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This may cause some controversy, but I think this is an important topic that needs attention.  At present, to add comments people have to register as users on the Fuwanovel forums.  This is not how blogs typically work, and unfortunately this tends to inhibit feedback and lessen reader engagement.  I want the community blogs to be open to public, anonymous commenters without registration.  Ideally, there should be options to disable commenting, allow only registered users to comment, and allow all users to comment so individual bloggers can decide for themselves.

 

I think this is an important step to making the community blogs more than just an extension of the forums, and I would like everyone to consider this proposition carefully, including the pros as well as the cons (and yes, there are definitely cons).  But as it stands, I'll be disincentivized to put effort into my blog if I feel that technical restrictions are preventing me from reaching and engaging the widest audience possible--restrictions I wouldn't face anywhere else.  I've gotten nearly 1000 views on a single post, yet the silence is deafening and it's a bit discouraging.

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I agree with what sanahtlig is suggesting and think it's a good idea, if it's possible.

The inclusive atmosphere around Fuwanovel is great and all, but with a lot of the registered users being buddy-buddies on the forums, I can see how that could limit the amount of criticism (both healthy and not) a blog post receives. Opening it for public comment will mean that those who do read the post, but probably aren't inclined to register an account to make a single lone comment, will be able to provide feedback - the kind of feedback that was spurred on by having something to say rather than just an obligatory comment/good job from someone already within the community, if that makes any sense.

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The problem I see with this is spam protection.

 

Most blogs like wordpress have spam protection so even though they allow anonymous comments, they usually block out all the spambots.

To give you an idea, we get spam comments filtered out from Fuwazette every 5-10 minutes everyday, now imagine doing that manually for the forum, which gets more traffic than the main site.

 

If the IPB blogs can't have any form of protection against spambots, it could get nasty if we enable anonymous comments.

 

And sure we'd moderate stuff, but the problem is that even if we deleted the comments that are spam, we can't really do anything else to prevent them from appearing again since they're not associated with any account.

 

Just my 2 cents on the matter, I have no problem with anonymous comments as I have a wordpress blog myself that allows them, but my blog is protected against spambots and I don't know if IPB blogs can have any form of protection against these.

 

If they do though, then I see no problem in enabling public comments.

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The problem I see with this is spam protection.

That's a good point.  I hadn't even considered that.

 

 

I'd be very surprised if there was anyone outside the forums who even knows of the blogs, let alone reads them... But who knows. There may be lurkers.

I guarantee that half my blog views are external from the forums.  For the post nearing 1000 views, I'd estimate maybe 100-200 of those come from the forums.  I can tell because I've been sequentially posting links on different sites and watching how traffic spikes.  The Reddit post in particular caused a serious traffic spike.  The sad thing is that the actual posters on Reddit preferred to flame me about starting a controversy rather than actually commenting on the post itself, and I bet most of them read the title, didn't click the link, and proceeded to flame me--while the ones who did click and read the article left without saying anything because there was no way to comment without registering.

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Forum blogs = for forum users.

 

If you want something such as what you said you did, make your own blog, it fixes all the problems you entcounter.

You don't lose the 'external' visitors, since there is a 0 probability that they are linked with fuwa in the first place, and the rest is forum users (according to what you said).

 

I feel that you want something from this feature that it wasn't made for in the first place.

 

Plus, maybe there's silence because there's nothing to say. People don't have to answer. Don't blame anything else.

 

And a blog isn't the best thing for discussion, you'd rather make a thread for that kind of thing.

If you want feedback about the formating, the way things are done, explained and such, ask your friends.

 

Last thing, write things for yourself rather than for others. I'd say that if you write an article because you want it to be popular, you are doing it wrong. A blog - in my opinion - is more personnal, and I feel you are mis-using.

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Last thing, write things for yourself rather than for others. I'd say that if you write an article because you want it to be popular, you are doing it wrong. A blog - in my opinion - is more personnal, and I feel you are mis-using.

Why would I write something like a review for myself?  That's silly.  Well Clephas does (did) things like that, but he's a weirdo.

 

I'm a bit amazed by the attitude you're taking.  Rather than encourage excellent content with wide appeal, you seem to be encouraging people to create superficial types of content for the consumption of a tiny circle of friends.  I can't even begin to describe how fundamentally opposed I am to that mindset.  That's not the mindset that will grow Fuwanovel as a community.

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Assuming you make excellent content with wide appeal eh, a blog is a blog and isn't made for discussions. Make a thread if you want reaction.

 

A blog is closet to a journal than to a thread. You want it to be something that it is not.

A blog is something very superficial and personnal. You're trying to change the wrong thing.

 

IF you want your content to be recognized for its quality, push it on the front page, not on a forum blog.

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I turned it off with spam in mind. I'm not opposed to giving it a try, though.

 

I haven't tracked your traffic, Sanah, but Clephas's blog, for example, is very popular with lurkers, so I get the appeal of opening up comments.

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IF you want your content to be recognized for its quality, push it on the front page, not on a forum blog.

I do, but sometimes there are circumstances outside of my control that prevent me from doing so.  Also, it'd be nice if others were inspired to dedicate time to creating excellent content, who might not have connections to Zakamutt or who are still trying to get to the point that Zakamutt wouldn't tear his hair out trying to edit their drafts. ;-)

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That's the staff's problem to solve. There are plenty of ways to encourage meaningful content to be created. If they want to they can, just saying.

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That's the staff's problem to solve. There are plenty of ways to encourage meaningful content to be created. If they want to they can, just saying.

You know how FuwaReviews solved the problem?  They closed their ranks to community submissions.  That's the solution you're promoting here.

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There is no correlation between this and the FuwaReviews issues. And I never said that was a good thing anyway, I don't know where you read that.

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There is no correlation between this and the FuwaReviews issues. And I never said that was a good thing anyway, I don't know where you read that.

 

 
I'd have a shit load of suggestions, ideas, but if [FuwaReviews community submissions are] being scrapped, so be it. I loved the idea though  :( Great potential. I hope the day it gets discussed again isn't that far.

http://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/10216-reviews-hub-discontinuing-community-review-submissions/?p=284187

 

The parallels to this situation are rather obvious, I think.  It's just that right now, we're trying to go the opposite direction (closed -> open) and for some reason you're digging in your heels.

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What ._. ?

 

Nothing I said was contradictory. I liked the idea of community submitted reviews, I still like it, and I feel the only reason it didn't work is because it wasn't done correctly. There's no contradiction in what I said. You completely mis-understood.

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