Is the Google Talk chatback widget/badge/gizmo a taste of things to come? Commenting is something that lots of people think is necessary on a blog, for it to be a blog. However, IM is something everybody understands, and isn’t that a preferred way to communicate with the blogger who’s post you just read and find widely entertaining/offensive, or just easy to react to?

- IM him then. Tell him off.
- He’s not on my list!
- Do it on his blog.
- How?
- With the Google Talk badge, stupid!

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In Do You Avoid a Fight by Chris Garrett here on the Blog Herald, he talks about bloggers picking fights or avoiding them, explaining how you can learn from those who disagree with you:

Those people, once calmed down, are extremely valuable to you. They are a chance to see another side, to improve what you do, to clarify your thinking. This is why you must always mean what you say and say what you mean.

If you really believe in what you write then you can welcome the chance of debating your point. That is not to say you should go looking for a fight, but if a fight finds you then you can be prepared for it.

I love criticism, when it is helpful. If you challenges me on an issue, I may not like what you have to say, but you have a point and you are welcome to it. I will listen, sifting it through my personal value sifter, and maybe you make sense. Maybe I can learn from the criticism. I’ll thank you one way or the other because I value my readers input that much.
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When bloggers are quoting other bloggers and you want to comment on the issue, where do you leave your comment?

There are three different options:

1. Comment on the the original post
2. Comment on the post that quoted the original post
3. Start a new post and use trackback/pingback to notify the other two posts

Which one do you choose?

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I’ve never been much of a person to attempt to develop community. In fact if you look at my posts this week I think most people didnt want to comment on my posts possibly because I write in a tone that discourages comments. Maybe I don’t ask enough questions. Maybe because people ping me via AIM and Twitter and give me feedback. You know what I decided on a few of my sites. To just hang it up. To flat out remove the ability to comment. And on others I installed a WordPress plugin to encourage regular readers to comment more.

It’s called the Comment Prompt

This is a very simple plugin for wordpress 2.0+
The idea is to encourage lurkers and long term visitors to take the plunge and comment on your blog. Often people just need a little encouragement so this plugin will nag I mean encourage the user by posting a message to encourage them to post. Once they have posted their first comment it stops.

Either way blogs can be a platform for community or a platform for publishing or some sort of hybrid in between.

When I brought up the subject of whether or not journalists should be required to comment on their team bloggers’ posts, I had a problem writing about it and I’m so glad that readers helped me think this issue through. I agree with most of the commenters. Journalists should not be forced to comment when there is nothing to say, but they should also support their team bloggers when and where they can. Forcing comments is so ugly.

Still, this issue plagues my spirit. Trying to understand this issue more, I was delighted to find an interesting twist on the subject from Mihaela Lica of Pamil Visions’ eWritings in the article, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde:
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If your blog comments strip HTML and links when published, you are missing out on a meaningful part of the blog conversation.

I am always getting comments with links in them on my blogs. They direct the readers and myself to similar or related information, often information I need and have requested. I love links such as tips on how to do it better, answers to questions, or instructions on how to fix what’s broken, or links to their post so they can show off what they wrote, inspired by my work.

Unfortunately, comment spam is stuffed with links, making bloggers wary of comments, and many are taking drastic measures to exclude links from blog comments.

With HTML turned off or stripped away, all they can do is paste the link as part of the text. Long, unwieldy links that stretch across the comment form box, often breaking your blog’s web design. Long URL addresses can push your design’s containers and columns around, pushing your sidebar down below the content or overlapping the sidebar, making it difficult to read and see. By allowing links to be wrapped inside of HTML anchor tags, you can protect your blog’s design and make it look better, too. read more

For the busy blogger, accepting the occasional guest post can be a real win-win. They get a break from their normal writing routine and the guest blogger gets exposure to a new audience and some great promotion.

But while guest blogging can be mutually beneficial, it also comes with a new set of risks. Unlike comments, which are posted without any editorial control or initial oversight, bloggers who accept guest posts also accept both legal and professional risks.

So, before pushing a guest post live on your site, it is worthwhile to take a few moments to check and see if there are any potential problems with the work. After all, it only takes a few seconds to check a work for flaws but the headaches caused by unwittingly publishing something dubious can last the life of your site.

All one has to do is know what to look for.

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As part of my ongoing Blog Challenges, I challenged my readers to Comment on 10 Blogs. The results by participants were amazing. Some had trouble with the number “10″ and shrunk it down to 5. Others went nuts and increased the number and changed the rules to comment on 10 blogs a day or 10 a month. For the most part, people really enjoyed the challenge and it increased their awareness and importance of the blog comment.

Recently, I ran across that challenge and realized that I haven’t been commenting as much as I’d like to on other blogs. I’m so wrapped up in my own little bloggy world, I forget to open the door and see what others are doing out there and give my feedback out there.

Okay, that’s the challenge. Now, where do I start?
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A year ago, I ran across Micro Persuasions’ Steve Rubel report on “CNET Requires That Journalists Respond to Blog Comments”, an interesting twist on the media conversation.

CNET is mandating that its blogging journalists respond to all reader comments and questions, according to a report in The Guardian. Further, they are also expected to get involved in every debate that “has legs.”

This model is incredibly noble and indicative of where journalism needs to evolve. However, at the same time, it presents a conundrum for public relations professionals and the journalists as well.

I bookmarked the post in my list of things to write about and have been stewing over this all this time. Maybe it’s time I opened up the point to you so you can stew on this, too.

I have to agree with Steve’s perspective that this might be great in theory, but in reality, it’s going to be tough.

Just because a journalist reports information, that information may have been handed to them from a press release. It doesn’t mean they are an expert in the subject, or even know much about the issue.

Many times in the past I’ve had to write up press material and articles based upon subjects I not only didn’t know anything about but on subjects I didn’t want to know anything about. Just because I wrote about it, does it make me an expert? Should it? I was paid to publish the info from the press release, not get a degree on the subject.
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I was reading a book recently on the art of conversation and found a whole section on body language. How the position of your body influences your openness to a conversation.

For example, if someone has their hand up to their mouth or by their brow, they look like they are intent upon their thoughts. The last thing you’d want to do is interrupt their thinking, right? They don’t look approachable.

Crossed arms and legs or turning the body away from you, or the dreaded eyes wandering around the room not looking at you, are signs that the person isn’t just unwelcome towards your conversation, they want out and away from you.

Blogging isn’t about body language. It’s about language. Have you thought about what you do to stop the blog conversation on your blog before it even begins? If you aren’t using body language, what signs do you use? What are the clues?
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