As I (and several others) have pointed out recently, there’s been a slow death of discourse in blogs. Most commenters either agree with the author openly, disagree vehemently, or use the opportunity as a chance to pose their own pet theories (as a ploy to drive traffic to their own blogs). What’s often missing is any critical evaluation of what the author actually wrote, or any discussion that adds further value to the post for the author or its readers.
Now I’m realizing the problem goes one step deeper: in many cases, blog commenters don’t even understand the post they’re commenting on.
What Women’s Tennis Can Teach Us About Inanity
Case in point: mere months after women’s tennis star Kim Clijsters returned to the court following a 2 year motherhood-induced absence from the sport, she managed to win the US Open, becoming the first mother in 30 years to do so. Guardian UK columnist Anne Perkinssummed up the general consensus about Clisters’s victory on her blog: half the populace is using it as vindication for working moms everywhere, while others see it as an (extreme) example of women forsaking their roles as mothers in order to cling to their own extra-parental identities.*
And yet, to see the comments on Perkins’s blog, you’d think her “readers” never actually read the article at all.
Instead, they misinterpret the examples Perkins uses in her article, admit that they don’t understand what she meant (and then digress wildly), and even accuse the author of making the very point that she explicitly speaks out against. This doesn’t take into account the other commenters who simply call the article “rubbish” and its author an “intellectually limited feminist,” or who use their pixels to rant about motherhood, feminism, sexism, the state of child psychology in the UK or anything else that seems to be on their minds — as though any blog post on the web is really an excuse for anyone who wanders by to leave a tenuously-related comment.
Plays Unwell with Others
As much as I’d like to be amazed or irritated by this behavior, I’m not. Staying on topic has never been a strong point of humanity, nor have we ever been particularly judicious with our fists, mouths or procreative organs. Which makes me wonder… as with the state of social media in general, are we expecting too much of blog readers?
Time is tight, and most of us are lucky if anyone reads our blogs at all, much less leaves a comment. Can people truly be expected to read, process and add to a conversation on their own time and of their own volition while simultaneously juggling a dozen other slightly-completed tasks? Isn’t yet another stale “you’re absolutely right” or “you talentless idiot” better than nothing at all?
Should we bloggers (and blog readers) be thankful merely to be half-spammed?
And, if that’s the best we can do, why blog at all? Why not just… write? What good is catering to an audience if it doesn’t improve the experience?
This reminds me of a post I just read on Ethical Corporation, in which the author bemoans the lack of critical thinking and analysis in sustainability. I think it applies to blogs in general, like your thoughts here.
I'd rather get no comments at all than the inane compliments or insults you're referring to. When I do get comments that expand the conversation, it tells me the post was worthwhile. It helps me develop future content in that direction. So whether I get comments or not, it's helpful.
PS: I realize that I have posted two comments with broken links. That has not been an attempt at anonymity... but rather a careless late night mistake times two. :)
Chris Hall
Yea I don't get too many comments, but I also don't get it when a comment tries to misinterpret what I'm writing about either...
I do think that there is something to be said for the commenter that continually comments on a blog. I want to say that those are the the people that your messages resonates with on a recurring basis. They're the ones who want to have a relationship with you, in some hopefully non-creepy way. ;)
Those are the people I'm looking for, because I too am looking for discussion around the topics I write about.
Well, you could just do what I do, and disable your wordpress spam filter. You get tonnes of comments, many of them in Russian as well!
(heh, I don't really do this, but beggars can't be choosers and all that jazz)
JoanHorton
Maybe the old saying "If you can't say anything nice . . ." should be amended for the blog world to "If you can't say anything thought-provoking then don't say anything at all!"
But seriously Justin, I think you have a great point. People will use comments for their own particular purpose. The question is at what point does discourse cease, and people are just shouting at themselves?
But I tend not to be as pessimistic. We are seeing social media evolve, and the best sites and systems will be those that persist. So in the long run, I think we will see niches emerge that suit people's needs, whether it be for self-promotion, vociferous ranting, or intelligent conversation.
The quality of YouTube comments is worse than that of blogs in general because people are commenting on something visual, rather than something they've just read and (allegedly) considered. The bar is so low there, it's underground.
Forget using captcha; is there a way bloggers can require people to pass a 20 question excerpt from the SATs before they're allowed to comment? (Yes, I know this makes me elitist; I'd rather have one intelligent discussion than 20 "hey, good job!" platitudes.)
Justin, you really shouldn't be surprised that people leave blog comments without reading your articles. I mean, RTFA-like comments have been appearing since the Slashdot days.
...okay, enough, enough. I agree with you. I'm not sure why this happens, either. What I do know is that generally, as time goes on, comment quality tends to trend down. I tend to read more aggregators than individual blogs, but it happened with Slashdot, it happened with Digg, and it's been happening to Reddit for quite a while.
Comments Are Overrated
As I (and several others) have pointed out recently, there’s been a slow death of discourse in blogs. Most commenters either agree with the author openly, disagree vehemently, or use the opportunity as a chance to pose their own pet theories (as a ploy to drive traffic to their own blogs). What’s often missing is any critical evaluation of what the author actually wrote, or any discussion that adds further value to the post for the author or its readers.
Now I’m realizing the problem goes one step deeper: in many cases, blog commenters don’t even understand the post they’re commenting on.
What Women’s Tennis Can Teach Us About Inanity
Case in point: mere months after women’s tennis star Kim Clijsters returned to the court following a 2 year motherhood-induced absence from the sport, she managed to win the US Open, becoming the first mother in 30 years to do so. Guardian UK columnist Anne Perkins summed up the general consensus about Clisters’s victory on her blog: half the populace is using it as vindication for working moms everywhere, while others see it as an (extreme) example of women forsaking their roles as mothers in order to cling to their own extra-parental identities.*
And yet, to see the comments on Perkins’s blog, you’d think her “readers” never actually read the article at all.
Instead, they misinterpret the examples Perkins uses in her article, admit that they don’t understand what she meant (and then digress wildly), and even accuse the author of making the very point that she explicitly speaks out against. This doesn’t take into account the other commenters who simply call the article “rubbish” and its author an “intellectually limited feminist,” or who use their pixels to rant about motherhood, feminism, sexism, the state of child psychology in the UK or anything else that seems to be on their minds — as though any blog post on the web is really an excuse for anyone who wanders by to leave a tenuously-related comment.
Plays Unwell with Others
As much as I’d like to be amazed or irritated by this behavior, I’m not. Staying on topic has never been a strong point of humanity, nor have we ever been particularly judicious with our fists, mouths or procreative organs. Which makes me wonder… as with the state of social media in general, are we expecting too much of blog readers?
Time is tight, and most of us are lucky if anyone reads our blogs at all, much less leaves a comment. Can people truly be expected to read, process and add to a conversation on their own time and of their own volition while simultaneously juggling a dozen other slightly-completed tasks? Isn’t yet another stale “you’re absolutely right” or “you talentless idiot” better than nothing at all?
Should we bloggers (and blog readers) be thankful merely to be half-spammed?
And, if that’s the best we can do, why blog at all? Why not just… write? What good is catering to an audience if it doesn’t improve the experience?
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Tags: blog, Blogging, comments, sports