less and less people are commenting. That's not what I wanted at all. I'm going to turn moderation off again and see what happens. It was not my goal to stifle the conversation. I agree that a new system is definately needed!

Visiblity Counts

Toby Bloomberg — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 22:08:14 -0500

To filter comments or not is a discussion that is not new. However, Jeneane nails it - which was my reason for the writing the post. What is significant is not that Robert doesn't have the right to accept or deny any comment he so desires, but that he is so highly visible and influential in the business community.

My concerns were that biz bloggers reading Robert's post would zap *all* negative comments and miss opportunities to initiate important conversations and feedback from customers/stakeholders. There is a lot that we can learn from the raw conversations which occur without the formalities of traditional research (which has its place of course).

What's the answer? More sophisticated technology for sure. For a start comment guidelines and expectations.

When It's the Author of Naked Conversations, It Means A Lot

Jeneane Sessum — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 20:10:20 -0500

Jeneane Sessum
Contributing Editor

Elisa, I think it's controversial because Robert Scoble is a Microsoft blogger--first and foremost, and an author on the topic of blogging and PR and businesses. And his comments (for better or for worst) have long been a place where people who love, hate, and are just interested in technology (and by the way Microsoft) gather to talk, rant, laugh, joke, etc.

Robert also just co-authored a book, "Naked Conversations," which is sitting next to me, about to be read, self-identified as being in the school of cluetrain. Therefore, Robert deciding to moderate to get unhappy people out of his life and living room--rather than just delete anonymous assholes--is significant.

Robert, maybe there is a way to require people to not be anonymous, or to at least to make them jump through 20 hoops in order to be anonymous. I'd rather see you do that than moderate.

If someone's an anonymous troll, they don't make it in.

If someone's an idiot, he outs himself as such, as always. It's not up to you to save jerks from themselves.

The way that they work now on Wordpress, I hate moderated comments. I understand using moderation to control spam. I have moderated comments on jeneane.net, only because I don't know how to disable that in the template thingy.

Elisa, I do agree though, to each blogger their own style. I'm sure Robert will get it all working nicely.

It's the CHANGE and the reason for the change and the fact that it's Robert making the change that makes it significant.

Robert, I don't view bloggging like talk radio. Podcasting maybe, but not blogging. But I guess that's just a different take on what we're doing here.

For more writing from Jeneane, see Allied and Blog Sisters

I love the house analogy, and so do businesses

Elisa Camahort — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 16:23:17 -0500

I am a strong believer that a lot of the "musts" and "shoulds" in blog land are unwarranted. People and companies should set guidelines, live by them and live by the consequences. Of course I'd strongly prefer those guidelines were published and easily found on a site.

Still, it's a free country. Robert can do what he wants, as can Russell Beattie, as can BlogHer, as can anyone, and I can visit those sites that have a policy I can get behind and can adhere to.

Why, I really do wonder, is it controversial at all?

One the one hand people talk about how the blogosphere should be "free" and the conversation "open." But the blogosphere can't be free, if the bloggers aren't.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

Comments on blogs

Scobleizer — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 14:42:02 -0500

Good points. You're happy, in my eyes, so I wouldn't worry. :-)

There are, those, though, who do nothing but gripe. Sorry, that behavior isn't something I let into my family room, much less the front door of my business. It's even worse when you're anonymous and I don't know who you are. I doubly don't let those types into my family room.

If you're one of those people, there's plenty of places to go to write your stuff on the Internet. Slashdot. Channel 9. Your own blog.

I notice I had to register just to comment here.

And, I don't want to run a community forum on my blog. That's not why I started blogging. If I wanted to run one of those, I'd just start a Slashdot or a Channel 9 forum.

I look at bloogging more like talk radio. Talk radio has call screeners and a "kill button" so the host can turn people off after they get rude or boring.

I think being able moderate

Jill Davis — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 11:45:02 -0500

I think being able moderate comments slashdot style would be great. It would be neat if the blog author and the blog's regular readers could rate a comment's relevance and value.

Amazon book review style would also be interesting - you know how you can vote as to whether a book review was helpful to you or not and it says at the beginning of each review something like "47 out of 92 readers found this review helpful"? Being able to do that with blog comments could be pretty cool, too.

http://jillslivingroom.typepad.com/jill/

Jeneane Sessum

Jeneane Sessum — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 11:03:07 -0500

Jeneane Sessum
Contributing Editor

Other good responses on this topic can be found on tech memeorandum.

For more writing from Jeneane, see Allied and Blog Sisters

Better Comment Systems Needed to Facilitate Conversation

Jeneane Sessum — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 10:56:32 -0500

Robert Scoble has decided to start moderating comments the wordpress way, which is of course his prerogative. I like what Toby at Diva Marketing says on her blog about the importance of honest feedback and fluid discussion between business and marketplace and why not moderating comments enables that process.

But then there's the reality: Robert is a sitting duck, a visible target for competitors and detractors with saddlebags full of ammunition. That has to get tiring. I get it.

Still, he is also a hardhead sometimes. I can say that because I'm one too. Most bloggers are. It comes with having opinions.

That's why the current comment moderation systems won't work for someone like Robert who is 1)Triple-A-List and 2)Sitting Duck and 3)A vector for conversation within a CorpoGiant.

We need more options for comment systems as blog conversations and roles become more complex. Maybe the fact that Robert's a technology evangelist will spur some innovation on comment solutions--an underserved blog tool area for sure. We need an alternative to the Either-Or current structure of moderation. Either you're executed and buried, or your set free to speak. That doesn't work.

I'd like to see some kind of system where I have the say, but readers can overrule me if I'm being hardheaded. Maybe I could tag a comment as "troll" or "flaming asshole" but Shelley might come along and tag it as "valid point" or "shut up and listen for once." At which point I could tag her comment as "point taken," or "i'm right i'm right i'm right!"

Better alternatives for managing comments would help both blogger and reader -- we might all learn something -- and the conversation wouldn't suffer from the black hole of moderation.

AND as I said in comments on Toby's blog, I'm more worried about Robert's newfound interest in "The Four Agreements" and getting "unhappy people" out of his life.

Nice try, but life doesn't wrap up that neatly. If I need to be continuously happy to be in someone's life, I'll bow out now, thanks.

Jeneane Sessum also blogs at allied,