Blogs & comments again
The decision by Harry's Place to curb comments (somewhat ironically in the midsts of a discussion on whether debate is being stifled) is understandable and sadly I think an inevitable problem of being too successful. Certainly in Harry's case you could argue that the polarised nature of debates over the war, which the site specialised in, and the introduction of a more controversialist commentator didn't help, but only on the margin. Even on more mild-mannered blogs large audiences go hand-in-hand with unreadable comment boxes (e.g. Kevin Drum's).Nevertheless it's a shame, as I thought the comments on Harry's site were once the nearest British political blogs got to a decent debate. Now I fear it will increasingly be that blogs merely preach to an ever smaller number of the converted.
We've been through potential solutions before, the best of which is probably some kind of registration system. This site, however, will stick to the technique of only having a dozen or so readers, with the added bonus of saying nothing controversial.
posted by Matthew @ 4/18/2004 04:59:00 PM
Comments: 0
