The problem with the conservatives is they’ve already got a thousand and one popular bloggers, plus Conservative Home. Centre Right will be plunged straight into a very crowded market place, and so had better offer something quite special if it’s going to stand out.

Why is it that rightwing websites like these don’t allow comments? It’s almost as if they are scared of their readers…

The problem with the conservatives is they’ve already got a thousand and one popular bloggers

I’m not so sure about that. They have two - the rest get an average amount of readers. And even then, the success of those two has been driven by media coverage.

A blog without user intteraction is a bit of contradiction in terms, really.

Yep, completely agree Paul. (Listen up Nadine!)

“Like the National Review’s Corner in the US, it is essentially a high quality…”

did anyone else’s brain explode at that point?

Except surely as it’s on ConservativeHome it’s hardly going to be representative of the right as a whole, is it?

Comments are not intrinsic to a blog. Blogs pre-date the Web 2.0 interaction bullshit. The original link-blogs never had comment facilities, and many of the early commentary blogs didn’t have comments either. Everyone has a right to reply anyway - it’s called their own blog!

Yes, but I think everyone now pretty much agrees that blogs such as the one they’ve set-up should be open to the public. Your own blog is your castle, technically, and anyone can disagree with your set-up on their own space, but when it comes to a site that invites interaction or is from an organisation such as the Conservatives, feedback and criticism ought to go hand in hand with it.

septicisle,

No doubt, blogs are a better experience for the reader if they allow comments. But those that don’t have feedback facilities are still blogs - as I think we agree.

CentreRight.com will allow comments pretty soon methinks, that is unless it’s a vehicle for the Cameroonies, who like to think they’re part of some conservative revolution and hate any backchat to the contrary.

A blog without user interaction is a bit of contradiction in terms, really.

A contradiction of what exactly? Explain please.

Thanks Aaron. As you know, I’ve had this argument over and over again. It gets very boring! A blog is a web page with dated entries, usually in reverse chronological order. And that’s it! That’s the definition that has been used since the beginning. If people don’t like it perhaps they should call their sites something else - CLOGS, maybe?

Aaron and Mike!

So, you’d be happier with comments here cut off? It would be a more traditional blog then, would it? One that harked back to the good old days of writing into a vacuum?

I agree with Paul and Leon, so your definition is completely outdated. That is not what this is about, and I’m surprised that either of you think otherwise.

Even Ian Dale allows some comments. Things change, definitions change.

It is perfectly clear that if you don’t enable comments then you are either a self publicist, an ego or a dead tree journalist. None of these options is in any way, shape or form what this media is now about. Nor is it a reasonable definition of what a blog is currently about.

Ever been frustrated by what Oliver Kamm had to say? Oh, I don’t know, maybe on how nuclear war solutions are actually emminently reasonable? And been frustrated by his policy of ‘no comment’?

Naw, you’d just open your own blogs. Which is hardly the point. Oliver Kamm deserves to be tackled on his own turf, and the fact that comments are disabled says a lot about him. That is not a blog, that is polemic.

Not that I’d necessarily win, he is a clever chap, but he ain’t no blogger in my book.

Leon nailed it with the comment about Nadine Dorries. If you can’t see the point of that, well….

Indeed, we can all go off to our no name blogs with barely a handful of viewers and argue a case to a dead end with no-one answering back, it’s something different (and much, much better) to form and evolve the arguments through comments like these.

Absolutely - I’m with the idea of maximum possible freedom of comment. Some of the commenters on my own blog might not say things that are my personal cup of tea (we get all sorts, especially on the more… err… provocative posts) but such comments are part and parcel of the character of the site.

I think it’s even more important when looking to a readership beyond people who already agree with you. For instance I find that whilst I will occasionally look at Harry’s Place or Guido Fawkes, I almost never read Oliver Kamm. At least a part of that is because I know that if something should really annoy me, I at least have the option to give a short reply.

It’s the same with Spiked-Online. I don’t read it nearly as often as I would if I could respond and take part in a discussion on the articles, as you can here or at CiF.

