In the world of web 2.0 no site should expect to hold the conversation purely on their server. Perhaps the MSM sites should start displaying trackbacks and creating mashups of the whole conversation, rather than just displaying what is recorded directly on their site.

It’s interesting that some of the News blogs (not the Oz, but certainly Bolt’s blog) specify a trackback URI and even list “0 Trackbacks” on every post, yet they don’t actually implement trackback functionality. I presume this is because providing a direct path for traffic to exit their own site is a nice way of reducing page hits and ad revenues. But I suggest that opening the News blogs to broader engagement with non-media blogs by allowing trackbacks would increase traffic in the long run.

I just posted a bit more about my own decision-making about when to comment and when to post on my own blog that ties in to this issue.

GM- it seems a little simplistic to say that blogs such as this crave MSM content, yet we don’t want to participate in the forums. there must be something else going on. I am inclined to think that Phil is right that it is the moderation thing that slows things down, meaning that it becomes serial monologue rather than dialogue.

Moderation as well as poor site design (eg most recent comment first!?!?) are a couple of reasons I rarely bother. But I think its also important to note that by linking to MSM sites, blogs like these are participating with the MSM.

In the world of web 2.0 no site should expect to hold the conversation purely on their server. Perhaps the MSM sites should start displaying trackbacks and creating mashups of the whole conversation, rather than just displaying what is recorded directly on their site.

I for one once put something on an OZ blog only to see it never revealed- and i can assure you that it was civil (I’d like to add insighful but that would have been for others to work out had they been allowed to see it)

The point is really that they are different mediums and I don’t buy the competition thing insofar as it means if I particpate in one I am not participating in another. They do different things and the great thing for us great unwashed is to be able to particpate in all of them and hear a variety of perspectives. What they do demonstrate it that we all reveal ourselves by what we say and where we say it, and in doing that we are the same as everybody else

For anyone who’s worried about contributing to ad-revenue on the horrid MSM sites, remember that if you have an advertising blocker installed o your browser then they shouldn’t see money from your click - the display ads only register a hit if they are actually served to your browser, and that’s what the advert blocker blocks.

Thats one area that the MSM should have an advantage over much smaller organisations. They should be able to sell ads directly rather than via third parties and thus serve the images from the same server as all the other images on the website. Adblockers wouldn’t be able to distinguish between normal images on their sites and adverts.

GM - a couple of technical features which might help with civility or at least reduce the impact of the lack of civility of some people.

- Allow people to create accounts which allow them to make posts from people they choose not to appear to them. Group moderation schemes can also help here so people can moderate comments up or down and people set a threshold at which they want to see posts.

- Thread comments rather than one big list. Not only is it easier to follow conversations within comments, but its easier to ignore the flame wars that inevitably occur when a site gets popular.

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/08/22/christian-kerr-troll-blogging-at-the-australian/

I understand your point. But you are making too many assumptions about our supposed lack of technical, or institutional knowledge of blogging.

As you say, the media companies are in your space for two reasons: to chase readers and revenue. That happens to be why our bulletin blogs begin with the premise that all are welcome. Not because we didn’t know where that would lead us, but because media companies couldn’t hop onto the net and began censoring the feedback they received to fit some preconceived notion of what is okay.

We have to learn it our way, because we are, as you say, doing it for different reasons. That’s not me speaking as a corporate voice, by the way, because i don’t have one of those.

As for what I do, I have a simple dilemma. I have more readers than posters. I’d like to hear from more of the readers, which is why I am challenging the regular posters to change their tone, or go somewhere else.

I must say what is most weird about this discussion is that blogs such as yours crave content generated by the mainstream media, yet your participants very rarely hop onto our sites to talk to us directly. Possum is an exception, of course.

Cheers
GM

The call to civility is not an end in itself, but my way of shaking up the readership of Meganomics.

GM, one of the points I’m trying to make is that as the blogosphere evolved organically over the years, a whole range of protocols developed which help in facilitating community and producing good discussion that’s fun and informative. I think that when the MSM took to “blogging”, and Rupe ordained that News Ltd papers would go down that route, only the superficialities of the form were imported. Given that there’s considerable expertise - much of which pro bloggers and consultants now tout to private businesses wanting to get into web 2.0 - around, I wonder why training wasn’t offered to journos (I assume it wasn’t - except in the technical sense perhaps). There’s a whole heap of knowledge out there about the distinct skills of facilitating community and discussion as well as aggregating knowledge about politics and economics or whatevs. It’s an odd, and I think significant, blindness in a profession devoted, after all, at least in theory to communication.

/tongue in cheek

Your clicks might still be contributing to them being able to say “over 1M hits” or whatever the impressive number is, but are these numbers transparently audited in any case?

In that vein, I was very tempted to read Moranda on Greer today; the leader looks like the article might contain some truly unmitigated and mind-blowing chutzpah, thus allowing one to ROFLMAO at (not with) Devine Ms M. But NO! Stood firm.

.

Good call. I read it and I think my head asplode.

Having said that, there are some really offensive sites I’d draw the line at linking to, but I’d mention that.

One thing absent from most of the MSM “blogs” is any linking. That’s partly a result of the legacy of print culture, I think, but also of a less democratic view of writing.

Roughly the same goes for blogs too. I can take up to and including a full flame war, so long as everyone’s disagreeing in good faith…

Yes, that is a problem. Blog on unsavoury X and reward them with a link? Blog about unsavoury Y and potentially give them oxygen?

I thought I was pretty **ludic** (if not lucid) in that Olympic T&A thread, the responses I got, not so much.

Yeah, but, Sean, playing doesn’t involve an absence of rules or norms! As kids in the proverbial sandpit know!

We’re not sorting out the destinies of the world. We are doing something meaningful, and if we approach it in a spirit of play…

Play? Play!?

Sure, we all know that blogging isn’t a matter of life and death…it’s way more serious than that!

I don’t blog for play. I blog so as to engender my own personal army of borg/flying monkeys who will rise up and do my bidding, with lashings of fawning adulation thrown in for free. Onward the ranks of the 101 Fighting Keyboards!

I’ll let Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz have the last word…

“So what you’re saying is that I write poetryblog because underneath my mean callous heartless exterior I really just want to be loved,” he said. He paused. “Is that right?”

Ford laughed a nervous laugh. “Well I mean yes,” he said, “don’t we all, deep down, you know … er …”

The Vogon stood up.

“No, well you’re completely wrong,” he said, “I just write poetry blog to throw my mean callous heartless exterior into sharp relief. I’m going to throw you off the ship anyway. Guard! Take the prisoners to number three airlock and throw them out!”