Zadi said:

I'm posting this "comment" to let you know that I'm glad you put these thoughts down on screenpaper. Though I already like you, so what I'm posting is not that valuable to you, other than having a tick mark to let you know someone cares enough to comment - which should make your ego feel better, no? ;)

I want to think more about this myself. I know we've been discussing it ad nauseam. Right now it's all we got, but yea, there should be accountability. And there needs to be more reasoning. It's only the first step. What's next? xo

Bonny said:

Right now I like approving each comment before it will post.. of course that works for the present situation. Maybe for shows, like Ze Frank, with the plethora of comments made everyday, some sort of filter that can sort certain comments for approval would help. That way, the comments that make it past the filter will post immediately, and hopefully very few will need to be manually approved. That could possibly keep out some crap, and might be worth it for people who post and don't have a way to keep watch on their forum/comments page all day and night. I know when NoodleScar has had hellish comments, they usually had some rawnchy words in them that I wouldn't want on my site anyway. Maybe, though, commenters might not like their posts being held up for using certain words, when they are in an okay context. I feel very strongly that the word "twit", used in a few of the comments about Amanda, should just be banned. It seems it is only used by pompous uppety jerks who think they know somethin, but they're just big jerks. There is no point in having an angry or uninvited hateful comment, that is what e-mail and hate websites are for.

I agree that anonymous comments should go away. It takes away the quality of the site's content. I usually disregard comments if there are no links to communicate back to the speaker. They seem as fake as wax fruit.

Good topic. You got me thinking.

Rick Rey said:

Great article, Steve. I wrote a response on my blog in case you don't get the ping.

Update: Here's the link to Rick's blog post. Some good stuff there. - Steve

Jeremy hunsinger said:

accountability has no necessary relation to community, it may be present, it may not. two things are necessary for community, a shared space (this may be imaginary, virtual, etc.) and the capacity to exclude others. once you establish the capacity to identify that 'this is us' and 'they are them' then you have the locus communus that establishes community in people's minds... holding something in common, this 'us'-ness in relation to that 'them'-ness.

steve garfield said:

Hey Steve,
You say about "Comments are not a community":

"Mostly it's an outlet for friends to say nice things about each other"

It's more than that though.

Comments build a community.

The comments on a blog allow a community of readers to talk amongst each other. There is a conversation happening on blog comments among a community of readers.

It's happening on my mom's blog:

http://mymomsblog.blogspot.com/

And over on Ronni Bennett's blog:

http://ronnibennett.typepad.com/weblog/

It also happens amongst their community on all of their own personal blogs.

The people who are commenting are mostly elders and they are discovering each other via blogs.

These community members get to know each other via comments.

Take away comments on blogs and and all you have left are a bunch of people reading words.

Steve Woolf said:

Bonny - filters could be a solution, but only for keeping out offensive comments. I'd really like to see an overhaul of the way commenting systems work so that the conversation started about a post like this one can flow in a more natural way. I think accountability is the very first step there.

Rick - thanks for the response. I will add my $ .02 to your post, as well.

Jeremy - I hear what you're saying, but I don't think it's just closing the doors and defining a shared space anymore that define a community. I don't really think the door should be closed actually -- but I do think that the free ride of anonymous comments doesn't build anything. Look at the comments here -- everyone has (voluntarily) posted a name and provided contact information to associate with their thoughts and opinions. To me that's a sign of a community -- where people know each other in some way, shape, or form and have accountability for what they say.

Steve - I think comments can build a community. I truly do. But they don't make one in an of itself. On your Mom's blog, there's an accountability system in place because of the way Blogger requires a login. I think this is a key step in community. How can we interact with each other if there are people hiding behind anonymity? Maybe anonymous comments can be allowed, but they aren't giving the same viewing priority as accountable comments, I don't know. I'm still thinking through some ideas to lay out in a later post.

