26
May

"Give me my precious"

Posted by Steven Hodson in Monday, May 26th 2008      

Gollum: Give me my comments Bloggers can be an opinionated bunch. Whether it be about which computer is the best or which social network rules or whether we have the right to dictate where the conversation about our blog posts take place. While there is no argument over how we feel when our content gets ripped by scrapers and sploggers for their financial benefit we will bicker over where people can take the conversation. Some will even go as far as to delete accounts when they don’t like having the conversation away from their blogs.

Before the time of things like Twitter, FriendFeed and even Disqus we were pretty secure behind the walls of our blogs assured that anyone who started a conversation on a post was now your prisoner. Now though conversations have been freed to happen where ever they may and some find this loss of control disconcerting.

The discussion over this transfer of conversational control from the blogger to the commenter picked up today with several people expressing their viewpoints over the whole thing which started with a comment on FriendFeed by Robert Scoble late yesterday. In this comment Robert called Rob La Gesse out for deleting his FriendFeed account and thereby deleting any comments associated to his account; among which was Robert’s and so arose this discussion of who owns the comments made whether they be on your blog, FriendFeed or even Twitter.

Colin Walker wrote this morning that as far as FriendFeed was concerned this was going to have to be something they were going to have to deal with. Probably sooner than later. Colin pointed out that while it might be fine to delete your own posts and comments made on FriendFeed that shouldn’t mean that his comments get deleted as well. This might be all well and fine but really what kind of sense would any comments make if the impetus for those comments are removed. Sorry but that makes no sense to me.

Mathew Ingram quite rightly pointed out as well that maybe once you make those comments on a 3rd party site like FriendFeed they are no longer yours much like how Robert has argued that once he has posted on his blog it is no longer his - anyone remember his statement to bloggers - “your content is no longer yours”. How is this case of comments any different?

Cyndy over at Profy.com probably has the most sensible look at the whole thing as she asks

I’m sure that the bloggers in question aren’t too upset about it, since they didn’t like having the conversation there in the first place. But did they own the content of those comments? Conversations naturally fork; should they be deleted along with the accounts? As a blogger, I may not like having conversations everywhere, but I recognize that I don’t own any conversation. I don’t own what people say, and because I don’t own it, I can’t control it. But as we push this envelope into shapes unlike the traditional one, are we changing what intellectual property is and who has the rights to it?

The point is that we are all beginning to act like Gollum in The Lord of Rings thinking that anything we post to the internet; whether it be a blog post or a comment made somewhere else, belongs to us. Well I hate to be the cranky old fart to break to news to you but get over it because the moment you hit the publish or submit button your control ceases to exist.

It took me quite some time to come to grips with that myself as I believed that I owned my words and that should be respected. Well the fact that people might end up talking about a post on FriendFeed or even on your blog doesn’t mean that your words or thoughts aren’t being respected. In fact it is if anything the exact opposite - after all they are talking about your thoughts, ideas or opinions aren’t they?

And if for some reason some person decides that they don’t want to play anymore and some comment of yours goes missing - don’t worry so much you’ll be able to make plenty more. That is the preciousness of words and thoughts - they come easily and are freely given.



under: The Social Web    Tags: , , ,

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Viewing 4 Comments

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    Being an acolyte has its privileges... ;)

    I do like the Disqus solution. I'd like it more if I knew I'd have a back-up even if their service went down, and if, like fog over there said, it included a link to my blog. Where else can people know how to find more of my amazingly insightful writing? ;)
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    I kind of like Disqus and its solution. What I don't like is that it doesn't provide a linkback to your blog from your name/icon on another blog. Instead it links back to your Disqus profile. I still like to feel that adding pertinent comments and developing a conversation on another blog might help with measurable traffic back to my own blog as well, and Disqus limits that impact. Of course I can measure incoming traffic from Disqus, but it's adding another link in the chain and it's them that are getting any main traffic benefit, not me.

    Not that I'm less likely to comment on a Disqus powered blog, as traffic isn't the primary focus of why I comment, but it's a nice to have benefit!

    In terms of the overall debate, I concur entirely with Steve. Once you hit submit, control over "your" content is lost. I understand why there's a certain amount of resentment of the fractured commenting that the likes of FF develop. Many bloggers are still heavily focused on their traffic and direct activity on their blogs in terms of comments/linkbacks - it's measurable and gives you a sense of progress. While ultimately it's beneficial to be talked about anywhere, the idea that you're missing out on the conversation about something you wrote can be slightly frustrating.
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    Heh. That was a skirmish that grew into a full-fledged battle with mud being thrown everywhere. Really wild.

    My attitude about comments has been pretty consistent. If I leave them, they're yours. I do like the Disqus system, though, because in Disqus, if I'm a member, they belong to you AND to me. So if I ever said anything particularly wise or sage (which hasn't happened yet), I'd still be able to get at it.
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    Oh, I dunno Karoli. I think you do the wise and sage thing with some regularity. :)

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