Yesterday's blogs created a phenomenal number of comments.
I was officially on a day off (I saw spoonbill, kingfisher, willow warbler, garden warbler, stonechat and more). But that said, despite four to five hours of effort, it took me until mid-evening to clear comments that had come in, some of them many hours before.
Let me put this in context. I suspect I moderated around 90 comments and replied to many of them.
Those comments probably averaged around 300 words, with many exceeding 500 words, and one reaching at least 800 words. That means I may have moderated around 25,000 words - enough to fill half a book in some cases - and I was supposedly not working.
I should also add that many comments required a lot of thought.
I am also supposedly going to be referred to the police and others for racism and hate crimes for calling out genocide and being anti-Semitic, which, very obviously, except to those who demand that the Israeli government be given a special and exclusive right to commit genocide and operate an apartheid state, I am not.
I have to wonder, though, whether that level of interaction is something I can really manage on any day if other things are to be done, including developing the thinking to which I referred in the day's video (and today's).
So a question. If I were to impose a word limit on comment length, would that be fair, or would it harm the blog? Two polls then:
Poll 1
Should there be a word limit on comments on this blog?
- Yes (72%, 331 Votes)
- I am not sure (18%, 83 Votes)
- No (8%, 38 Votes)
- I don't read the comments, so don't care (2%, 7 Votes)
Total Voters: 459
Loading ...Poll 2
If there was a word limit on comments, what should it be?
- 300 words (39%, 174 Votes)
- 200 words (34%, 151 Votes)
- 400 words (20%, 87 Votes)
- A higher figure (7%, 31 Votes)
Total Voters: 443
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Thanks for all your moderation efforts! Yesterday’s looked exhausting, glad not to have to read them all myself!
In the King James version, Jesus’s Parable of the Prodigal Son is more than 430 words. Just saying.
Aha…. Actually 511 in a modern version I sometimes use! But only 331 if you stop at the point where he’s reconciled and welcomed by his father (which cuts off the most important part, perhaps, about the elder brother).
But it could be condensed; and do we want comments to tell stories?
Responses should be less than a page – couple of paras (one? two? three?) – which is what I aim for.
When I was thinking about the word count, I remembered reading assignments written by pupils. 300 words was average for a side of A4, handwritten.
That made me rethink. I thought that far too much for a comment.
There has been a need for some time. Whatever you can manage comfortably.
You have other projects which may be more important.
If it’s too long, just don’t put it up. Ignore it. And that goes for me too.
Or just don’t do it when you are birding?
Or post less controversial topics before you have a break, to keep the traffic down?
Not my style….
And heading for Minsmere now….
I wish I was heading to Minsmere now
It was a good day.
Bittern.
Hobby.
Green and common sandpiper.
Treecreeper.
Sandwich tern.
A lot more. And good weather.
Hmm. I would rather the commenter know in advance if there is a word limit, so to avoid wasted effort if submitting too long a comment. (Perhaps it can tell you many words/characters are left?) So a word limit makes sense, given the amount of energy it requires to moderate. You are finite, and it would do us no harm to practice concise communication. But there also needs to be enough space to post more than just a soundbyte…
I will be exploring that issue – I would not want to waste anyone’s time. A few commentators might also be excepted from the limit because they have proved their value. I can think of a way to do that.
It’s hard to express a complex response within a small fixed word limit. But probably necessary.
A day off should be a day off !
Moderate the next day as part of the next days’s work and put out fewer blogs on that day.
Whilst I greatly appreciate your blogs and the comments ( they are my essential reading), burnout must be avoided and that may mean doing a bit less and enjoying your days off more…….
But on Wednesday there will be videos to make, and there would be 200+ comments and some would be very nasty.
You seem to be at the point where a one man show is not sustainable anymore.
I have read that your son help with videos. Paid or not? I don’t know.
And, I don’t know what the economics of the blog are. You get a lot of invites to comment everywhere it seems. Are they paid?
