While I've been away enjoying the SBL International in Singapore, it seems several bibliobloggers have been reduced to turning comments off, because of aggressive commenting (by one individual?). This is really sad, and I think Jim West misses the point in his response to some (somewhat aggressive ;) comments from Ken Ristau.
Yes, you could "discuss" something I've said by emailing me, yes an email discussion server would allow us to do this with a group of others, but a blog without comments is a bit like a webpage. That is something of it's blogginess has been removed. (And no, Jim, I don't find opening my email client, cutting, pasting and then editing "jwest "at" highland "dot" net" into and email address, and then commenting to you, is quite as easy and natural a way to participate in a community of conversation.
But, I also quite understand why you have had to turn comments off. When someone is sufficiently antisocial they can disrupt a community. Sad, but true...
And blogging, if it has any more value than keeping an online diary, has that value in the "community" it creates.
¶ 9:16 AM
[to Del.icio.us]
Glad you are back Tim. Hope you had a good time in Singapore. I'm a bit mystified as to how I missed Ken's point but that's ok. We elderly folk miss more than points. ;-)
By 
Jim, at
July 5, 2005 10:04 AM
Since I am both "elderly", jetlagged and sleep-deprived from the flights I may well have percieved a point Ken wasn't making - if so I'm sorry! But whether he was making it or not, the sociability of commenting - as you have just shown - seems to me essential to the blogginess of blogging. So, I don't see turning off comments as more than a temporary fix for an annoying problem. And of course the problem is that we are sinful humans living in an imperfect and and fallen world, hence "nutters" defile our comments from time to time.
As to how I'll heal with it - we'll find out when it happens, probably by turning off comments (though I hope only as a temporary measure)!
By Tim, at
July 5, 2005 11:00 AM
I agree with your points, Tim, especially regarding the essential community aspect to blogging and the inconvenience of an email discussion. I do believe these were aspects of the points I was making, though perhaps I made them too aggressively--as you point out--and not so clearly--as perhaps Jim's comment here suggests.
By Ken, at
July 7, 2005 4:18 AM
