13 Things@Coe: Blog comments

Prompt: Why do you think commenting is important in online communities? What might this mean for students who share their writing online? Write something about who you're following and the tags you've used.


I believe that commenting is important in online communities for the obvious reason that it provides the opportunity to begin a discussion on a topic that people are interested in and provides the space for thought-out responses/reactions/questions/criticism of a said prompt (be it textual, auditory, visual). 


An area that I think is important in this venue for discussion is helping students translate the etiquette of face-to-face discussions to the realm of online discourse. Too often I read comments on online writing in which the commentators feel that the traditional rule of 'treat others as you would want to be treated' is thrown out the window. This is not so much the case for class discussions, but rather longer pieces of writing (often topical on current events) in which there is more distance created between the writer (or subject of the writing) and the commentator. Too often I feel that some find this as an opportunity to throw etiquette out the window, which is inexcusable. Take for example this recent news article on a sculpture placed in the Krasl Art Center's sculpture biennial in St. Joseph, MI. Granted it is touching on a number of hot button issues: the role of public sculpture, artist's intention versus audience reception and censorship (just to name a few), but the comments by some individuals overtly cross the line from critical reaction to downright hostility, and in the process stop the discussion in its tracks (and discussion on these issues is very important!). For the sake of full disclosure, the curator is a close friend of mine, so obviously I am personally involved in the situation in a manner that I might otherwise not be - but perhaps this is why I am thinking so much about issues of etiquette in online discussions.


But I digress to the topic of tagging. I divided my tags thus far into two categories to reflect the two themes of this blog: Adventures in Cooking and 13 Things at Coe. The thing I was struck by in reading/commenting on my fellow 13 Thingers' blogs was how similar all of our reactions are to this endeavor and web 2.0.