Blogging, Strategy
5 Thoughts about Improving Comments
Comments, for many blogs, is the lifeblood and metric for success. And this makes sense. But have you ever thought of ways in which to improve on the comment system as a whole?
Even though there are a number of 3rd party systems, like Intense Debate, Disqus, ECHO, and others that enhance the commenting experience, the core elements haven’t really changed: Name, Email Address, URL, and the Comment.
Here are a couple things that I think could really help engagement and provide a better user experience as a whole. I can’t imagine that all of these would apply to all blogs, just a few:
- Better Anonymous Commenting Features – Even though you can do this somewhat today it forces people to make up email addresses or include bogus information other than the comment. It would be nice if we could provide a way for people to provide their comments anonymously but be able to provide a legitimate email or contact info without it going public. Sensitive blogs covering sensitive information would definitely reap a significant benefit.
- A “Did You Actually Read the Post?” Feature – I sit on the fence a bit here. On one hand I wish people would actually fully read the blog post before commenting. Now, I know there’s almost no way to manage this but there has to be some way where it would give the commenter a time to “pause” and reflect. Even though this may cost comment count and numbers there are some blogs out there that really could use more reflection. This could doubly help with spam management.
- Categorization of Comments – In the future I see this ability and functionality being created. Perhaps “categorization” isn’t the best word for this, but I’d like to see some way where I can categorize and organize comments either automatically or by the commenters choice.
- Force White-Space Creation – Some people forget that it’s really hard to read comments when they don’t hit the “Enter” key. It would be nice to force a carriage-return after a certain number of words or the completion of a sentence. Make the comments look pretty!
- A “Think Again” Button – It would be nice to have something like Google’s “Beer Goggles” for comments, asking the commenter one final time whether or not they want to really make that comment permanent.
What do you think? Any ways you’d improve blog commenting?
[Image from Dharma]
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19 Responses to “5 Thoughts about Improving Comments”
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Open Thread: Pets in the Office? 
I didn't really read the whole post, but I like comments. People should make more of them.
Also, I'm offended at whatever you said.
Maybe a "like" or "dislike" button, then and pop up that says "care to say a few words why you like or dislike this?" or somethin like that? hmm.
Never use pop-ups! Thanks Ad-Block plus in FF!
The categorization idea is a good thought. Maybe something like what Get Satisfaction uses to separate out customer service posts. Their categories are Ask a Question, Share an Idea, Report a Problem, and Give Praise. All of those except Report a Problem would work well on a blog, and you could substitute that one with Voice Criticism or something like that.
leave them with hanging questions would surely make them leave a comment. just like what you have up there!
I really like what intense debate has done with the rep meter next to your name. It gives a little more weight to your comments.
I think this is a great list BTW. One thing that drives me insane is when there is no way to reply to comments on a blog.
This is another reason why I like intense debate.
The biggest thing for me is having the author of the blog interact with the comments. I think this helps a ton with commenting and keeps the conversation moving. You do a good job of this John.
I would add to the list a function that forces people to leave comments. I hear this all the time "I read all of your blog post, I just never comment." I hate hearing that….if you read you should comment. Just my 2 cents worth.
Dude I totally agree! If you read it… you should comment.
And yes, John does a great job of interacting with his readers in the comment section here at ChurchCrunch. I believe he's even blogged about that ideology before.
I second the agreement. Comments are on some level the point of blogging…
I third the agreement.
maybe have a few pre-formatted answers (like a poll or survey) which would give you a sense of their opinion of your post. This would be in addition to the regular comment possibility
that's a great idea too!
I've always thought, the digg style vote up and down is a great way to sort out the best from the worst. If that were combined with a intensedebate style overall user-score, it would make for a pretty sweet model.
other than begging I have not found any successful technique lol.
it seems that there is some critical mass of visitor count that a blog gets when comments become regular,
but then only about 1% comment – hey maybe ChurchCrunch is the exception
For me the best part about commenting is being able to engage with others in a conversation – so anything that facilitates that would be cool – something like a live chat IM style with optional audio and video stuffs.
I think the category idea is an interesting one. I could see it being useful if the blog manager were able to type in their own categories for their readers to choose from.
i.e. – humor, question, reflection, affirmation
And then of course the option to choose more than one category.
I hear what you're saying about actually reading the whole post before commenting. I'm in total agreement with you there… I just don't really see how that's gonna work. Aside from having a bunch of dedicated followers to tell the commenter who clearly didn't read the post that he or she needs to take a second look before posting something ignorant.
i read every word of this post…good pointers…
I use the WP Ajax Comments plugin, which allows users 5 minutes to change those regretful words. I agree on your other points as well, though I will admit for some reason, I comment far more quickly on larger comment forms that have plenty of padding in the fields. It's just my own obsession.
YOU FORGOT THE CONTROL TO KEEP ANGRY PEOPLE FROM TYPING IN ALL CAPS.
I kinda like your "Think before you post" idea – set a javascript timer on load and don't pop the comment box up until a certain amount of time passes… Someone with a blog much more popular than mine should try this and see if it improves comment quality or not.
For blogs that generate tons of comments, the Slashdot rating system is handy because you can filter to see only those comments that receive a certain minimum score.
Having a preview option before publishing a comment is helpful since some systems treat formatting in unexpected ways.
Nice article on comments, any ideas on the best comment plugin to recommend for a wordpress user like me ?