My final article for the Citizen blog at theage.com.au is called Coment is twee and is a heartfelt plea to get rid of blog comments in the mainstream media – and replace them with something much better.
Go read it and… don’t leave a comment!
Comments are closed.
Well bloody said, too.
Hey, I though the thing that writers at The Age did best was loll about in East St Kilda cafes, being, you know, writers at The Age; finger on the pulse and all that jazz ;-)
I do mostly agree that blogs are nonsense wastes of (virtual) space – at The Age and elsewhere.
Blogs, I reckon, are very much overrated as a communication tool…I think they’re better used as an archive or repository space, personally.
Hey James,
I’ve been bleating this mantra for at least a decade now:
“The ~best~ thing about the Internet is that anyone can publish anything they want.
The ~worst~ thing about the Internet is that anyone can publish anything they want.”
Lowering the chaff:wheat ratio is a tricky business.
Cheers,
Jessica
I find it more than a little ironic that this blog has a comments section.
While I’m a regular poster on the various blogs hosted by ‘The Age’ and brisbanetimes.com, I wouldn’t be too distraught if the comments section was taken away. To be honest, they are a poor forum for debate, even when readers do have something worthwhile to say, and if I really cared that much about making my opinions accessible to the general public, I’d make more of an effort to publicise my own blog, or write a letter to the Editor or something.
I hope it felt nice letting off that steam.
Good luck with edublogging. :)
How ironic that the article itself seemed to be an ill-considered troll, written by someone with a not-inconsiderable ego, and an axe to grind. What’s more, it’ll probably, like most blog comments, end up going absolutely nowhere.
The only thing worse than blog commenters with a sense of entitlement is bloggers (noun, pejorative) with a sense of entitlement.
Glad to have you totally back in the edublogs relm :-) Schools rely on you :-) and we need your sharp edge keeping technology sane.
Wow. Here I was thinking the problem with the age’s blogs was that they were, by and large, completely vapid and trivial. I think 90% of them have less intellectual content than I Can Has Cheezburger. But no, the problem is apparently the readers. I’m terribly sorry we don’t meet your high standards. Who knew that publishing articles like “Boys are cool! No, boys have cooties!” might attract MX readers.
As far as “post another article and Technorati will pick it up and you’ll also drive content to the age!”… yes, well. If fairfax actually put in a “here’s who’s discussing this article” widget (see the WP for an example) I might believe you are sincere. Instead it seems more like fairfax is just trolling for hits on their website, while having zero interest in participating in a wider discussion.
Er – I of course meant “drive hits to the age” in that previous rant.
Erm… you read to the point of the link to this article so I’m confused as to which part of ‘we suck’ and ‘I’m leaving’ you missed…
As for Fairfax getting technorati (or similar) widgets [* although you have to note that they suck too] it’s so far from out of my control that you might as well suggest I tweak the hubble.
As for you Daniels… nice bitchy comment :D
And it’s not ironic that this is a comments section, this is a regular old skool blog, I don’t even run ads, completely different rules apply to msm blogs.
No, no, I read your piece… OK, that’s enough from you – JF