The Thread that Wouldn’t Die

I had something interesting happen yesterday. Well, maybe not interesting, but it was something that set me back on my heels and made me wonder.

I read a blog post on short versus long for article length and became involved in the ensuing comments of it. It wasn’t a really controversial subject, just a discussion on article length and the best word count to aim for. The blog author’s opinion was that long doesn’t mean better and that 500 words obtains the most effective results in article marketing campaigns.

I agree. A few people didn’t, though, and they defended long articles wholeheartedly. A couple of people believed that only long articles could deliver quality content. One commentator believed that serious writers write long articles – or they weren’t serious.

Well, there I disagreed, and I posted up a comment. Someone disagreed and they posted, and I replied, and so on. A small debate, nothing major.

The comments we all posted weren’t nasty or unpleasant, and they all held a good level of respect for each other (or so I thought) while agreeing to disagree. A couple were quick bits of fun (or so I thought again). I wasn’t planning to turn the comment section into an argument and I’d actually spoken my last on the subject.

This morning, the blog author summed up a point that effectively closed down commentary in a beautiful way. (Well done, Chris. Good job).

What had me sitting back stunned was someone posting a comment that hopefully, the summary would be the definitive statement and the last post in the “thread that wouldn’t die.”

Say what?

A blog is a social atmosphere geared towards a network of discussion. The whole blogosphere is one that links back and forth, people commenting on other blogs in a huge spider web of information. It’s like playing never-ending monkey bars, always swinging to the next rung.

Personally, I’d love if we had comments on our blog. We don’t. Perhaps people feel they shouldn’t out of respect, or maybe they just have nothing to say. Maybe they’re shy, who knows. But we created this blog to be part of the social network and we openly encourage comments, debates, opinions, and anything else people want to share.

If you read a blog and don’t want to be part of that social aspect or the discussions that may tumble down from a post, then opt out of receiving commentary notifications via email. Don’t even look at the comments, if you don’t want to.

But don’t shut down someone else’s comments thread because you aren’t interested in what’s being said. It’s rude, and it effectively squashes the purpose of a blog. It shows a complete lack of respect for the author, too. If he didn’t want commentary, he would have disabled the comments feature or set up moderation approval before posts go up to start with.

Think twice before you roll your eyes at someone else’s discussion and discredit it by trying to shut commentary down, unless you’re the owner of the blog.