COMEBACK KID. Mark Jurkowitz has a nice piece in today's Globe on Paul Sullivan, the Lowell Sun columnist who's taking over for the late David Brudnoy at WBZ Radio (AM 1030) even as he battles brain cancer. Sullivan is a good guy, and Media Log wishes him the best.
A COMMENT ON COMMENTS. I don't remember exactly when it was that I turned on Blogger.com's "comment" feature for Media Log - sometime in 2004, I think. But I have been concerned from the beginning that something would happen that would make me turn it off.
We're not there yet. However, I would like to suggest three guidelines. I would make them mandatory, but I can't - Blogger doesn't let me screen comments beforehand. (Just as well, I suppose, given how much time it would take.)
1. Post your comment once. In the past couple of days I've seen instances of people posting exactly the same comment two, three, or more times, no doubt because it didn't show up instantly. Calm down - it works. If you don't see it right away, you will in a few minutes.
2. No anonymous comments, please. Blogger recently upgraded its comments feature so that you can enter your name even if you're not a registered user. On-the-record comments are so much more credible than anonymous ones.
3. Don't insist on having the last word all the time. Point #1 is about comments that are literally repetitive. But let's try to watch comments that are substantively repetitive as well. You made your point. We got it. Don't be boring.
Many of the best blogs out there do not have an automatic comments feature. Josh Marshall doesn't. Kaus doesn't. Alterman doesn't. (Remember, he chooses the letters.) Somerby doesn't. I happen to like comments, but only if they add some value.
Thank you.
3 comments:
Apolgies to Media Log for an earlier mutiple post. FYI - the problem was that I got a "page cannot be displayed" error when I hit the post button, not that my post didn't appear right away.
-M. Garrity
I recently put comments up on Politizine after people requested it. Before I did though, I had a poll about it, which approved of the idea. I think it is a good idea to accept comments because it allows someone to participate in the conversation you start with your blog, while at the same time leading the reader to another location on the Web about the subject. However, I can see where on Media Log too many - or a bunch of "ridiculous" for lack of a better word - anonymous comments would get annoying.
Hmmm...
Anonymity tends to be more a dodge of inane spams than a cover for more nefarious behavior, I think. At least speaking for myself.
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