Comments Threads
Given that I have no ‘regulars’, and thus can offend none of them, I thought it might be useful to speculation on the nature of Internet comments threads. First off, definitions.
The above capture1 is taken from a previous post of mine2.
The top blue section is the ‘post’ and the bottom red section (titled ‘discussion’) is the comments area.
The ideal scenario would be a blog with an audience that is broadly representative of society as a whole and with all of the audience equally likely to comment on a particular post. This is rarely if ever observed. As blog’s move from the ‘centre’ their audience composition changes to reflect the blog authors particular ideology.
The worst scenario is one where the blog author and their audience become a mechanism for mutually reinforcing each others beliefs. I’ve seen this occur a number of times before. Both groups, the audience and the blog author(s), fail to encourage each other to critically assess their own beliefs and eventually the blog becomes a back-slapping exercise. As it takes begins to take on these features, regular contributors that are not of the ‘right’ ideology comment less frequently and eventually stop commenting at all, because their contributions are ignored, mocked or lost among a mountain of opposing comments.
A good blog should encourage a diversity of contributions from readers and use the composition of the comments sections as a benchmark for how well they are doing that.
- Taken with the excellent ‘thumbalizr‘ tool [↩]
- And the only one so far to generate comments
[↩]
Related Posts
- The Five Primary Colours of Morality
- Liberty and Encryption
- Going Into Battle Half-cocked
- The Extent to which People Lie
- Secular and Ecclesiastical Conceptions of Authority
Comments
2 Responses to “Comments Threads”
Leave a Reply
Dear Tysen,
Speaking of comments, thanks for leaving one on my blog. I am very glad to make the aquaintance of yet another Melbourne blogger–a “Once” Catholic, if not a Present Catholic! Perhaps a “Once and Future Catholic”? As you say, it is good to have visitors and commentators who do not completely share the point of view of the blogger.
David.
Thanks for your response.
Perhaps I will one day rejoin the Church. Unlike many ex-Catholics, I don’t have anything against the Church, my issues are more with general concepts such as the existence or non-existence of God.
If I come to believe in God again I’ll almost surely re-enter into communion with the Catholic Church.