Now this is an interesting topic and came from this article by Sameer Vasta who had turned off his comment boxes for some time, then turned them back on with a discussion about whether a blog should have the comment option or not. The challenge for Day 9 was to read this article, and then consider the question “should we be using the commenting capacity to generate conversations between bloggers, or should we be interacting through our blog posts?”

The questions asked:

What, to your mind, is the purpose of comments on blogs?

I have enabled comments for several reasons… firstly I think its a ’safer’ way of sharing your ideas without feeling like you need to start a blog and maintain it. Comment boxes allow you to enter a conversation that you otherwise wouldn’t get to see or hear. As my goal is to encourage others in the profession to explore the use of Web 2.0 tools, I have to find ways to ’scaffold’ the learning experience – commenting on a blog is one step on the ladder to perhaps starting your own blog.. and it may be the only step on the ladder – but we need as many commenters as we need bloggers!

Another reason – I am by nature a person who enjoys discussion – I like to have the opportunity to put my ideas out there, but I’m also interested in what others believe, feel, think… about the same topic. If I didn’t enable comments, then I”d just be ’shouting out’ my ideas to the world… If I wanted to only ‘hear’ my voice, and to ‘read’ the voices of other likeminded people (choosing the blogs I want to read)… then I might as well shut up shop and stop blogging. If I want to muse aloud, I can do that anywhere and in any private forum or mechanism I choose… blogging for me is about engagement with others.. not just with your own ideas.

Another reason – I like to know that people have been challenged, moved, encouraged or in some way stimulated by my thoughts – perhaps others would call that needy – but my blog is not just about me and what I see as my world view… but also knowing that they message I am trying to convey to the profession is actually reaching someone (or more than someone)… so again a comment lets me know that!

So I guess I’m coming down very much on the side of commenting works for me in a blog… I know others may not agree… but that’s the other great thing about blogs – you create them to be what you want them to be and there’s no ‘rules’ as such!

So please comment! I’m off to check what Sarah thought about this but I can’t seem to get into her archived posts – I keep coming back to May’s postings – so Sarah – how good is your tracking system!