Comments on: Comments don’t scale? http://www.completetosh.com/weblog/2005/05/24/comments-dont-scale/ Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:42:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Jackie Danicki http://www.completetosh.com/weblog/2005/05/24/comments-dont-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-377 Jackie Danicki Mon, 30 May 2005 17:29:18 +0000 http://69.89.31.92/~complew7/?p=256#comment-377 This is a shame. I visited the Ventura County Star offices in April and at that time, Alicia Hoffman (the online editor) and Howard Owens (head of new media) were hopeful that they wouldn't have to eliminate comments. I think the problem could be easily dealt with by taking it out of the realm of the online editor's responsibilities and having someone - an intern, even - moderate the comments and deal with IP banning and such. This is a shame. I visited the Ventura County Star offices in April and at that time, Alicia Hoffman (the online editor) and Howard Owens (head of new media) were hopeful that they wouldn’t have to eliminate comments. I think the problem could be easily dealt with by taking it out of the realm of the online editor’s responsibilities and having someone - an intern, even - moderate the comments and deal with IP banning and such.

]]> By: Ewan McIntosh http://www.completetosh.com/weblog/2005/05/24/comments-dont-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-376 Ewan McIntosh Sun, 29 May 2005 16:24:03 +0000 http://69.89.31.92/~complew7/?p=256#comment-376 I've been developing blogs at Musselburgh Grammar School for 18 months now and have always had open comments. We've just had to trust the pupils not to abuse the facility. After nearly 100,000 hits on the blogs in this time and thousands of comments I have only had to remove around a dozen for being a bit off the mark. It's rare that they're racist or offensive to an individual. What really gets on my goat are other educational 'bloggers' taking off the comment facility for their students. They then clamour to talk about how wonderful their blogs are when, in fact, they are just doing what they have done all along as classroom teachers - YOU'LL listen while I TELL you what I have to say. What's the point? Pupils often have more interesting things to say than the teachers! Rant over. The French school trip live blog that we have just run (with Podcast, too) went very well and had 300 comments from the whole community for our 40 kids. Not one has had to be removed. Maybe Musselburgh really is the 'honest toon'. I’ve been developing blogs at Musselburgh Grammar School for 18 months now and have always had open comments. We’ve just had to trust the pupils not to abuse the facility. After nearly 100,000 hits on the blogs in this time and thousands of comments I have only had to remove around a dozen for being a bit off the mark. It’s rare that they’re racist or offensive to an individual.

What really gets on my goat are other educational ‘bloggers’ taking off the comment facility for their students. They then clamour to talk about how wonderful their blogs are when, in fact, they are just doing what they have done all along as classroom teachers - YOU’LL listen while I TELL you what I have to say. What’s the point? Pupils often have more interesting things to say than the teachers!

Rant over. The French school trip live blog that we have just run (with Podcast, too) went very well and had 300 comments from the whole community for our 40 kids. Not one has had to be removed. Maybe Musselburgh really is the ‘honest toon’.

]]> By: Giles http://www.completetosh.com/weblog/2005/05/24/comments-dont-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-375 Giles Thu, 26 May 2005 00:02:03 +0000 http://69.89.31.92/~complew7/?p=256#comment-375 My "How to catch mice" page ended up being the top hit for that phrase on Google (still is, I think). The comments went crazy. A whole community of mouse-hunters was revealed, engaging in really open and personable conversations ... two people even formed a romantic attachment as a direct result of meeting eachother in the page's comments (honest, I'm not making this up). Eventually the spam started to creep in and I couldn't keep on top of it, so after many thousands of comments I switched it all off, and the comments are no more. Pity though, it was fun reading about everyone's mouse-chasing adventures. My “How to catch mice” page ended up being the top hit for that phrase on Google (still is, I think). The comments went crazy. A whole community of mouse-hunters was revealed, engaging in really open and personable conversations … two people even formed a romantic attachment as a direct result of meeting eachother in the page’s comments (honest, I’m not making this up).

Eventually the spam started to creep in and I couldn’t keep on top of it, so after many thousands of comments I switched it all off, and the comments are no more. Pity though, it was fun reading about everyone’s mouse-chasing adventures.

]]> By: Mull http://www.completetosh.com/weblog/2005/05/24/comments-dont-scale/comment-page-1/#comment-374 Mull Wed, 25 May 2005 23:28:45 +0000 http://69.89.31.92/~complew7/?p=256#comment-374 As tempting as it is to write a silly comment here, I'll just say that although I dislike sites/blog without comment facilities, I don't purposefully avoid sites that don't have them- the prime example for me being engadget/gizmodo; only one lets you post reactions, and I still read both. The negative implications of commenting could be well observed with the fandom idiocy about the announcement of the next generation consoles last week. As tempting as it is to write a silly comment here, I’ll just say that although I dislike sites/blog without comment facilities, I don’t purposefully avoid sites that don’t have them- the prime example for me being engadget/gizmodo; only one lets you post reactions, and I still read both. The negative implications of commenting could be well observed with the fandom idiocy about the announcement of the next generation consoles last week.

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