Sharpe's Opinion
Wednesday, 25th Feb, 2009
Alex Payne:
For most sites, comments are worse than useless. The anonymity of the Internet inspires hit-and-run attacks, unintelligible ramblings, and truckloads of spam. I believe that comments are evil by default, and the sites above that seem to have healthy communities are blessed flukes.
That’s all secondary, though. The main reason I don’t allow comments is that I want to inspire debate. I think people do their best writing when they’re forced to defend their ideas on their own turf. It’s one thing to leave a comment on someone else’s blog, but quite another to put your argument in front of your own readers. It forces a level of consideration that, without fail, results in a higher quality exchange of ideas.
Something that the British blogosphere hasn’t yet cottoned on to is that many of the best blogs in the US don’t actually allow comments at all. If you have something to say about somebody else’s blog post, you respond on your own blog or send the blogger an email.
On this blog, as I mentioned before, the commenters are all reasonable, intelligent, kind and pleasant people (hello you), so I don’t have a problem with leaving comments on. I’d quite like it to stay that way. If that ever changed, I wouldn’t have a problem with going the Nadine Dorries route and turning off comments site-wide. Once a blog reaches a certain size, it’s just not worth the comments. Better to create a ‘back room’ forum for readers to chat, cf. ‘Have Your Say‘.
(PS: A number of other bloggers are not posting anything today out of respect for the Camerons. I understand this and considered stopping blogging until tomorrow, but I think having said my piece and passed on my condolences and sympathies, the best thing I can do is move forward and allow the Camerons to grieve in their own time.)
Comments
I’d wager there’s a reason for those comments – Nick Robinson’s first reaction to the news of Ivan Cameron’s death, live on the BBC, was ‘it could mean a 5 point shift to the Conservatives in polling’, but that he ‘shouldn’t expect too much electoral advantage, since Gordon Brown has also lost a daughter’. (Of course, my sources for that are here, here and here so that’s not totally verified)
If it is true, Robinson has shown himself on television to be a callous and unpleasant man with little humanity or compassion, and I wouldn’t be surprised if most of those comments are being moderated for pointing that out.
That said, I switched off comments on my posts earlier, because I considered that to be the respectful thing to do, and that’s exactly what the BBC blogs team should have done on the post you linked to.
I have benefited from commentors, both those who didn’t share my views & wanted to challenge me, those who agreed & wanted to add something, those who wanted some clarification & what have you. They’ve driven my thinking on… & my only complaint against them is that they don’t come by often enough! 
Andrew Sullivan doesn’t allow comments, I came across his blog recently & I love it. There are times when I really want to leave him a message & think an email would be ignored. But in general it may become one of those blogs, like Political Betting, where I don’t even try to wade through the comments.
The best comments on the whole internet can be found at Conservative Home, in my view. Letters From A Tory is also excellent & you can get a lot out of Liberal Democrat Voice. “Libertarian” blogs, especially those strewn with profanity are generally tedious as it’s generally the faithful praising each other & no one else bothers.
I generally read the majority of comment threads on sites I visit, it’s sometimes a waste of time but I only stay away if they are too many (my cutoff point is generally around 20-30 unless it’s a far more interesting topic than average).
You can often read a thread just for a laugh without commenting. I love some Guido comments, I probably shouldn’t admit to it but their vitriol & lack of shame is sometimes quite refreshing, though it turns disgusting &/or boring at the drop of a hat (I dread to imagine what they’re saying today).
A really laugh out loud American blog you may like is called “Dennis the Peasant”. I generally find American right-wingers awful & the left barely better, but he is absolutely hilarious. About the only example of a genuinely funny Republican. It’s no coincidence that he despises most American “conservatives”.
Hey, Stu – THIS is the sort of feminist **** you want to rail against
You’re allowed to throw sheath, cap, sponge, strange wire thingy at computer screen by 10th sentence (not pills, though).
(Thanks, Asquith!)
My pleasure.
“Ragging on Raj” is where I get my best laughs. But there are many people on the left who need to be brutally slain too. They are supposed to be part of the same stable as me, but I can’t see how they are.
I agree that comments have value, Asquith. However, for the larger blogs, the comment threads are just not worth the effort. You rightly mention Conservative Home but I think that’s a special case. Conservative Home is a multi-authored blog made up of lots of smaller blogs, like categories. In that sense, it’s less like a normal blog and more like a forum. A directed forum, maybe, but it’s still nothing like Guido or Dale or DK or any personal blog. LFaT survives by not yet having that stratospheric level of readership – and by a clearly defined moderation policy. Thing is, if I have something to add to a ConHome piece, I’d probably write it over here. And then people who don’t read ConHome would see it aswell.
I’m not saying comments are a bad solution to the ‘giving people the ability to respond’ problem, but they’re not necessarily the best solution out there.
Oh, and don’t worry about emailing bloggers. Most of them are pretty responsive.
And that idiot woman is not worth the effort of complaining about. People who are self-evidently thick as two short planks are undeserving of a fisk.
I think she is worth the fisk from his point of view as he enjoys mocking her
I never actually objected to mere stupidity that much. It’s misuse of power that gets me worked up.
We shall see & that. As there is so much choice on the internet, & you can always set up your own enterprise if you don’t like those already on offer at minimal cost, people tend to find things they like quickly. It’s an almost perfect market, marred only by the fact that some don’t have access & they are disproportionately badly off. I approve of extending the reach of the ‘sphere to those who are not engaged in it.
If proof was needed to moderate/switch comments off see http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2009/02/ivans_death.html#commentsanchor
Extraordinary.
ladytizzy
February 25, 2009 at 2:39 pm