I got a spanking over at Missbehaving.net today. I didn't think I was being snarky, but I was off topic. But I had to be off topic. Because I wasn't able to comment on topic. Because comments got turned off for the post I wanted to comment on. And, maybe it's news to some other blog tool users, like me, but we with YACCS don't get to trackback or whatever it's called. And, well, I wouldn't think to do it if I could have in this instance.
It all started when I commented on a post by Halley on sexual globalization that was a double post from Halley's site. Halley had turned the comments off for her post over on Misbehaving and I was so disappointed when I got the the bottom of reading the post (again) and (again) couldn't leave a comment that I said something. It's still there as I write this, but you never know. Because it's not in the proper spot, under Halley's post. Because I couldn't leave it there. Because comments were turned off there.
Megnut gave me a talking to. And then deleted my next comment, which said basically what I say in the second paragraph here: that it was a double post and I found it frustrating to get to the end of it in a different (and I was assuming more community-based) forum only to be able to not comment again. Then I left a comment saying, "You actually deleted it--eeeks!" That didin't pass the Misbehaving comment monitors either.
Look, if I'm emailing Halley, it's not to talk about sexual globalization but sexual actualization. She knows this.
And, quite honestly, I didn't want to post about her sexual globalization post over here. I wanted to DISCUSS it in the community misbehaving is fostering over on their site. That's a dialogue.
There's a difference between these two modes of conversation in blogging, between posting-with-link and commenting.
One boosts your technorati rating (posting with link) and implies that that the reader-turned-poster was somehow moved enough to action by someone else's voice that they dedicate a post to talking about it with THEIR readers; the other is a sub-layer discussion among equally interested and present individuals (in comments). They both have their purpose, and I don't think it's genuine or smart to limit that sub-layer discussion in a community-blog setting like misbehaving.
Trolls out themselves. Ban them if you don't like the distraction they offer, but don't cheat the reading community out of the opportunity to discuss a post in a forum more aptly called comments.
That's my 22 cents. Paypal it to me.