It’s a shame really because they’ve very often got articles saying things no-one else does.

There’s a distinct lack of group blogs on the centre-right - unless I am missing something. My “group blog”-roll is looking distinctly left-field since I added Lenin and Socialist Unity the other day.

Still a work in progress, though.

Perhaps some Blair-Brownites will launch a group blog to redress the balance … cough.

I’m all for all traditions “getting organised”.

Reversing the order.

No comment … no blog.

(12) douglas clark

No, I’m happier with comments. I find Mike’s blog occasionally frustrating because he doesn’t have comments. But it’s Mike site. His bandwidth. His prerogative. It’s still very much a blog (not that I think Mike gives a flying shit). Anyway, if I have a problem with something Mike has written, I can email him or comment on my own blog.

Douglas - I had an argument with Olivr Kamm once over that article about Japan… but that was at Harry’s Place.

Whoops! Slip of the finger

So, you’d be happier with comments here cut off? It would be a more traditional blog then, would it? One that harked back to the good old days of writing into a vacuum?

You’re being very, very, silly!

I don’t give a toss whether this blog or any other blog has comments enabled or not I just mind that you think you have the right to pontificate about it. How come? I could say that yours isn’t a genuine comment because there is no link provided with it, unlike with Aaron’s and with mine. But again, so what? I don’t give a flying fuck.

Talking into a vacuum is better than out of your arse:
Jason Kottke is talking into a vacuum? Norman Geras? Glen Reynolds? James Wolcott? etc etc. Remember, there is more to blogging than UK politics, old bean. About 80 million blogs out there never, ever refer to it.

As for being a self-publicist…of course I am, forchrisesakes. DOH!
I am an ego! (sic) Ha, ha!

PS: At least you can write to me at a published email address. How do we get hold of YOU Mr Clark?

Mike Power,

‘Tis you that is pontificating, sir, not me.

As you know, I’ve had this argument over and over again. It gets very boring! A blog is a web page with dated entries, usually in reverse chronological order. And that’s it! That’s the definition that has been used since the beginning.

Just because you like your own definition, don’t make it true. In terms of political or current affairs commentary it is no advance whatsoever on dead tree journalism. The media may have changed but the relationship remained the same. You might as well call it the daily rant into cyberspace.

Believe it or not I visit quite a lot of sites that are not political, and by and large they do have comments enabled.

To answer your question re Geras, etc. Yes they are talking into a vacuum, much like opinion / editorial journalists have done for years. I think it came as a bit of a shock to quite a lot of them when they did start getting, more or less, instant and public feedback.

Ah ha, Mr Power, I see your own site does not have comments enabled! I wondered why anyone would be quite as ourtraged as you appeared to be. Now I know.

Well, at least you have a sense of humour, what with calling it ‘Not a Blog’ an’ all.

If you want my e-mail, ask Sunny for it. I’m not keen on making it available here as it’s also my personal one, but I don’t mind you having it.

I think that not allowing comments on a blog such as Centre-Right makes it clear that dissenting voices are not welcome. Of course one can set up one’s own blog (how long before “Centre-Right Watch”, anyone?) but having the right to reply right there in the comments underneath each blog entry makes it far easier to keep the bloggers honest.

Aaron Heath,

Thanks for the reply at 20.

Perhaps if we redefined what we mean here, it would be for the best.

It was the case, back in the dim and distant, that anyone who wrote stuff into cyberspace on a regular basis could reasonable say, ‘hey. I’m a blogger’. I’d be quite surprised if the technology was available to allow comments, back then.

What I am railing against, is the idea that that is what a modern blog is about. It is frankly quite important that folk sup with a long spoon at sites that don’t allow comment. For it says more about the insecurities, or lack of intellectual balls, of the author than it does about anything else. Not everyone, me for instance, has their own high traffic web site to refute things that are said on other high traffic web sites.
Indeed, I do not have a web site.

Matt W said it all with this comment:

No comment … no blog.

I think that that is right.

So, we disagree, I think.

Mike Powers’ ‘Not a Blog’, is, indeed, not a blog. Which is my point.