Blogs

Is a blog without comments still a blog?

Posted by Mathew @ 1:06 pm on February 7 2006 | |

Blogger and Yahoo employee Russell Beattie has been taking a fair bit of flack for removing comments from his blog - and seems more than a little defensive about it, from what I can see. Fair enough. As he points out, it’s his blog and he can run it however he wants to. He says he got fed up with having to weed out the flames and spam, and also was spending too much of his time responding to comments, so he’s returning to “old-school blogging.”

With all due respect to Russell, I’m not sure blogging without comments constitutes “old-school blogging,” although I admit that the blogosphere’s eminence grise, Dave Winer, kind of screws up my argument by not allowing comments on his blog. But even Dave has come around of late, it seems, since he has a second Wordpress blog where he does allow comments. In fact, I would argue that a website isn’t even a blog at all unless it includes comments, and I know that others agree. Don’t get me wrong - a blog without comments might still be valuable, but it’s not really a blog.

Russell says that now everyone has blogs, they can just respond to him on their blog if they don’t like something he says, or want to get in touch with him - and other than that, they can hunt for his email address in his “About” page and get to him that way. As more than one person has pointed out, it’s ironic that Russell decided to do this only days after a new comment-tracking feature called CoComment.com came out (which I am beta-testing and so far quite like, but more on that another time).

As anyone who has read my previous posts will know, I think the “conversation” is part of what makes blogs so powerful (even if it’s more of an argument :-)), so I’m disappointed Russ has done what he’s done. It’s his blog, and so I wouldn’t presume to tell him what to do, but I still think it’s a mistake.

Update:

Kent Newsome has some thoughts on the subject too (thanks for the compliments, Kent) and it’s probably a fair point that Russell’s views might have been influenced by the cease and desist letter he got recently - although he didn’t mention that in his post. I would also recommend - not surprisingly - that anyone reading this should look through the comments. There’s more good stuff in there, which kind of helps make my point.

Dave Winer has also clearly caved in under the convincing weight of my arguments and decided to get back in the comment game (hat tip to Kent Newsome for noticing). Just kidding about the caving part, Dave.

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Mathew posted this article under Blogs, Web2.0 on Tuesday, February 7th, 2006 at 1:06 pm. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, and you can also view Technorati Linkbacks or check for other responses using YackTrack.

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Discussion

Comments for “Is a blog without comments still a blog?”

Viewing 27 Comments

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    Mathew, you have summed it up nicely. I had difficulty in expressing what I was thinking. But you hit the hammer on the head buddy
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    I agree with your points. It's too bad you sent a one-way trackback ping. Those rarely get listed. One way trackbacks are basically saying to our audience: hey, come see mathewingram's blog, he's got more to say about this stuff, but he doesn't want anybody from his blog to come here. Those type pings are usually unwelcomed.

    If you change your mind and add a link then please send another ping and we will happily approve.

    It's too bad you didn't link too because I provided the one liner code that will fix Mr. Beattie's situation. I actually provided the technical solution he said he was too "lazy" to be bothered to do on his own.
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    Hi,

    I hate to be the odd man out but I'm not sure I agree with you. The first blog I read (1999...before they were actually called blogs) http://www.theharrowgroup.com/ never allowed you to comment but it was still a blog and still worth the read.

    I'm not familiar with the players in this particular little drama but it would seem to me that a blog, in it's purest form, allows the author to post his thoughts. That doesn't require comments. Anything else, is just an accepted norm. (and did any of us really accept Norm?)

    IMHO, etc.
    =C=
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    Mathew, I have to disagree. A blog is a log on the web, just that. Nothing about that inherently suggests comments or conversation. "Old school" blog conversations happened without comments, the conversation happened by people referencing each other directly in posts.

    That hasn't actually been practical for some number of years, but comments on most blogs also aren't really a single conversation. They're people contributing, and having their say, but there's no serious back and forth, it's as if someone shouts a topic into a room and everyone chips in. You hear and respond to what's near you or what overpowers local chatter, but whether or not your response is heard or considered is another thing entirely.

    That being said, I think that it's important for modern bloggers who want to be heard and considered to offer a way for responses to get to them. Comments as we know them know are typically easiest, but I don't think everyone should need to be a moderator of their own forum.

    I agree that it's unfortunate when someone goes effectively one-way, but whether or not that's a blog is another thing entirely.
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    As a practical matter, many (not all, but many) of the top blogs do not have comments. If you're going to say these are not "blogs", then the definition is of limited utility, since it excludes many prominent websites which are used as proof of the utility and success of blogs.

    Frankly, the whole blog-comments argument is part of the marketing of blogs as "conversation", of selling it as something it's not.
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    Thanks a lot, Lee. For what it's worth, I thought you did a nice job
    too -- even if Russ doesn't agree :-)

    TDavid: That's a fair point, and I will add a link (I did see that you had provided the php code for Russ to restore old comments) -- and I will clean up your original comment for you if you like.

