I suspect if you have a comments section you are a blogger that enjoys the give and take of dialogue and the instant gratification a comments section can bring to this hobby.
Having said that, one of the fallouts of a comments section is others who speed read one post and jump in to make pronouncements about your character, your life, your beliefs.
They don’t listen. They read/see/ from an ego-centric place often based on prior experience. As the blogger, I have been stung by assumptions as I’m sure most bloggers have.
And I often wonder how to pick my battles, what to act/re-act to, and what to let go of.
Lately Signposts, Rev. Mike and Cre8d have been struggling with ‘what you read isn’t what I said’ syndrome.
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It’s not just blogging that has these problems… http://www.spinsanity.org/posts/2004_02_01_archive.html#107574662948215391
Ummm, hit post without following through with my thoughts. One of the things about a blog post is it is like picking up a novel, reading one page and the judging the novel or the characters on one page of contexless conversation. It happens to all of us and without remorse many times. The format of blogging is that you read the first post easily and then have to work to get the context. No wonder people are often confused. The medium is hard on context.
I don’t think the medium is necessarily hard on context, it depends on the context.
I think it boils down to the users of the medium.
If for example a ‘religious person’ is used to using the internet to go to their church site where things are laid out differently, or they are participating in a specific use-thread; blogging may well be backwards to them at first.
Thats fine. The more the merrier, and all of us can cut newbies much needed slack.
Interestingly, the references in this post and the post above it refer to people that haven’t read the blogs mentioned with any regularity.
They are all defensive in nature.
I suspect in at least one case, they haven’t seen a blog before.
I don’t find reading a blog ‘work’ at all.
I find them easier to ‘contextualize’ than a website. But won’t most people judge the book by it’s cover?
To me the commenters in the post are like people who catch a phrase in a newscast and then call the station to protest. They didn’t hear/see the whole thing or heard what they wanted to hear and have to let you know it.:^)
98% of the time that’s cool, it’s the 2% that’ll get me every time. Blog on!