This is my weekly report on an online blogging project I am participating in and I’d love to get your thoughts on these aspects in particular:
- Comment Policies for blogs – Are you for or against? And why?
- Comment Moderation – Are you for or against? And why?
- My belief is posts where you hand the post over to readers by asking questions are probably the hardest posts to write. What are your thoughts? Can you give me examples of bloggers who do this well?
If you are looking for other posts I’ve written this week how about Embedding Jing Screencasts Into Blog Posts or Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using A Personalized Start Page?.
Day 11: Write a Blog Comment Policy
Definitely this task provoked similar response to Kate Foy who said “Today we’re to write a comment policy for our blog. No, I don’t think so … not for me.” But the scientist in me needed fully investigate the pros and cons.
PROs
The articles which Michele Martin recommends we read provide logical reasons why bloggers should have comment policies.
- Michele included Create A Comment policy as a task because from experience she knows there are still a lot of people who don’t know how to comment. They need some concrete instructions on where to access comments, how to leave one, etc which you can cover in a comment policy. If you check Michele’s policy you will see it’s extremely friendly and is more about how to leave comments.
- Ines Pinto’s idea on involving her students to provide their input in forming a comment policy for student blogs is a very sensible way of educating her students on appropriate online behaviour and minimising the occurrence of inappropriate commenting.
CONs
- Couldn’t find any top edublogger who does have a comment policy (used Aseem Badshah Education Blog list) – the closest was Scott McLeod’s “Note that when you leave a comment here, you are agreeing that your comment also falls under the terms of this Creative Commons license.” Also I checked other top bloggers and many of them didn’t have comment policies.
Mutter, mutter my Vulcan-like nature can’t ignore the facts that the Pros way out balance the Cons (I’m sure Ian McLean who’s a Star Trek fan can relate to my dilemma). So thinking I have added creating a Newbie Guide to my To-Do list — which will focus on the friendly instructional approach Michele’s taken.
Day 12: Make Sure Your Blog Technology is “Comment Friendly”
My personal belief has always been it’s better not to moderate comments. I’m glad that readers challenged this belief when I wrote Are Your Comment Settings Making It Harder For Readers To Comment? because they provided very valid reasons why a blogger might moderate comments (check out the comments here).
Day 13: Write a Blog Post Using Comments
Comments often contain “hidden gems” that readers miss unless the blogger elevates them to a post. Writing a blog post from comments is a good way to:
- Share these conversations with all your readers and show you value readers input e.g. Beth Kanter is excellent at writing these types of posts (check out this example) as is Michele Martin (check out this example).
- Increase your own learning e.g. Comments by Alan Levine and Chris Betcher on my post on Animoto lead to Job for Saturday! Road test of online video creators! and Sunday Job! Road Test Some More Online Video Creators! — where I learnt a lot about online video creators.
These aren’t necessarily the easiest posts to write so definitely worth checking out how people like Beth Kanter and Michele Martin write them.
Day 14: Turn Your Blog Over to Your Readers
Look I’m really interested in your OPINION!
My belief is posts where you hand the post over to readers are probably the hardest posts to write. I’m in awe of Chris Brogan‘s skill with these types of posts (check out Power of Comments, How Does Your Blog Relate to Your Business).
Day 15: Give a Comment Award
As Michele says “We all like some recognition!” but this is definitely one task I can’t complete. I can’t give an award to one or a few of my commenters — it’d be like having to choose between my two kids 😦 . An alternative method of thanking commenters is how Danielle does it.
Day 16: Go Back and Catch Up on Something
Love it when we have Days off to go back and catch up — tonight has been busy doing exactly that!
Day 17: Five in Five
The idea for this came from Tony Tallent’s post called “Five in Five” based on doing 5 comments in 5 minutes.
What can I say? It’s late! I just wanted to finish the tasks and go to bed! I’d read Tony’s post previously so quickly worked on trying to do 5 comments in 5 minutes. I managed 3 comments in 5 minutes 😦 .
Then read all clauses on Michele’s post (reminder to self always read clauses!):
- No scrimping on quality.
- If you’re going to read 5 posts and leave reasonably thoughtful comments on each, it will probably take you longer than 5 minutes (Tony ended up taking 28 minutes to comment on 8 posts).
FINAL THOUGHTS
It’s time for bed and the best news is I’m up to date!!!! 8-). You can check out the daily tasks on Michele’s blog here.
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