Is a blog that doesn’t allow comments really a blog?
October 13th, 2005(UPDATE – This post is also available as a podcast.)
On the technical side of the definition of a blog, my guess is that a blog that doesn’t allow comments by its readers is still considered a blog, but it also seems like once the ability to interact with the person posting is gone, so it the chance for exchanging ideas – since the only ideas being shared are the ones coming from the blog owner.
Case in point – Jon Udell’s blog, Jon’s Radio. Jon is the “strategic developer” columnist for InfoWorld, and the InfoWorld web site houses his blog.
Today I visited his blog and was looking at a screencast he posted on the recent floods in Keene, NH – Jon’s hometown. (A screencast is basically a video that include images, screen shots and narration – Jon is a pioneer in this area. I blogged about one of my favorite screencasts that Jon did). I started looking at the screencast, which was a collection of video he shot and a Google Map showing his travels through the town. I was about a minute in when someone came to my office door that needed some help. I went to pause the video, but there were no screen controls available to let me do this. So, once I returned, I tried to look at the video again, but had to start from the beginning. Once again, I had an interruption that made me stop watching the video about 4 minutes in. I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be great to have some onscreen controls to pause or move forward or backward through the screencast?”
So, I went to look at Jon’s blog for the comment feature to ask if it would be possible to add this functionality, but there was no place to leave a comment.
Now, I understand that Jon might not be able to do anything else with his life if he was only responding to comments in his blog since he is a well respected figure of note in the IT world, and a prominent blogger. And I don’t want this to be interpreted in any way that Jon is doing anything wrong – I think this is more a practical issue than anything else. After all, he gets many more readers to his site than the average blogger. And SPAM is no small issue in the comment areas of blogs. But this brought on a bigger question in my mind about what blogs really are.
To me, the real plus of a blog is that it is a “community” of sorts. On most of the blogs I read, there is the ability to leave a comment after the post. I often find as much, or sometimes even better information in the comments and conversation that takes place as there was in the original post. Different points of view and identification of other resources are the real nuggets that can come from good comments on a blog.
So, to me, the potential “value” of a blog seems to be reduced when there is not the opportunity to comment. But more important to me, you also loose the sense of commnunity that makes blogging a very unique form of communication. So, even on a very heavily read blog, assuming the SPAM thing can be controlled to some extent, can’t you leave the comments on? The blogger doesn’t need to respond to them at all, but this at least gives the readers the chance interact with each other and have the community experience. Plus – those nuggets that emerge in the comments make the blog more valuable to everyone.
I guess this is a philosophical discussion, but an important one none the less.
Comments in this blog are turned on and awaiting your response!
October 13th, 2005 at 12:37 pm
I agree. A blog that doesn’t allow comments isn’t a blog, it’s a webpage. Here’s a particularly bad example: the Wall Street Journal trumpeted its “Econoblog”. This is essentially a discussion between two economists on a single topic. The most recent discussion is here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB112419322049714334-search.html?KEYWORDS=econoblog&COLLECTION=wsjie/archive
For each topic there’s a different set of commentators. But there’s no opportunity for readers to comment, much less subscribe. What I’ve found is that while I occasionally read the econoblog, I never follow up on any of the questions raised, though I sometimes plan to. I think the WSJ is missing out on a genuine opportunity to engage it’s readers–like a real blog does!
October 16th, 2005 at 6:30 pm
I agree completely. I’m not sure any of the Infoworld blogs accept comments, though I haven’t checked lately. I know that Jon’s essays at O’Reilly Network do accept comments and trackbacks.
October 18th, 2005 at 8:56 pm
I got here via Jon Udell’s blog, responding to this piece, so I guess you did successfully comment.
http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2005/10/18.html#a1323
But Jon’s email address is quite prominent if you wanted to contact him more surely than posting on your own blog and relying on blogosphere technology to bring you to his attention.
