Comments are the lifeblood of most blogs, especially those of us who write about social media. (Some marketers like Seth Godin opt not to enable commenting, but like them or hate them, he has his reasons.)
While my peers and I would continue churning content even if nobody adds comments, we get a thrill of excitement and a boost of the ego when we see someone was inspired enough to take five minutes out of their day to say something and create a conversation. It is for this shared excitable and egoistic reason that we enable comments, hoping someone like you would add a comment. At least, that’s my thought.
“It seems odd for those writing on social media or the future of media and brands, and how it’s now about brands having transparency and two-way communication, not to have comments,” wrote Rick Hardy in a comment to Mitch Joel last year.
Indeed.
But it’s more than merely offering the ability to add a comment. It’s also about allowing anyone to add a comment without requiring them to register to add a comment.
By way of example, I confess to asking you to register on AriWriter last night — though I changed my mind five minutes later.
Taking a look at the first comment of yesterday’s article about electromyography, you can see what you were faced with had you visited around 7 p.m.
If you clicked the “log in” link, you would see a new page showing this:
I thought that would be cool. I thought Everton Blair was on the money when I found his August 22, 2009 blog post about adding Twitter and Facebook support to Wordpress. I thought it would be a nifty addition to enable you to connect to my blog with your Twitter or Facebook account, or through a profile on Yahoo, Google, Blogger, or OpenID. I thought the RPX plugin would be a great way to allow you share your comments with your friends and colleagues on those systems.
But I was wrong. I remembered when you left me almost 30 comments in November 2008 reinforcing each other about disliking comment registration systems. You didn’t want it then and I presume you don’t want it now.
Everton Blair didn’t want it, either. A day after installing the plugin, he removed it and switched to Disqus instead. Like Danny Brown’s reasons for switching from Disqus back to the default Wordpress commenting system, I figure I’ll stay put where I am, stay away from login scripts and seek out other ways to extend the conversation.
I had to try it. Curiosity got the better of me, if even for five minutes.
Do you forgive me?
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Seth already has a following so he doesn’t need anyone to stroke his ego.
Anyway, Seth likes to be different. I believe that he knows his traffic suffers a little by not allowing comments but he doesn’t care. He has enough ventures to keep his bank account growing.
For the most of us, our potential is in the growth stage. We have to continue to build a sense of community and attract new readers.
Ari: Seth has a subtle yet effective way of generating commentary. Rather than enabling comments on his blog he pushes the Digg button. It is one of the few ways you can give feedback on what he has written. I live in Israel and get an RSS feed of Seth’s posts. Yesterday he did one around 5:30am EST, which is lunchtime for me. It gave me a bit of a jolt to be the first person to Digg his post. Along with my Digg, I left a comment. Not to say that Seth is jumping back onto Digg and responding, but it is a way to give him feedback. As for the multiple registration options, I LOVE these. They are so useful, especially if I am a first time visitor to a site. How do you get this enabled in WordPress? As I have been getting more serious about my two blog projects, I think it is time to get off the default templates and start using something a little more robust (maybe Thesis?). Any suggestions of how to do this and how much it would cost?
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Mike, I think there is a difference between feedback and conversations. Bloggers enable comments for conversations and viewpoints on the post they’ve just written.
I find most of my feedback is generated in email responses or @replies on Twitter.
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Why do you want to register on a blog? I’m confused by your sentence there. As for paid Wordpress themes, I’d suggest either Thesis (what I use) or Headway (what Danny and John use). There are pros and cons of each, but they’re significantly more robust and offer more features and customization than the factory themes.
Ari, you are absolutely right.
I had a blog where people had to register to make comments. What happened? Spammers registered using a Yahoo or Gmail account, and then spammed with just as ridiculous spam comments as would otherwise be sorted by the WordPress plugin, Akismet.
So since it doesn’t save any time I have also opted in for letting people comment without having to register first.
But good points. Especially the fact that it is nice when people take out time in their busy schedules to leave some feedback that tells us people appreciate what was written.
Keep up the good work.
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Good point with spammers registering. They could still be trapped by Akismet, etc., but why make it easier?
I think that some of the commenting systems, like allowing people to sign in using their Facebook or Twitter may actually encourage more comments, as people may have a Facebook but not a website, and sometimes I get the feeling that people without a website do not feel compelled to comment (as you will noticed that most comments on blogs are linked to a site, unless the blog is strictly personal and it is someone’s friends commenting).
But as always, you never know when you have a one time visitor who wants to make a comment, but doesn’t want to go through the registration process. While getting people to register may prove who is a loyal reader of the site and determined to comment no matter what, I still wouldn’t want to miss out on comments from the visitors who may never come by again, but have something to say on a post.