It might be time to hire someone to be the blog admin if you can afford it.
Once you attract a lot of attention it becomes impossible to run things as a cottage industry. To restrict user interaction might limit user satisfaction.
This is being looked at. My son is paid. Another person leaves the economics as marginal. I can live with that.
Maybe have someone triage the comments first, before you see them. That, at least, might filter out some nasty comments and trolls.
Trolls are very easy to spot. It’s the long questions that take the time, and often get done last as a result.
I trust your judgement, you clearly do give a ‘sh/t’ and appear currently to be straining every sinew in order to help achieve a fairer and more just world- you will know best what you can realistically manage!
I was on a Mastodon instance for a while that had a character limit (not word) which made detailed responses very difficult: do I write the response and then break it into small chunks or find some other way, a blog of my own, perhaps?
I suspect it’s difficult to ask people to navigate away from your blog and expect them to return.
I don’t have my own blog and I don’t think I have enough to say to warrant one so my solution was either to not respond or break it into chunks. Neither was satisfactory, but then Mastodon isn’t pre-moderated so it’s not really analogous.
Let’s just say I don’t like the idea of a word limit but I understand why you might choose to impose one.
Noted
Being short and concise is not only intelligent but showing respect for someone else’s time. It’s also unnerving to know you’re reading the equivalent of an academic study every day now you’re enjoying the extra time retirement brings.
It’s your blog,so surely you should decide what is manageable to you? And it’s absolutely fine to try something out and change it if it doesn’t work. As for days off. These are vital and you shouldn’t be coming home to masses of work. And whilst you have done this for years if you are going to write a book etc you must have dedicated time off. Either get someone else to cover, or make it clear you are having a day off.
Normally I enjoy everything about the blog.
Normally no-one notices my holidays. I blog through them.
The last day or two have seen exceptional comment levels, and some more than usually aggresive ones, even on typos. And I am reacting like a human being does.
A word limit will help focus my thinking and so might help to make my comments more incisive (I am feeling optimistic today) so yes, I think that would be a good idea for me.
And of course for Richard I think a word limit would be a good thing because it allows him to focus more on his actual output, which I’m sure we will all agree is the most important thing here.
It is a shame the commentary function doesn’t allow for previews and edits, that would cut down on secondary posts, which I’ve had to make myself a few times to correct errors in the original.
(109 words btw :-))
🙂
I voted for a word limit and it to be 200.
You blog – I comment.
If my comment is getting to be a side of A4, then perhaps I should be blogging.
I think we need more blogs.
Gary Stevenson would agree – he’s been round several countries in mainland Europe, plus Japan, encouraging people to use social media. He has a point – the extreme right has exploited this space, they need some competition.
I could add links…
300 words seems fair. That is a page of a4. This isn’t a venue for a short essay competition.
Thanks
I am in favour of shorter comments.
However, useful comments will take longer to write. To quote Blaise Pascal, ” I would have written a shorter letter, but did not have the time”.
At the moment I think folks may be rushing to comment first, which is understandable. But that does not necessarily lead to good comments. Perhaps that might be ameliorated by not posting any, moderated, comments for a couple of hours.
I’m not sure whether that’s a good idea – but it’s a thought
300 is enough. They’re writing a comment. If they want to pull your blog apart bit by bit, they should be writing their own blog.
I really value this blog so do whatever is necessary to spare yourself so that it can keep going. Maybe you could post fewer times a week, on fewer topics, which would generate fewer comments……, but definitely have a word limit. Anyone who wants to write more than a page could start their own blog and post a link….
I can’t stop writing….
But I think more blogs is a good idea
If I wanted to post something longer than your limit, whatever it was, I could split my comment in 2 or 3 and post as separate comments. (I never have wanted to do so so far.) But this may perhaps be a job for AI; count the words and send back asking for comment to be shortened, with no involvement from you at all. Is this possible?