    Cal and Rob, you are both quite right -- and I'm prepared to agree that a blog without comments is still a blog, and maybe an "old school" one. I guess the point I was trying to make is that I don't think it's a very good one, and that blogs have advanced (and are advancing, with the help of things like CoComment) into becoming more of a conversation, which I think is good. It's as simple as that really.
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    You are quite right, Seth -- many leading "blogs" do not have comments (or a very limited form, like BoingBoing), and I would argue that as far as I'm concerned they are not blogs, or are so different from what the term has come to mean (or perhaps just what I would like it to mean) that they are something else entirely. They are valuable for other reasons, but they are not blogs. Most of the Gawker network and similar online publications would fall into the same category. Online magazines, perhaps -- not blogs.
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    That's fair, Mathew. I do appreciate that the conversation is important, but if someone is broadcasting high quality signal I'm still going to read and enjoy it. I would argue (but I'll give it a rest after this ;-) that blogging is far more about having a voice, not a conversation.
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    I would agree, Rob -- after all, I still go to Dave Winer's blog, and I might even still go to Russell's. But I'm going to think about it differently now, and I think that's important. And hey -- I'm not the blog-definition police (I failed the entry exam). I just think people who ignore the opportunity for conversation miss the point, and that sometimes the "noise" of comments can actually help improve the signal -- kind of like you're doing here :-)
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    i guess i'm on the fence, although i don't receive too many spam comments. i must admit, however, that getting comments is gratifying because it suggests what you're saying is smart enough, dumb enough or provocative enough to make someone do something other than just click away.
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    Thank you Mathew for the edits and adding the link. The trackback now shows.

    BTW, not to get even more picky here but I don't believe I said that just because a blog doesn't have comments it isn't a blog. I'm not sure I can go that far because if one isn't going to moderate the comments (either by oneself or hiring a moderator) you probably should turn them off, lest they be infested with spam or worse.

    I also have seen numerous times where comments were more informational and useful than the blog posts because the author was flat out factually wrong on something and the commenters came in and corrected him/her.

    In a sense commenters can form an editorial board of sorts. Harsh and boorish at times? Sure, but how something is said doesn't alter the accuracy and without comments there is no third party where the information is posted to keep it honest. Lest we forget it is the community at large that fuels the Wikipedia.

    Yeah, somebody else can post about it on their blog and point to it, but why should people give further credit to misinformation? I know on the face to some this might seem like oh big deal, it's just one's personal blog, but in a sense what Mr. Beattie did by removing the people who were keeping him honest in the comments is took away that third party editorial board. Now the search engine is left with only his word -- even when it was wrong and corrected in the comments, but not in the post body -- as the gospel.

    And speaking of SE, that's a whole other can of worms ... I wonder what kind of penalites he will face with that. Comments can help a blog page in the SE because they are further adding to the overall page relevancy. I really think if Mr. Beattie doesn't add back those past comments he is cutting off his nose to spite his face down the road and though he might see his readers that are complaining about this as trying to tell him what to do, maybe he should not so easily and carelessly dismiss their concerns.
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    I guess they're all blogs, one-way or two-way, comments or no, but *not* enabling comments means you are mostly missing out on the opportunity for a conversation. Like this one, say. Sure, sometimes the comments are silly and you think "who ARE these people?" but fact is the world is made up of many voices. You still get to decide who you want to listen to.

    To each their own, but "no comments" seems a bit of shame to me, at a minimum.

    -- Stuart
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    Uh, no comment.
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    nice one, mike.
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    I think it's more of the content/entertainment.
    My favorite blog queerty.com has great content but they don't have comments.
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    No web owner should feel compelled to provide comment space to others. Whether that condition qualifies or disqualifies a web site as a blog or any other name is unimportant.

    Each person is free to start their own web site and do with it as they wish. If they don't want comments to appear there then that is their right. It isn't someone else's right to have comments there.

    When a web author invites comments they should state in the open and ahead of time whether they reserve the right to restrict, modify, or remove comments they don't agree with, so that responders can assess whether they wish to participate in the process.

    Too often, after comments are posted that the author can't accept as part of their mindset, they start disallowing comments or start banning the comments from being posted or former ones being read. Only at that point do the web owners start asserting their rights, rules, etc.

    Bottom line for me is, no web owner should be expected to have their web space controlled by users or readers. But if they allow users to leave their thoughts, then state the guidelines up front so that all understand what the rules are.

    Don
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    I gotta say I can't think of a single blog I read because of the comments. The vast majority of comments simply express an opinion, without conveying information. If I agree with the opinion, I think "Self evident". If I disagree, I think "What an idiot!!"

    The thing to remember about a conversation is that it helps if everyone says something worth listening to.
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    Wow. You got a comment from billg!

    ps: Interesting that your post about "no comments" has gotten *more* comments than any other post you've done, eh? Which is a comment in itself. Or not, depending... ;-)

    Man, I'd really like a pina colada.

    -- Stuart
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    A blog is a blog comments or no comments. Sure you want a conversation to take place in one location, but "conversation tracking" tools is the new search. Some might not want to deal with trolls and spam and others just don't care what others think. In any event, turn them off or on, I still will read a blog sans comments.
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    Don:

    Thanks for the comment. Those are some good points. Just for the record, I said right off the top that it is Russell's blog and he is free to do whatever he wants. And I don't want to get all wrapped up in who gets to define what is or isn't a blog. I just think people who don't allow comments are kind of missing out on the bigger picture.

    Billg:

    I think you need to find some new blogs to read :-) And it also sounds like you have pretty high standards when it comes to conversations. Maybe you need to loosen up a little bit.
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    I've often wondered about this, because it bothers me when our local newspapers have a "blog" up about an event (e.g. our recent elections). It amounts to merely a group of columnists who write a brief opinion piece once a day during the pre-election period. No comments, no links to other sites, no RSS feed, no different to an editorial. They're just using the term because it's "cool", not because they're entering into the blogosphere and engaging with others.