I guess what I'm getting at with this post is that the community aspect of video blogs is the most interesting and important part to me. And I think current linear commenting systems with anonymity are poor excuses for community. I'd like to see some real progress in the way we interact with each other beyond arcane wiki tags and anonymous comments.

I'll have more thoughts on all this in a forthcoming post.

Clintus said:

Steve this is a great post. And you in your last comment you basically say what I was thinking when I read it. Comments can build a community. A community on your site, a community on a topic, a community of people who share the same passion. I would have to say that 75% of all the blogs/vlogs/shows that I visit on a daily basis now I found from comments on other people's sites. Micki Krimmel made a great point on the best damn tech show this week that there needs to be general profile site or tool that everyone uses. It puts all your stuff, (pics, videos, sites, profiles) into one login and password that no matter where you are you can log into and there it is. I think 30 boxes is attempting this but it's not quite there yet. I agree with you on so many points. Another great example why you should be blogging.

Ronni Bennett said:

God knows I could be wrong about this, but I wonder how the question of comments and community (or not) and conversation/debate/etc. might break down by age groups.

My blog and Millie Garfield's blog, which Steve Garfield references above, and other elderblogs are aimed at people 50 and older and although I have some 20- and 30-something readers, the community at Time Goes By is primarily older people.

Yes, sometimes the comments lean toward "nice blog today," etc., but most often, meaningful conversation takes place. And all but never, compared to the younger bloggers I read, are there pointless, inane or insulting comments. The most recernt one, from an anoymous reader you signed him- or herself "youngandbeautiful", just bleated "...because you're old and ugly."

It was such a rarity, that I left it up just foir laughs and as a reminder that it's good grow old and grow out of such stupid behavior. It's blog graffiti in a way, isn't it. And you'd think these days (compared to my youth) there is so much opportunity to express oneself that hit-and-run insults would have disappeared.

My too-long point is that the problems you point out may be a manifestation of youth. On blogs like mine and those of other elders that mostly don't interest young folks, we talkin' and arguing (in the best sense) and debating and, as Steve notes, becoming friends with one another through our blogs. We just don't have the kind of comment problems you speak of.

Jeremy hunsinger said:

I don't think comments build anything either... comments are just communications minimally, at most they are contributions, but they almost always come from the outside of the blog space, outside the community/individual who have the blog, though they might be strongly related to that space. you can use comments to build communities, to do outreach into communities, but as long as they are comments and not blog posts, they are separate and not equal, different and other, thus not 'part of' the blogger's blog, but an extraneous addition,

mike said:

So I read Rick's post - and then your post, I did this backwards, I guess. :)

But like I said on Rick's site, I honestly haven't given this much thought before - it didn't really jump out at me that the current commenting system is not a very good one.

I agree about the anonymous thing - did you watch the 'Best Damn Tech Show, Period' with Micki in it? She talked about wanting a universal profile, that followed you around the net, no matter where you went. It's an interesting idea - and something that might help put the community in social-sites (like blogs).

Steve Rhodes said:

Yes, comments on blogs often don't work.

One of the biggest problems is they don't scale.

On large blogs, if you don't post quickly, your comment might not be read. And people who don't feel part of the community might not even begin to read what can be a few hundred comments.

I got used to the Well where there is a relatively easy way to go back and look at a conversation from the beginning if you want to.

And everyone has an identity (almost always linked to a real name).

It would help if more people both knew some history and some of the weblog tools companies devoted more resources to their comments systems (beyond combatting spam).

Howard's book, The Virtual Community is online

http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/

And this long Wired article which was expanded slightly into a book

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.05/ff_well_pr.html

And the site for Derek's book

http://designforcommunity.com

(not hopefully the urls work - another problem - sometimes comments work with html, sometimes links becomes live, sometimes both, sometimes neither - and the web without links isn't the web).

missb said:

I'm right there with you re: anonymous commenting. What's the point? If someone is too embarrassed or frightened to stand behind what they say then they shouldn't say it. It's chicken-y (not like soup, but rather like cowardly).

