Since there’s been a debate about why the top blogs do or do not have comments enabled, I decided to run some statistics on the Wizbang comment system. I was a little surprised at the results…
Wizbang: (Founded March 2003)
Total Posts: 4762
Total Comments: 43624
[Note: Approximately 10,000 comments were not migrated from Wizbang locations prior to October 2003, and are not included in the total above.]
MT-Blacklist Stats (Since MT-Blacklist 2.0 was installed November 26, 2004)
Comment spams blocked: 42276
Comment spams moderated: 14171
Duplicates blocked: 312
Blacklist – Strings: 2589
Blacklist – URLPatterns: 33
Blacklist – Regexes: 24
Blacklist – FlexProtect: 0
Blacklist – Pending: N/A
That’s almost as many blocked comments in 2 1/2 months as in nearly 2 years of publishing Wizbang!
Take that for what it’s worth…
“Top blogs” in what sense?
I don’t consider the blogs with the biggest hit counts to be the top blogs, necessarily. Kos and Atrios, and to a certain extent LGF are just facilitated echo chambers. Having “open threads” is a characteristic of this type of blog.
On the other hand, there are respectable blogs that allow comments. This one, for example; and Roger L. Simon’s blog, are excellent examples.
I think the open comment thing is irrelevant to the quality of a blog.
Ha. That article was too funny.
So, what I’ve learned is that “Conservative’ bloggers have the attitude that if you have a dissenting opinion, you can go out and get your own blog and spout to your hearts content. See: Self reliance.
If your a “Progressive” blog you must have comments enable because, you know, every dissenting opinion must be guaranteed an audience. Anything less would have a “chilling” effect on dissent. See: Entitlement.
Yep. Thats about par.
My conclusion from this data is there is much too much yapping going on.
Kevin, I hope you aren’t letting this serve as a warning or something!!!
Yea Kevin, if you allow comments YOU MUST BE LIBERAL.
/stop sarcasm
What Scott Ferguson wrote (^^).
My only suggestion for Wizbang would be some sort of saving of the comments that are allowed to stand/remain after various editing/screening. Many excellent comments have been made in Wizbang and it represents so much great content that is later not found when you search the Archives. At least, not the last time I tried.
I’d offer to host the comments in Archives for free if it’d help or be something useful for others…at least the Best Of or thereabouts.
Kevin – yes, see Suzy’s above.
I believe the loss of search function of Comments content happened during one of your earlier technical upgrades. It would be valuable to have it again.