Genuine spam isn’t the issue, commenters are. Dave Winer has often argued for the “comment” model of commenters replying via their own blogs. Mark Bernstein is convinced “comments are the usenet of weblogs” and has argued against them many times, e.g.
http://www.markbernstein.org/Apr0401/Whyblogcommentsarebad.html
http://www.markbernstein.org/Jun0401/Commentary.html
The real community formed by weblogs is through linking and on-weblog discussion. I’ve seen numerous blogs start out with comments and eventually have to disable them as they become cesspools. Rare is the weblog where I think the comments are an asset to it. I’ve several times decided against linking to a blog post because of the massive litany of comments hanging from it.
I note this is the kind of thing I would never write about on my own weblog, but don’t mind posting a comment about.
October 19th, 2005 at 3:56 am
> I often find as much, or sometimes even better information in the comments and conversation that takes place as there was in the original post. Different points of view and identification of other resources are the real nuggets that can come from good comments on a blog.
You are right on! A blog without comments is, in fact, NOT A BLOG.
Jon Udell may think he’s blogging, but he’s really just publishing infoworld articles in a different format.
October 19th, 2005 at 4:02 am
And, here’s the kicker: I found out about your great post from COMMENTS IN MY BLOG!
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000421.html
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the value of blog comments. ;)
October 19th, 2005 at 7:18 am
Actually, many of the top bloggers (at least as measured by Technorati) don’t have comments enabled on their blogs. I suppose it is because of the volume they’d get.
Seth Godin makes this point: he wants you to have your own blog and continue the conversation there rather than on his blog. I think that’s a little disingenuous, since there are far more readers than bloggers.
October 19th, 2005 at 11:39 pm
I got here from Jeff’s website as well. Amazing.
I’m a blogger too… although is a blog a blog if no one (else) reads it? Comments on, although on spamspot no doubt I’ll soon have some nice comments about making body parts bigger.
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:00 am
Agree completely (and also arrived via Jeff’s comments).
For me, comments allow my readers to add masses of value to my postings by disagreeing with me ;) it also helps me learn and stay humble. But it’s more than just me that benefits from comments on my blog postings…
Lets say I was to write a piece that presents a controversial viewpoint (as I’ve been known to do from time to time). Without comments this piece would stand alone, it’s no different to any other web page (or poorly edited magazine article). With comments (and trackbacks) it can be questioned, disagreed with and updated. It becomes more valuable. Personally I like to see both sides of an argument and make up my own mind; I get bored by puff pieces that only present the good.
That said, I can see Seth Godin’s point, and ideally one day we’ll have a blog search system that can provide an ‘externally linked’ view of the conversations so that comments on the blogs themselves are less important (I talk about this kind of thing here: http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000443.html ) but until then comments and trackbacks are the best we have and blogs without them just aren’t blogs…
I also understand how comments could become difficult to manage for a successful blog; when lots of people decide to tell me I’m completely wrong-headed all at once it’s hard to keep up and consider and reply to all their points and I hardly have any comments but I’d rather have the feedback and be a little slow in responding than not have the feedback; at least with the comments other people can see the bigger picture without needing my permission…
Something else I wonder about is that some bloggers seem uncomfortable with having people visibly disagree with them… Perhaps it’s an American thing, here in the UK we’re quite used to nasty criticism (think Simon Cowell) and sometimes it seems that, perhaps, Americans can get a little upset by it… Sometimes it seems that “rah rah” “I agree”, “he’s so kewl” comments are fine and ones that disagree are not…
December 8th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
[...] There is no way for users to provide comments or trackbacks (perhaps there is some fear of inappropriate content?). But, the jury may still be out on whether a comment-less blog is still a blog. [...]
December 21st, 2005 at 4:53 pm
I think comments provide the sense of community that gets return readers, many big blogs got big in part by allowing comments and building up a loyal, regular readership. Interestingly (to me anyway) Slashdot is almost the opposite, a brief statement is made followed by hundreds of comments.
I don’t think a blog must have comments to be a blog but where’s the fun if it doesn’t?.
