More on interweb connectivity
On of the neat things about the web is that it fosters distributed conversations. There are several forms of this idea floating around, including referer lists, pingback, and trackback. I should also include comments in that list as well. However, I’ve noted several neat people intentionally don’t allow comments.
Sites that stick to non-comment forms of post-linking seem to view the idea of distributed conversations in a very pure form. The web is supposed to be distributed, so why make you come to my site to make a comment? Make a comment on your site, and I’ll make note of it and let other people know about it as well. At the same time, this seems to remove something of the community spirit that grows around websites.
So should a site allow comments? Or stick to more indirect means of linking responses to posts? One could easily argue that forum-centered sites take care of the community thing, and so we need not bother. However, a community may be exactly what the author of a site desires. Come on, isn’t Slashdot just a big noisy blog? Anyways, I’ve once again managed to avoid any form on coherent argument, so let me summarize… Many forms of maintaining web conversations, both centrally and otherwise. Which you implement depends in large part on your goal with your site.
Two last thoughts:
- I like sites which integrate trackback and comments into a single commentary system. This is a nice compromise between the comments and trackback/referrers/pingback.
- Comments are nice when your freinds don’t have blogs on which to flame your ass.