At your end, yes. I actually have a macro I have written to do this on chatgpt
Perspective API might help you spot contributions that break the rules.
Tell me more….
I’ve just read a response of just under 400 words, having seen it, I would say 400 max. Yesterday was hard going, just reading; a huge amount of work for you. Yes, limit words, if we want to do more than comment we can start our own blogs. Very tough for you RJM to respond to so much mud and heat in your thoughtful way, while trying to have a family life and do all the work you wish to. It’s your blog, do what works for you.
An absolute limit will occasionally be a barrier to a really helpful input.
You have some extremely knowledgeable contributors whose longer pieces are great. Most troll inputs are short. I suspect a huge majority of the rest will try to be constructive.
So, before imposing any limits:
– appeal to folks to keep it short (most will).
– Ask folk to not repeat material (sometimes difficult when all comments not yet reviewed/online), but perhaps just express support for the points made instead.
– if you have limits, some contributors add more insight/value than me for sure; could they have more slack?
Thanks.
A few might get exemptions.
Who did you have in mind – as you are a seasoned commentator yourself?
I suspect you know full well!
There are thoughtful contributions from many. But if I had to pick 6 that supplement / challenge / support your thoughts more than most then it must include: PSR, Mike Parr, Clive Parry, Ivan H, Ian Stevenson, Robertj, Alex (see, I can’t even count!).
Some of the other comments on this have suggested you could have a small group to help you. I fully get your point that then it isn’t you that is responding. The above is a pretty good core that are thoughtful, and, in the main aligned.
Another thought (which is related): Given the success of the blog, in terms of increased numbers — it seems that a solution to this issue is more important than just dealing with a particularly tough day. It is a scaling issue — and you need time to reflect, think and not always to be ‘responding’. So some method of a trusted team that can supplement/compliment might be more critical to than I’d understood when I first read your input this morning.
Not sure that this helps you whatsoever. For all our sakes, I hope you find a good solution! Best!
Thanks
I do try and limit my comments so I only say something when I think it adds to the debate
Although I am a software developer, I’ve never really dabbled in the sort of software that runs these sort of sites. But here’s a possible solution?
Don’t have pre-emptive moderation, and just allow all comments to go through. Then have a “report this comment” button, and if a relatively small number of people report it, it gets hidden until such time as you can read it and decide whether to allow it or permanently remove it.
You seem to have a fairly sizeable readership and a fairly regular selection of commentors, so it could become self policing to an extent perhaps?
You’ve also mentioned that at least some of the readership are people whose identities you know in real life. Perhaps you could have delegated moderation done by those people for free, with them having the ability to remove a comment in the same way you could, combined with reactive reporting. A contribution they could make, other than a financial commitment.
Also, as we have to specify an email address, which is not published, you could start to whitelist certain commentors based on their email address after they had “earned a sufficiently good reputation for not trolling”. (I’m not auto including myself in that, but I don’t think I troll). As the email address of the commentor is not known to others, it would be very difficult for a troll to start hijacking someone else’s reputation by guessing their email address.
Just some ideas that are used in other discussion forums.
Simon
Thanks, but no way. That would certainly require an age preclusion, which would be absurd. And some of the Zionist material in the last few days has been horrible. So no way everything gets on, I am afraid, especially in the new legal environment which would now ban all udner 18 year olds.
And, I do not think moderation is easy, and I would not ask others to do it.
And even PSR gets deleted occassionally, so whitelisting is not on either.
Sorry, but those don’t work.
Richard
I believe Churchill asked his ministers to keep their reports down to one side of A4. That’s about 300 words. I was also taught to start a business report with a recommendation or conclusion, with reasoning or evidence in the main body. An academic approach might be different.
Anyone with reasonable communication skills can make their main point, make a suggestion and provide evidence on one side of A4. (that’s about 60 words I’ve submitted).
