Simon Phipps's Blog

Going With The Flow

In a recent posting on my personal blog, I commented on the different kinds of postings people make to blogs. On our internal blogs at Sun, I stumbled across a good reflection by a colleague (and related comments by others) on a weblog I'd not previously encountered (I'd spotted comments like those made by James Tauber, but only because of Technorati - I had to work at it). The problem with trying to have a discussion spread across a myriad blogs is there's no meaningful way to read it.

I would never have read the comment (about wanting to use trackbacks and blog-hosted discussion) if I hadn't just stumbled across it, and if a newcomer to our conversation wanted to see what had come before s/he would stand no chance of finding all the blogs involved and threading together the comments in an order that made them intelligible. The discovery seemed to me to demonstrate the problem with a blog-centric approach to conversation (something that's bugged me for ages)

I believe the ideal flow goes like this instead:

1. An initiator makes a statement on their blog and either it is carried on an aggregator shared by the community (in our case, the internal equivalent of PlanetSun) or it is copied to a suitable mailing list/forum.
2. Others comment on the posting on the mailing list/forum
3. From time to time, the conversation reaches a point where a small-scale refactoring is needed or a new substantial point needs to be made. These are posted to one of the participants' blogs and a link is posted to the conversation.
4. Steps 2 and 3 iterate until the conversation starts getting structure
5. One of the participants refactors the conversation into a wiki page
6. Participants in the conversation edit the wiki page and discuss the edits on the mailing list/forum. It may at times be necessary for a participant to make a blog entry with significant new information, but in general the discussion is now forum & wiki rather than blog & forum
7. The discussion gradually tails off as the wiki entry now represents the shared knowledge of the community represented by the discussion participants.

[Also posted on Webmink]

Comments

• What about blog comments?
  Often, after I have received several comments on one of my blog entries, i want to go back and edit the original... but that renders the original comment train out-of-context or invalid.

  Sometimes I find myself deleting the original blog in favor of a new entry... but that destroys the original comment train completely.

  I'd like to solicit opinions on this: Do the folks who comment on my blogs have a right to assume that the original post won't change? Are their comments "mine to destroy"?

  A blog is not a forum. It has an owner whose opinions should take precedence, but it's also nice to allow comments. What do you think?

  Posted by: johnreynolds on May 12, 2004 at 10:46 AM

• What about blog comments?
  Put a reply to the comment saying "Thanks Fred, I've added that information to the entry"

  So the commenter feels appreciated, and people who read the comment after you make the modification don't think the commenter is blind.

  Posted by: tomdavies on May 12, 2004 at 09:37 PM

• What about blog comments?
  I'd totally agree here - just be open while remembering your blog is your own! My general point is that if the comment is that important it should sustain its own context. The comments area under a blog is for short comments rather than the full discussion.

  Having said that, as the 'owner' of this blog entry I will be unlikely to change it so much that the comments underneath it are meaningless. I've already changed this entry a few times to add links or fix typos and I really have no problem with that happening. Changing it to make a comment look foolish would just be discourteous and while I probably have the freedome to do it, I wouldn't.

  Posted by: webmink on May 13, 2004 at 07:16 AM

• What about blog comments?
  First off, I hate threaded conversations. I much prefer sequential date/time-based entries. www.tech-report.com does it well in that it gives you options as to your view, and if you view in "flat" mode you can still id the message being replied to.

  I think that a blog entry can be updated with additional as long as it's at the end of the post and the orginal text is unaltered. Or create a new post and link the original in to a single-line "updated: see http// new blog entry" addition to the original post. I agree that it's a good idea to put a note in the comments that the orginal has been updated or linked to a new post, but only if the comments are not in-line with the blog entry (ie, in a pop-up or loaded so the blog entry can't be seen anymore).

  The OTHER thing I don't like is a blogger having a comment system and the blogger NEVER BOTHERS to participate in the discussion of what they wrote! Why have a comments feature if you never intend to use it? I can't think of how many times I"ve posted a question back to the blogger and never got a response, and the subject is obviously interesting to the blogger.

  This is especially bad when a site like java.net has a tagline in the header that says "The Source for Java Technology Collaboration". How can you collaborate if the people who post news and blog entries don't particpate? The bloggers are supposedly experts, so why do they leave the non-experts flailing around and guessing at interpretations of the blog entry?

