Comments?

In my view, there’s an interesting cultural difference between a blog that allows comments and one that does not. Ours does not at the moment. A blog or web site that doesn’t allow comments seems to me to be saying “this is the final word on this topic.” To me it seems there’s something formal about such publications and it is possible that they distance themselves from regular users. They hold themselves up as a paragon rather than engaging “on the level” with users. But that should not be a blog site, that is usually a Web site.

 “There seems to be no such thing as ruining your life.

Life is pretty much a resilient thing, it turns out.”

Maybe on School Street far away from the Rail Disaster.

Here, we had asked for comments, we wanted to engage, and we had aimed to build a creative dialog that enriched the initially published content. However we have had few comments in all our blogs. Web sites provide straight-up news and reviews of technology. In our adjustments we have now omitted comments simply because they seem to be not wanted. But we will see what we will see in a few months. We have stated over and over again, that the reader/dancers will make the decisions, these blogs will be theirs, not the other way around.

"Moliendo Cafe" by Azucar Moreno

So perhaps this site is less about community than about providing information. Perhaps facilitating on-site dialog isn’t central to the site’s strategy. Perhaps cementing the blog's position as The Last Word on a given topic by relieving the site of comment facilities does, in fact, support that strategy. I just think the reader are not aware of their importance and the effect they would have in our blogging.

"Young At Heart" by Frank Sinatra

What about our blog, though? Do you think we could successfully pull off removing comments? Would it upset our readership? Would it undermine our relationship with them? In short: how important are blog comments to our own engagement with our audience? Can we say anything about Live Music?

"Vaya Con Dios" By Les Paul and Mary Ford

Pub's Note: Comments - Information Contributors - Contributing Editors. What are they in our book? The definition for our blogs is still in process. And nobody knows.