I think that comments can aid in building a larger sort of "network" as opposed to a real "community". The people who abuse comments sections and use them for ongoing conversations tend to be the most negative commenters in the first place. I feel like these are people who spend all day doing this on blogs all over the web.

They are Losers.

Rita Florez said:

Steve,

I couldn't agree with you more. Comments absolutely do not create a community because of the issues with anonymity, the technology and the host of ideas that were presented.

I'd also like to add something to your idea: As of right now, people think that having comments also makes the site more interactive in some way. Just because I'm sitting here and typing this comment in and clicking "post your comment," it doesn't mean that you and I are interacting in a meaningful way.

NEXT: In your post you said, "At BEST we are seeing rehashes of different technologies cobbled together." Understanding Media (Marshall McLuhan, 1960s) posits this same idea about media. He says that every time new media come into being, they're just the old media retooled. He uses TV as the example. TV, at first was repurposed radio shows and compared to the already established medium that was the movie. It took years before it came into its own as television, which resembles neither the radio or the movies.

The Internet is so new, and no one knows whether the blog will be around in ten year or replaced by other technology in the next five minutes. We're going through the beginning stages of a new medium taking shape, which in 10 or 15 years will have its own identity.

Just some thoughts on the post there.

Bill C. said:

I agree with Micki's / Rick's idea about having a system that unifies comments and other things. You can't go anywhere and see someone's "commenting history". There's no authentication. Even if you require someone to input information, they can put in fake information and then type whatever they were going to type in the first place.

The other purpose for unification is that once you post a comment somewhere, it's lost forever. The only options you have are if the site will email you when someone comments on a post you commented on or if you keep every post you comment on as a bookmark and keep checking back. It's not like you can even pull up YOUR OWN commenting history to track your own contributions to conversations.

This is why commenting, as-is, is ineffective as a tool to catalyze conversations. Even if you add something to the post, there's no guarantee that anyone that visited the thread X months ago is going to come back and read what you posted. In a lot of cases, even the very next day after something was posted, you can leave a comment that the original poster will never respond to because he/she's already concentrating on the current blog of the day. I think a lot of opportunities for continuation are missed out because of this inefficient system.

Sylva1n said:

Hi,

I'm Sylva1n. You dont know me, I dont know you. But I read what you wrote, and now I can put my grain of salt.

First, I totally agree, linear comments are an heresy, threads sould be the norm. And a 'quote' function too.

On banning anonymity, I certainly not agree. You should know the the most precious resource of ye olde internet: The Other.
You know, that guy that knows things, find you discussion while surfing (thanks Google), read it, and wants to make a remark, correct a mistake or add precious infos. Well, that guy probably have a life, and wont take 5 min to register if typing his comment takes less than 2 minutes. On the other hand, people trolling often have no life (MissB called them loosers and she's probably right), and wont bother registering, filling forms, answering captchas, etc, just to piss you off.
For more on the topic, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2channel#Anonymous_posting
Their equation is simple: to avoid trolling avoid egos, to avoid egos enforce anonymity. Problem on blog comments is that the blog owner is a massive ego-target ...

For spam and basic trolling, a topic-sensitive (is the comment related to the commented post) bayesian filter combining IP, post length and keywords, plus flood prevention, captcha and manual moderation should keep you comment pages fresh and tidy

That my POV, but I guess it depends on what you want your comments to be: a way to giggle with kinda-known e-friends, or a way to exchange ideas.
A system that could do both (build a community of identifiable and accountable e-people AND allows Others to add some info) will be perfect.

On the topic of 'unification' I would like to rise some practical concerns: let's say my name is Frank B. If I register to be part of the sleeplessnights community, I would probably be able to post as Frank or FrankB. But if a join a massive unified 'identity bank' I would probably end up as Frank591 or FrankyFrank1975 or an other crappy pseudo like that.

And, BTW, why do you want to know my opinion expressed elsewhere about handguns or unicorns when I'm posting a comment about the iPhone ?!?