A Comment on Comments

Here is an interesting juxtaposition. First, I read “The Availability Heuristic in the Classroom: How Soliciting More Criticism Can Boost Your Course Ratings” by Craig R. Fox, UCLA Anderson School and Department of Psychology.

In this study, two groups of students filled out an evaluation of an MBA course. One group was asked for two ways to improve the course; the other was asked for ten ways to improve the course. The group that was asked to list ten ways showed a higher level of satisfaction with the course. My interpretation is that the more you enable people to provide feedback and comments, the higher they might evaluate your product or service—simply because you asked for feedback and comments.

Second, I came across this explanation of a blog’s policy for comments:

Since this is one of those perennial questions, let’s explore the convoluted mechanisms by which you can add your own insightful, typo-free comment to any [name deleted] post. Begin your education with the [name deleted] Comments FAQ. In a nutshell, most commenters are sent personal invites by [name deleted]. Said invites allow comment access throughout [name deleted], and throughout all [name deleted] sites in fact. However, you don’t have to possess an invitation to comment—auditions for new commenters are perpetually ongoing. More explanation of this mysterious alternate path, after the jump.

Commenter auditions are quite simple. Even if you don’t have comment access, you can submit a comment to any post. Just type your comment in the space provided, then enter a username and password (you’re advised to use an alias as your username), and hit the “Submit Comment” button. The system will note that you’re not an approved commenter, and you’ll be asked to verify your password (and enter an optional email address for password recovery). Assuming you comply, your comment will be saved, but will not be posted yet. Instead, it will be submitted for review to determine its worth. If it’s a fantastic comment, it will be approved; the comment will go live, and you’ll have full comment access in future to post without moderation. If your comment’s a waste of time, then it will be ignored.

Bear in mind that simpleminded comments—short declarations of agreement, insults, dumb jokes, irrelevant remarks, or other foolishness—will always be ignored. Say something interesting. Make a brilliant observation. Share a particularly juicy tip. Or amaze the crowd with your rapier wit. That’s the kind of thing we like. For a little context, explore other commenters’ history. Clicking on any commenter name in any post will take you to that commenter’s home page, where all the comments they’ve ever made are collected in one place.

So even if you haven’t “earned” an invite, feel free to take a crack at commenting. Someone is always reading.

It’s hard to believe that a policy like this is optimal for a blog, and it’s surprising that a blog with such good writers has such a policy. IMHO, companies should open up the channels of communication with its customers. If this study is right, doing this alone may put companies in a better light, and they will probably learn something from their customers too.

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Comments

[Guy Kawasaki]

Due to the very open nature of comments on my blog, I found out that when people provide their email addresses, they get spam. I forwarded this comment to the GM of TypePad who told me how to stop this in my advanced template.

If my comments were not open, I may not have gotten this feedback--certainly not as fast. I rest my case about open comments!

Guy

[NitinK]

Guy:

I have a typepad blog as well. When users type in a comment and submit both an email address and url (both of which are required), the comment's Posted By section shows a link to typepad.com, which when clicked redirects the user to the commenter's *website* - at no point is the commenter's email displayed.
[You can see this behavior for the comment from Bart Stevens on this post:
http://blog.softwareabstractions.com/the_software_abstractions/2007/02/web_25_the_soci_1.html#comments ] .

I looked at my typepad settings, and in the "Configure Weblog / Feedback / Comment Formatting" section, I have the "Require captcha" and "Auto-link Urls" boxes checked - please feel free to email me if you'd like to know the status of any other settings.

Looking at the Typepad support page [ http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=51&p_sid=4Dqc39ui&p_lva=67&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MTA2JnBfcHJvZHM9JnBfY2F0cz0mcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1jb21tZW50cyBlbWFpbCBhZGRyZXNz&p_li=# ], I'm still not sure why my settings work for suppressing the commenter's email address - but luckily, they do! :-)

[Aaron]

The 3rd comment at this link is a great comment/policy regarding comments: http://www.joshwolf.net/blog/?p=306#comments

[Gary S. Elliott, (M.D.), M.S. PMP, NSA 4011]

It is well known in project management and in psychology that to form a project team (a group) that people are proud of belonging to can occur by allowing more input into the team process. This will give people more of a sense of affecting the outcome of the project. This is much more like the original work of Margaret Mead on initiation rights, if you make it a rite of passage and get people to give (comments, ideas) to become part of a given group, they will appreciate their belonging to this group.

