Mike Arrington at TechCrunch wonders whether the term “blog” should apply to websites that don’t allow comments: What is the definition of a blog? Arrington’s running a poll, so vote for which definition you prefer.

It’s an interesting question, and I responded in the comments at TechCrunch. Blogs should have comments enabled, as the feature is a net positive for both bloggers and readers. Bloggers benefit from feedback - especially if they screw up, and readers benefit from hearing other voices join the conversation. Readers also see that their contributions are valued. One of the reasons blogging can be so attractive for a college media outlet is because it builds conversation between staffers and readers that doesn’t normally exist in the traditional story format.
That said, comments can become a pain under a couple of circumstances:

1. if the conversation degenerates to name calling.
2. if spammers are able to exploit the commenting system.

Fortunately, there are a number of technical workarounds that will take care of the second situation, including the awesome Akismet, which is built into WordPress. It’s caught over 1,400 spam comments that have attacked this blog since October!

The first problem is not so easy to handle, especially if your writer is the target of the vicious trolls who delight in throwing poo into the conversation. But Steve Yelvington points to the best solution: Throw the bums out!

Set goals. Communicate those goals and ask for help. Follow through with both leadership and management.

An online community needs an explicit social contract. I’ll repeat the “new covenant” draft that Loren Omoto, Frasier Van Asch, Dan Gillmor, Christine Montgomery and I drew up at a Poynter workshop almost two years ago.

You can cruise over to Yelvington’s blog to read the rest. The point for college media outlets who are dipping their toes into the blogging waters is that building community takes work, just like building a crack news staff. It’s different work, but it can be rewarding if you stick with it.

I wouldn’t recommend college media bloggers try to run their blogs without comments.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 31st, 2006 at 8:16 pm and is filed under blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.