When people think of reactions from blogs, they normally think of negative reviews or inspiring stories.
Comments aren’t usually high up on the list of monitoring and watching what’s being said online.
Yet they should be, as a recent post by David Henderson and the subsequent conversation in the comments section show.
I won’t go too much into the actual blog post or the comments, as they’re both recommended reads and will give you a far clearer view of who may be in the right or wrong. What the post does highlight is that a blog comment can go even further than a blog post at painting an individual or company in a less than flattering light.
The gist of the post and resulting conversation is that David Henderson suggests that WordPress is an excellent medium for hosting your own online newsroom. Countering this is Steve Momorella of TEKgroup International, a company that develops and maintains online newsrooms.
What could have been a good discussion about both the validity of having your own online newsroom and how good WordPress is at running such a tool instead develops into a messy claim/counter-claim regarding the post and follow-up comments.
David seems to take umbrage with a comment made by Steve about the usefulness of WordPress and calls it a lack of understanding on Steve’s part. Steve is unhappy about David’s “disrespect” and so points out an error on David’s website.
This then results in other commenters joining in and by the end of everything, there’s a veritable “he said, she said” feel to everything.
While it makes for hugely entertaining reading, it also shows how a simple blog comment can taint someone’s view. I read David Henderson regularly. I respect him immensely and find him to be a great source of information and knowledge (although his constant putting down of PR does jade, after a while).
I didn”t know Steve Momorella prior to his comments on David’s blog post, but I do know of him now. Because of that blog post and its comments, I felt both David and Steve came out a little less positive than they otherwise might have.
While Steve’s comments have merit, they did come across as slightly leaned toward promoting his company which could be classed as comment spam. Whether that was the intent or not is down to Steve’s interpretation.
For David’s side, I felt he was being a little defensive and it maybe encouraged Steve to counter more than he would have.
From an outsider’s point of view, it could be seen as Steve is a promotional spammer and David doesn’t like comments that disagree with him. I know this isn’t the case with David and I’m guessing it’s not the case for Steve.
But see how easy a conversation in blog comments can sway a point of view?
Are you always thinking slightly about what you say and how it’s said when you comment on a blog? Or do you feel that it’s not something to worry about too much and just say what you feel regardless? Can comment conversations get away from you?
The comments are yours (no ironic pun intended).
Do you