This is what you have shown. People want to feel that they are being listened to and that their input affects outcomes. In doing so, you make them feel allegiance to the group. Hence, a small form of an initiation rite.

[lakelady]

I haven't read the study but from your analysis I have a few thoughts. First, most evaluations of courses happen at the end of a specified period of time and there is no ongoing relationship with the product as there is in the marketplace. This leads to the second observation. Merely soliciting feedback is useless unless there is a sense that the feedback is being heard. Unacknowledged feedback builds more resentment than no venue for feedback at all. How would these students evaluate this course down the line if they knew that none of their input had been considered? I somehow doubt that they would still give it a high rating.

***********

I believe that this study was conducted in the middle of the semester.

Thanks,

Guy

[Rick]

That looks like the Gawker tos for comments and I agree with it. I've written some pretty scathing stuff on there and they've approved of it because it wasn't just a "you suck" post, which they're trying to filter out.

Obviously, this *does* give them license to filter out any negative post, but if you run a site like Gizmodo, you really need to have this kind of statement in order to keep the community intelligent and not go down the drain, such as the comments on Digg. This especially comes in to play when you want to talk about a Microsoft product and not have 100 posts that say "M$ sucks. Uses Linux!"

[Caryn Rose]

What does this mean in terms of Nielsen's study on participation inequality?

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html

Commenting is important. It is not, however, essential. I don't buy the "thin-skinned" accusations, to me, that's an indication of a bully who enjoys hiding behind his or her keyboard.

[Tim Walker]

In support of your point, here's a contrasting example: The other day I e-mailed a merchant about a bad experience at one of his stores. I don't know him, but his e-mail is easy to find on his company's site, and I thought I would tell him about my experience since I've been a regular customer at his stores for a long time.

He e-mailed me back first thing Sunday morning, less than 12 hours after I wrote him. He didn't argue with me; he thanked me for writing, apologized for my bad experience, and made it clear that my complaint (inattentive clerks) is one he shares. Besides just acting like a concerned human being, he's more or less cemented my loyalty forever -- with an eight-line e-mail.

Why is that so hard for so many companies? Ah, yes, it requires them to remember that they are collections of *human beings*, despite the businessy trappings of big offices (and call centers etc.), lotsa money, lotsa staff, blah blah blah. Too many folks seem to forget that they're in business with other *people*.

In my own work, I want every possible avenue for feedback. I want it unvarnished -- not because it's easy to take, but because it's hard to hear and therefore actually useful to me as I try to get better at what I do.

So, thanks for this post, Guy. Now I'm reviewing my own practices for opening myself up to more and fuller feedback/criticism from everyone I do business with.

[Stephen D]

Word.

:)

[Shefaly]

Alex, if you input any URL in the box provided, your email would not show. Thanks.

[Shefaly Yogendra]

Some very popular blogs do not allow comments. The writers do not want to engage in on-line chat and cross-chat, but if you email them, they are nice and respond to specific questions. The blogs remain popular maybe because sometimes it serves audience need sometimes to read stuff without needing to comment.

See as an example:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/

[Alex Grogan]

Okay Guy - looks like you have no control over the issue.

Found this here.
link

"Require Email Address - Users can submit comments without a TypeKey or TypePad account, but they will be required to input an email address. Note: Email addresses will be linked to commenter's name in the comment footer but will be encrypted to prevent spamming."

They obviously don't realize how easy it is to "unencrypt" the email address. Their lack of knowledge of such things justifies my decision to never use their service.

#109; #97; #105; #108; #116; #111; easily translates into mailto

[Alex Grogan]

Wow, I must say that in NO WAY did I think that your comment system here was going to hyperlink my name to my email address - I already receive tons of spam, and now your site is only going to help those who harvest email addresses spam me even more.

Might I suggest that you change that as soon as possible? Unless of course, you are in the business of providing email addresses to spammers - perhaps I should have read your sites privacy policy first...

**************

This is news to me. I altered your email address in both comments. This is TypePad. I have no control over this as far as I know.

Sorry,

Guy

[Alex Grogan]

First and foremost, thanks for giving me the opportunity to comment here on your site. I only wish that I could record an audio or even a video comment along with my typed response.

Given that on some blogs the number of comments can soar up into the hundreds, in my opinion, /that/ is where the action and the value of a blog resides.

If someone is too thin-skinned to actually have comments displayed on their site which might be considered argumentative or which might express views contrary to the authors own, then perhaps they should not be blogging to begin with.

I can think of no other boring site than one which the author simply expresses their own viewpoint and leaves the audience out in the cold. For me, I never return.