I’m still amazed at people and how they react to simple blog entry like this one . Why the comment about stuffing Mr Seek in a jar ? The picture is not from him … so please read what is posted before making such comments. That said, we seem to have the same problem with popular serach words such as Phénomia and Star Academie which attract random comments from lost fans.
Why is that ? Do people just forget to read or is it just to simple to post a comment ? Should there be a barrier (like a free registration) that ensure that a minimum of tough goes into posting each comment ? I know some people will argue that digital publication is the greatest thing since sliced bread for freedom of speech, and therefore we should not restrict posting an entry, but what is the use of speech if no ones reads you ?
Having an easy way to publish your comment is great if you have a way to distinguish what is relevant and what is not. But if you do not, you will eventually get lost in a sea of irrelevant comments. Any reader of site like /. have noticed this problem. Slashdot adress this problem with moderators who rank all the entries, but this information is not processed by global search engines.
Although there are still a lot of good and insightfull comments to be found on blogs, I worry that we may soon be unable to search trough the sheer volume of stupidty or irrelevant comments that gets published. What we would need is an intelligent comment search engine. Google should develop that as a extension to their services. Hell, I’m certain some people would even pay for such a service if it effectively cuts down search time.
Why not draft a RFC that would provide a technical way for seach engines to appreciate the relevance of each posting ? This would require some work from the administrators of each blog and contributive web site, but the community would benefit greatly from this. Since I’m not the technical expert here, I will leave this issues to others.
Well these where my random thoughs on this sunday morning. Hope this entry attract relevant comments !