  For example, Jonathon Simon's recent post has 50 replies int the comments -- 0 from Simon himself. after a couple days. I admit that people are busy (me included) so you need to give a little time, but if you're going out on the front lines in front of the world, you should commit to some level of involvement besides just dropping off a note for all the little guys.

  Just a few pet peeves. I try not to get involved in anything I'm not prepared to follow through with. Some people just don't feel the same.

  BTW, I hope to hear from Mr. Phipps at some point. Simon? Reactions?

  Posted by: gerryg on May 13, 2004 at 02:26 PM

• What about blog comments?
  Beat you to it. I'm webmink.

  -- Simon

  Posted by: webmink on May 13, 2004 at 02:57 PM

• What about blog comments?
  Oh, I suppose I should comment :-)

  First, I love threaded comment views and so have to disagree. Having to guess which bit of the flow a comment applies to is not obviously good - I want the system to help me as it already knows.

  Second, on updates there has been a huge amount of discussion in the blogosphere on this, mainly triggered by some bad-faith behaviour by prominent individuals, but ultimately a (real) blog is something owned by its author and hence it's up to the author to act as they please. Having said that I avoid blogs which I know act in bad faith and try to change the context to humiliate or negate the participants. In the end it's just a matter of judgement - when you need to make rules you know the situation is broken.

  Third, on comments: the comment system on my personal blog sends me e-mail when a comment is placed, whereas this java.net aggregator doesn't at present. I drop by & check every now and again and respond where it's appropriate. I ignore trolls (when I am smart enough to spot them, some of them are smarter than me). But I agree, if I didn't intend to engage I'd ask for the comment area to be turned off and to never engage seems bad form.

  S.
  

  Posted by: webmink on May 13, 2004 at 03:37 PM

• What about blog comments?
  At first I was getting ready to reply back to a bunch of the guys on the blog. But after a conversation with Dan, we decided to do a full fledged forum next week. With that in mind, I decided to let the blog responses go where they will and see what happens -- then chat about it all in the forum.

  That said, Ill throw in my gripes about the UI for responses and discussions. I think its really hard to follow whats goign on. For example, my power was out all day wed. When I came back online, there were 20 more entries than before. I couldn't easily tell what was new. I do that every time I come back and read the responses. What a pain!

  -jonathan

  Posted by: jonathansimon on May 14, 2004 at 06:19 AM

• What about blog comments?
  You said:I think its really hard to follow whats goign on.and I totally agree - I wonder where the e-mail alerts went to? I can't blog here casually like I do on Webmink, I have to hang out here until the hubbub subsides. We'll have to have a word with TPTB :-)

  (and a preview facility for comments would be nice too!)

  Posted by: webmink on May 14, 2004 at 08:13 AM

• What about blog comments?
  Will the real Simon Phipps please stand up? Yet another problem with the "handles" frequently used in both blogs and discussion forums. And another problem I have with java.net is EVERY TIME I go to post a reply to a blog post or other item, it makes me log in again. I really java.net gets an overhaul before too long, because there seems to be at least one medium or large sized issue in every single area. Nothing to make me want to leave, but enough to annoy me.

  In response to your response (I think it was you!) about threaded responses, did you ever visit tech-report.com as I suggested in an earlier post? What I really like is the real-time OPTION to do either flat or threaded. My preference is flat sorted by most recent first, but I occasionally need to switch to threaded to sort out a long conversation I'm interested in following. Using just flat makes sense if there's few posts, using threaded is a necessity when there's lots of posts and discussion, but flat is still useful.

  Posted by: gerryg on May 14, 2004 at 03:16 PM

• What about blog comments?
  Thanks for the note. You could have dropped a quick note in your thread on what your plans were -- wouldn't leave folks wondering. Good to hear that you're following up. Looking forward to it.

  Posted by: gerryg on May 14, 2004 at 03:29 PM

• What about blog comments?
  I have to say I share your frustrations with the system and frequently express them to TPTB. And yes, webmink=="Simon Phipps, would be nice if it said that in the article heading (you listening, TPTB?)

  Yes, been & looked. Slashdot also offers the choice, as does Yahoo Groups, and I use both of those often. Once people have figured that this stuff is a meshed conversation rather than a heirarchical tree, the facilities to manage and understand the conversation tend to get better.

  S.

  Posted by: webmink on May 15, 2004 at 10:41 AM

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