January 12, 2008
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Cross Posted Comment Discussions SUCK!
I post a blog entry. Somebody responds. Now, generally, if I want to
respond to their comment I have to post a comment on the top post of
their blog. A blog entry which 9 times out of 10 has nothing to do with the topic
we are discussing. And then if they want to respond to that they’ll
generally post a message back on my blog, again on the top post. Which
might be different now and might have even less to do with the subject
we are discussing.This is stupid. This system doesn’t make any sense.
And if you don’t want to do it this way, your options are:
1. Use the “message” system which means your discussion becomes totally private.
2. Just post the responses in your own blog. Which means you have to
hope the person you are talking to happens by again or they may never
know you responded to what they said.This is all just silly.
Why doesn’t xanga have a fully or even partially threaded comment system?
I don’t know how the systems are designed at Xanga. I’m not criticizing
xanga if there are architectural issues that make it difficult to
safely implement such a system. I can understand that. But in some ways
it just feels so very backwards to me. Almost every forum on the
internet has a threaded commenting system. Lacking that makes the xanga
comment system feel more limited than youtube‘s
message system. And youtube’s forums well… I think the statement “you
will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy” pretty aptly
describes it. Xanga can do better.But if xanga is staying with a single threaded comment system because
people prefer it for some reason I’m going to try to dissuade you of
that misconception right now.You may think that cross-posting comments helps you get a more rapid
response to your comment because of Xanga’s built in notification of
new posts to your blog.But most good threaded comments system allow for you to receive emails
whenever *anyone* responds to your comment right there in your thread!It would also be reasonably possible that on your dashboard xanga could
allow a tab or section for tracking your comments. You could then have
a one stop shop to browse all your ongoing discussions with the xanga
community. How cool would that be?You may think that cross-posting comments builds community by letting
you sort of cross-advertise each other’s blogs. That is my comment on
your blog brings attention to your blog and your comment on mine brings
attention to mine. Plus it encourages us to read each other’s blogs.And there’s some logic to that argument.
But there are better ways to accomplish the exact same thing.
For example, it would be very cool if you had a comment showcasing module
that you could put right on your xanga wherever you want. Then anyone
who happens across your sight can not only read what you are writing in
your blog, they can also read and explore what you’re commenting on
other people’s blogs. That way you can use your comments to enhance
your blogging experience if you choose. It can be a form of self
expression just like blogging itself.Another good idea would be to have a way to rate or favorite or star or
otherwise evaluate other people’s comments built right into the system.
So you could star a particularly good comment to your blog. You can
showcase it somehow. That way when someone comes along and places a
comment on your blog and you want to give them kudos for a job well
done and return the favor by bringing attention to their blog, you give
them a high rating, that comment bubbles to the top or becomes more
prominent, and other visitors probably follow that comment back to the
commenter’s site and interact with them.This later idea also helps if one fears that threaded comments will
lead to increased spam. Because the blogger who wrote the initial
comment becomes his or her own moderator of his or her own blog by
being able to rate the comments that appear there.These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg. There are all kinds of
things xanga could try and consider. And they would all enhance the
community feel of xanga. Whereas the current system actually detracts
from the community aspect in a lot of ways. Since outsiders can’t
follow other people’s discussions very easily. And n00bs are inevitably
just confused about what the heck is going on until they see enough
other people “cross-posting” and get the gist of it.But first they have to make the comments threaded. If it is at all possible. This is really important. And it’s long overdue.
Comments (5)
Hi there,
Thanks for your intruiging comment.
The connection that I was drawing between technology and failing high school was regarding distractions. I’m a very goal-oriented high school student, and so it seems crazy to me that as I sit in a class like my AP US History class, you can still look around and see 50% of the people in the class texting and not paying attention. It seems strange to me that a person would feel driven enough to enter an AP class, and then spend the entire year failing the class due to the distractions of phones and music. My Chemistry Honors class, again a class you have to be recommended to enter into, has about half of the kids cleverly listening to their iPods, covering them up by their hair, or weaving them up the sleeves of their shirts. It seems to me that if a student was going to feel as though they needed to enter higher level classes, that they would at least be willing to put the technology down for 50 minutes and pay attention. What’s even the point of taken an AP class if you don’t pay attention the entire year and don’t pass the exam in May? You may as well be enrolled in regular classes. And if students in higher level classes are doing this so much, I really don’t even want to know how many students in regular classes are allowing themselves to be distracted by their phones and ipods. It’s just ridiculous to me.
I’m a very pro technology person as well in many aspects. It’s a lifesaver for homework and such. I’m not sure I agree with your argument that your letters will be decomposed and worthless 400 years from now. And I guess in saying this, I should probably not say 400 years. 200 years would be more reasonable, seeing as how today we still have documents from the founding of our country. And sure there were those presevered like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but how do you explain diary entries we have from John Brown and 18th century English women? That’s significant enough in my mind. And while I understand that technology will have advanced even more by the time frame I was speaking about in my post, I don’t believe that they’re going to find our personal computers and be able to extract all the letters, blogs, emails, myspace posts, etc. I think that sooner or later, the information we have posted on the internet is going to become inaccessible. I know it sounds like another one of the crazy theories like India had in saying that the entire world was going to shut down at the new millenium, but I honestly believe that either (a) the people of the future will have become so commercial that they don’t care about the past enough to look at our old internet sites or (b) that the people of the future will somehow not be able to access all of our old internet sites.
My point of that post was honestly just to say to re-personalize the world. We’ve become such a commercial based nation that no historian is going to be able to look back on our documents hundreds of years from now and exam how handwriting has changed, as we have been able to do with 17th-19th century documents. No futurian is going to be able to look back at our archives and understand the changes in language as we do with langauge like Shakespeare. I love technology, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t think it is leading us down the right path.
Thanks again for your comment,
[[: Ally
Ha! After I just responded to your comment on my blog, I read this post. It makes me laugh that I just posted on your top blog although it is unrelated to the topic.
I’ll second that! Xanga needs threaded comments.
Petition them like crazy or start a blogring for your cause. I completely agree we start to have threaded comment features.
You make some good points. You may consider making your suggestions known to the webmasters of this site and perhaps they will add it.
Personally, I go the way of adding RYC and then my response into their blog. Readers know its about something else and overlook it.
Right ON! I love your suggestions. I’ve taken to make the letters RYC into a hyperlink back to their comment, but this should really be automatic.