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I think it was a good move. I know that I don’t leave comments anywhere where I have to log in.
In regards to Kristi’s comment that most people without a website don’t feel compelled to comment, this is not always true. I have a blog where I have posted some articles that help people to resolve an issue I’ve had and all the comments left on those articles are from others who had the same issue. Almost all of those did not leave an url in the name field.
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I’m with Sire, I don’t leave comments anywhere I have to log in.
I always try to leave good comments, so if I get filtered out as spam, I don’t come back.
Also, I’m leaning away from commenting anywhere requiring moderation. It’s simply not necessary anymore with the right plugins for WordPress.
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I leave comments on some sites requiring registration, but only on places that 1) inspire me to go through that hoop, or 2) compel me to believe a comment could lead to a link back here. This is primarily on ZDNet blogs and some newspapers, e.g. the Guardian.
To me a blog implies a two way interaction. If a site doesn’t have comments or they think their site is so wonderful you have to register I don’t bother. I don’t see why people are impressed with Seth’s “blog” at all.
thanks
On a more positive note I agree with the part about the excitement and feeling you get when you read the feedback. Yesterday I took a risk and wrote about a well known person I was worried because people can be brutal online but when I came back and read what people wrote I was touched. I wouldn’t of wanted to miss that it meant a lot to me.
Nice work on the post I like the post and way you linked to others are references
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I’m glad you kept it open. Like you I will only comment on a site requiring registration if I feel it is really important to get my reaction posted. Otherwise I don’t want to add yet another username and login to the mix. Systems that use OpenID or existing credentials can be easier, but also confusing–one has to remember which login you decided to use the first time if you come back and comment again.
That said I don’t blame Seth for turning off comments. For him it would likely be a big time management issue since comments do require a certain amount of care and feeding. PZ Myers on Pharyngula has been fine-tuning his commenting system over the past few months as well. He’s a biologist who runs one of the most active blogs on Atheism and evolution (also featuring pictures of cute cephalopods) so he gets inundated with comments from fans and enemies alike.
To keep it manageable he added a registration system. But since some people have problems with it, he occasionally turns it off so people can comment more freely. Then when it gets overwhelming he makes a post announcing he’s about to turn it back on. Since it is not unusual for him to get hundreds of comments on a post, and some of these are hateful, I think his system makes sense.
As I’ve only had a few posts with more than 100 comments, and don’t write about much that is controversial, I leave mine open.
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I think if you hadn’t of switched you would have lost a lot of comments. I don’t comment anywhere I have to register. I even get frustrated commenting on Blogger blogs when I’m required to sign in.
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I agree with Gabe .
Seth uses his site as a content distribution platform – he’s not interested in a dialogue.
Guys like him and Guy Kawasaki are in a different league. Comparing him with regular joe’s is a non-starter, to be honest.
As regards registration… well, if you want to increase your ‘followers’, then you need to remove as many barriers as possible. The last thing I want is another site looking for my details.
Example?
I wanted to post something on the Daily Mail site yesterday. It appear that you only need to enter you name & email to register (which I did) and then post. But, after you do this, a nag page comes up forcing you to register for the site as well. A little underhand, I thought.
PS – is fairness to Seth, he does reply to emails, which not everyone so famous does.
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Well! If you are on log in system then I never try to drop a comment. I personally don’t feel ok to register unless I’m on a forum. I visit over 40-50 blogs per day but only visit 2-3 forum. That stat may clear you, how much I hate log in system when I want to comment. Thanks for stepping back and giving me opportunity to drop my 2 cent.
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I don’t think registration of the way you proposed it what make much a difference to me as I could just log in using my Yahoo details.
However, a few sites – like SearchEngineLand – do require complete registration and that what make me think twice about contributing to a site that had that policy.
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Hi.
The problem with less comment in my blog is that most of my visitors are not blogger.
They just come for information. They will asked a question when they don’t know about something.
When I see a blog or site need to register before I can make comment, I certainly will not be registering at all. Unless, I really want to comment on something.
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I prefer to give comment in someone’s post without register first, because filling the registration form takes time and feels not simple. There are many spam filters, so why need to worry about spam comments. Using a user friendly comment form that doesn’t require the visitors to register will make the visitors eager to leave a comment
Personally, I don’t care what ‘league’ you are in, turning comments off is snobby and gives the reader the idea that the writer has absolutely no interest in interaction or conversation, it is one sided.
If I have to login, I leave, period. I really think that blogging has been steering away from it’s roots of what Web 2.0 means (if you don’t know look it up on Wiki, there is a nice description), it is about interaction.
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