One of my favorite nonprofit tech consultants and brilliant trainer and dear colleague, John Kenyon, has launched a blog! And, I'm so honored to be featured in his about photo - that's from last year's LASA conference where I had a chance to do a video blog post with John about his thoughts on video blogging. John is at LASA right now. He wrote a blog post about his session and I was going to comment, but looks like he turned comments off.
It made me wonder why? Concerns about spam, criticism, or email overload? I think that comments are just as if not more than valuable the writing itself. (I just did a training on that very topic)
What is your feeling about the value of comments to blogging?
I'm on the record (in an interview last fall) as having said that it's Ok to leave comments closed at the beginning, just to get nervous bloggers blogging... and then to open them after a short time to prove that the sky doesn't fall. Do I still think this is true?
You know, I just have a hard time taking a purist stance on this. If the fear of negative comments is the only ting keeping you from blogging, I think it's fine to just go ahead and blog for a while with comments closed, get comfortable with your writing voice, get into the rhythm of posting regularly.
But I think the case should really be made to my hypothetical, nervous blogger that it only takes one or two positive comments to really fire you up and get you hooked on that positive feedback loop.
In short, opening up comments is what makes a blog a blog. It's what makes the author a blogger, and not just a writer. (Yes, I did just elevate "bloggers" over traditional "writers." So comment back at me. I'm ready.) Keep comments closed if all you want to do is play air guitar, but realize that nobody ever became Eric Clapton that way.
Posted by: Beth Dunn | February 29, 2008 at 11:15 AM
Thanks for catching that Beth K, much more to do with using a new tool and getting all the steps down while keeping an eye on content and images and best practices. Thanks to Beth D for the understanding comment as well.
Comments now OPEN on my site.
Posted by: John Kenyon | March 01, 2008 at 07:30 AM
John,
Beth D wrote a great follow up post.
I left a comment adding the point about enabling comments as the default might be closed.
John, the next think about is how you will manage and respond to comments once you they start coming. In typepad, you can direct to your email. i do that but with a filter into a folder. I am now getting so many comments that I don't want to loose important threads of knowledge in my messy inbox - so trying now to respond out here.
Posted by: Beth Kanter | March 01, 2008 at 08:06 AM