3 ms·

I've got thick skin. My readers may not though. As the post points out, the goal is to get people to post comments that make for a better reader experience.

• jacquesm 17y ago
  The typical reader of a blog will either read it to the end and leave, make a comment to say they thought it was a great article or they'll find a single sentence halfway through reading and they'll pick on that. The whole format is set up for that, rarely do you see a blog where the majority of the comments are civil, constructive and to the point. For that you need a different format, more like a mailing list. And even there the 'top posting one liner' is a very common response. A true forum is much more work to maintain because it gives equal standing to authors and comment writers alike, they change roles from time to time, which puts the comment writers of yesterday in the position of the author of tomorrow. Like that they learn more about how it feels to be on both sides and that in turn will - hopefully - guide them to be better participants. Then there's a demographic issue, people that are a bit older more likely than not will think about their response for a bit, the younger the commenter the bigger the chance it's going to be shorter and / or rude. I know of one or two teenagers that are active on fora where I am a member as well, they're the exceptions in that they are excellent contributors, most of the other ones that I know of are in one word disruptive.