Anyway, I’ve been playing with setting up remotely hosted comments for some sites I think could really use a comment system; it’s very rough round the edges at the moment but if anyone wants to have a play and post comments on a few sites that don’t support comments themselves then have a look at
http://www.floodle.net/comments/
all feedback greatly appreciated
January 2nd, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Very interesting discussion. I don’t personally agree that a blog is only a blog if it allows comments (although whether a blog without comments is a “good” blog is another question….)
I’ve posted more on my site:
http://www.communityguy.com/index.cfm?commentID=439
January 18th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Good thread here. I arrived here via Google… My comments will be off permanantly in the next day or so. I’m sick of people flaming me for my ideals and opinions. Jerks! I don’t believe that a blog stops being a blog because the comments are off, that’s nonsense. Removal of the comments sets the site owner free of having to reply to tons of comments and the hassle of flamers and deleting they’re garbage. And the spam too.
October 20th, 2006 at 4:33 am
[...] While the Web has brought great bounty to Internet, the downside is that its client-server model has tended to eclipse the collaborative and participatory ethos of services like Usenet. The early Internet ideals were in danger of being subsumed by a Web in which users were relegated to docile, passive, paying consumers of “content” served up by media barons and their designer acolytes. But the dark vision, presented by Thomas Pynchon in his forward to an edition of George Orwell’s 1984, of an Internet transformed into a means of social control has not materialized – not yet anyway. The antidote has been user generated content, of which Graham Fisher, MD of France Telecom R&D (Uk) has been a long term advocate. A new generation of social networking applications – blogging, in particular – has nurtured vibrant participant, interactive communities. The key words here are “participant” and “interactive”. Jerry Slezak noted in post about the absence of a comment facility on Jon Udell’s Jon’s Radio, that interaction and the exchange of ideas are critical aspects of blogging. Jon acknowledged this in his blog-to-blog reponse: “Ownership of your own stuff, and federation by linking to other people’s stuff, are the twin pillars of the blogosphere”. [...]
October 20th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
My vote is for no, it’s not a blog if you can’t comment. And while some tools like Blogger may invite a ton of SPAM (or force you to make your readers type out the alphabet a thousand times a day), there are great tools like WordPress (as you know) that have easy to manage plugins that catch most of all the SPAM.
Also, I’d just like to say that:
1. If you can’t “deal” with having to reply to comments on your blog, then either don’t reply and have your blog be a snoody celebrity, or get out of the blogging business and into the newspaper business. Oh yeah, those are about obsolete…must be for a reason?
2. I also find it hilarious that Google doesn’t allow comments on their sites. Sure, there would be thousands upon thousands of comments, but they could have a cut off maybe if that was the issue. How can they run a blogging software and not allow comments…?
October 24th, 2006 at 5:28 am
A blog which doesn’t allow comments is still a blog. When I started blogging over six years ago, there were many many blogs already. Yes, I know it seems to many as if in the year 2000 you had to hunt around to find a blog. You didn’t. They were “everywhere”. Most have just closed down since then.
Anyway, when I started blogging, comments did not exist. If you had something to say about what another blog had written, you’d write about it on your blog. I remember when comments appeared. It was very exciting. I know I was one of the first in my little “personal blogosphere” to add comments to my blog, hacking a script I had found and even writing a short tutorial for it.
Comments are a great bloggy feature. As are trackbacks. But they aren’t what makes a blog a blog.
October 24th, 2006 at 8:53 am
[...] Earlier in his post, however, Paul cites something Jon Udell says in a post answering the recurring “are blogs without comments blogs?” question. (Answer: they are, in my opinion). Let me reproduce it here too: Ownership of your own stuff, and federation by linking to other people’s stuff, are the twin pillars of the blogosphere. [...]
March 13th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
[...] a post answering the recurring “are blogs without comments blogs?” question. (Answer: they are, in my opinion). Let me reproduce it here too: Ownership of your own stuff, and federation by linking to other [...]
June 15th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
[...] as Jeff Atwood stated in A Blog Without Comments Is Not a Blog: Personally, I’ve found that the comments can be the best, most informative part of a blog. Anyone who has visited Amazon and skipped directly to the user reviews will know exactly what [...]