Academia calls it an abstract. I asked students to write them for their essays. If they couldn’t I could be fairly sure the essay was also pretty weak.
Here’s a link to their website. Might be worth exploring. It looks as if it could help you filter out unwanted comments without taking away your control. You could also get Chat GPT to do brief summaries of longer comments, so you can get through them quicker.
https://www.perspectiveapi.com/
Thanks Cliff, but I think that is mainly aimed at toxicity and abuse and existing spam filters get rid of most of that, thankfully. About 70% of comments sent here go straight to spam without me ever seeing them.
It would be a good exercise in being concise
I think a word limit is an excellent idea, not just for you but for those of us who try to read all the comments too. I confess that I do sometimes skip or skip-read overly long comments, either because they’re waffling, or just because I don’t have the energy to read comments sometimes far longer than the original blog. I love the 500 character limit on Mastodon posts. It forces one to write strictly to the point.
So yes, add word limits. Try 300 and see how it goes.
Thanks.
Richard, this is going to be a tricky one for you! Sometimes your posts are essays in themselves and fired off between 7-9AM. I might have read them throughout the day but respond in the evening.
Trying to find a balance is not, I would suggest from limitations to word content, but your ability to moderate on this level?
So you have long term support from people within this group? ( Not sure group is the word?)
You have built friendships and alliances that could maybe help in this situation. Please ask for that!
This blog is an on ongoing trraun fo thought by me.
I am not sure how someone else moderates the comments on my train of thought.
It’s not necessarily your train of thought! Maybe just the worthiness/ acceptable post that may come in! I’m sure moderation is an absolute nightmare!
If you haven’t got a team then you need one !
You misunderstand this blog. Sorry, but you very clearly have. Try Reddit if you want random posts from whoever.
Many of the long posts from your frequent responders are filled with useful information, links, and insights, and are well worth reading.
However, I also feel you shouldn’t be killing yourself with this kind of workload, especially if it builds up so much whenever you’ve dared to take a day off.
Hmm. What if your daily blog consisted of only one or two topics per day, instead of the 4 or 5 you often do? Just a thought. Cutting back on the number of topics could cut your workload down by at least half—both the writing and the moderation—without sacrificing the valuable responses you so often get.
But there always seem to be topics to discuss.
As my preference is alway concise I ticked 200 but that’s maybe too short. 300 probably more realistic for the vast majority of us. As you point out though there are some very valuable contributors that would need more on occasions. A couple of possible considerations:
1. How and when to extend this facility to new valuable contributors as they come onboard?
2. Who values those valuable contributors? You? Us? How often are they commented on/liked etc. What are your primary objectives of running this blog and is progress being made in achieving them etc
Thanks Simon.
All notred, including the last sentence. I will address that.
When I was at school (a long time ago), and as far as I recollect, I was good at 3 things – 1) running and jumping (sorry that is 2 things – then 2) music and 3) précis (oh and there was maths – ouch) . Forget about the running and jumping, and the maths (I am too old for any of that now) and some of you, including Richard know about the music and Richard’s photo of Snape Maltings needed few words (again thank you) – but it is possible to reduce several hundred words to just three or four hundred words given sufficient willingness to do so – more words does not make a ‘post’ more worthy – it possibly becomes ‘verbose’ — Richard does admirably with his posts without needs of verbosity – but some ‘comments’ I admit to finding a little too long so I skip them – if you want your comment to be read – précis – précis – and more précis (please).
Thank you
Yes, as a WordPress management company, we also have to limit on client sites – can easily get out of hand! Keep up the great work
I think you do valiantly moderating and responding to the comments. I find many of the comments interesting, too… but, I do think, as you have so much to write/vlog about etc. I think a word limit is called for and if others wish to write more than the word limit you set…well, maybe, they should start their own blog.
…And thanks for asking us what we think before you do these things.
[…] the context of recent discussions on comments and their moderation, I have been asked why I write this blog and what it seeks to […]