Comments on: Short posts are where it’s at

By: Digbeth is Good » Blog Archive » Digbeth’s art space cluster

Digbeth is Good » Blog Archive » Digbeth’s art space cluster — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:47 +0000

[...] Birmingham Post’s Joanna Geary has been posting her quick, incoherent thoughts of late. Here’s my stab at writing a mere musing that’s been ticking away in my brain since [...]

By: diamond geezer

diamond geezer — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 01:16:07 +0000

The more you write, the less you leave for your commenters to say. Leave enough gaps and people leap in to fill them for you.

By: Martin Belam

Martin Belam — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:23:39 +0000

Personally, I’m inclined to think that it is Joanna’s subject matter that provokes the discussion, not her brevity. But then, as someone who regularly writes blog posts that are 1,500+ words long, I would say that, wouldn’t I ;-)

By: Pete Ashton

Pete Ashton — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:04:39 +0000

@Dave Heh, the linkbaiting comment came from me so maybe I should explain. It wasn’t intended as derogatory though I can see why you might have thought that. It’s just that it ticked a lot of the boxes for the sort of post people write when they want to encourage links and comments. There’s nothing wrong with that – it can often be a good thing. You wanted links and comments so you wrote in a style that would encourage them. Where it can be derogatory is where someone deliberately writes something controversial purely to drive traffic to their site, not because they want to query their readers. A post like, say, “Blogging is dead” would be classic linkbait in the negative sense.

Fishermen use bait to catch fish. What they then do with those fish (eat them, throw them back, gut them and use them as a funny hat) is up to them.

But yeah, I probably should have rephrased that.

By: dave harte

dave harte — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:45:33 +0000

Interesting stuff. When I wrote a 'ten things' piece on the custard factory a couple of people subsequently described it as 'link-baiting' which sounded a bit derogatory to me. I'm not quite sure what that term even means. My intention, like Jo's, was to see in what direction the reaction went and hopefully have something useful come out in the debate. It attracted 18 comments which is good for me but then I felt a bit uncomfortable with being described as a 'link-baiter' implying I'm in it only for the attention it reflects back on me (which is only half the story). I don't think Jo and I are doing anything different in our writing yet the language used to describe it seems different.

By: Simon Howes

Simon Howes — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:48:32 +0000

I used to run a web site where long-winded articles and reviews would get very few comments (in the double figure), short articles or reviews would get many hundred, sometimes thousands. Only controversial articles would draw comments.

However, even if slashdotted and 30-100 thousand hits in a few hours, the comment section could still be low (possible 5-10 at most). Most would read the summary on slashdot, click on the link and not bother to go past page 3 or 4 of the article, the majority cannot be bothered to read it all, even though we had a policy of 200 words per page and a maximum of three images. We found ways to get more people to read more pages and comment by use of white background instead of navy blue, and to use a 7-10 words per line.

Anyway Pete, your post was long, I do not expect many comments. :p

By: Nick Booth

Nick Booth — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:30:47 +0000

In terms of effort to response you are right. Leaving people with a problem is far more interesting that solving it in advance. (Be reasonably sure though that your query is sincere)