For quite some time, I've been pondering about this. Should Blogs be completely eliminated in favor of Discussion Forums ? Now, before you go off to write me a nasty comment, hear me out.
Using Blogs as a Forum
I have seen many blogs used to ask questions to whoever stumbles upon the blog. In fact, I even do that sometimes. Sometimes, however, the amount of responses that I get in particular blog entry can be overwhelming (in a good way!!). Case in point, the blog entry where I asked socialites their opinion on business cards.
In other cases, I've participated in discussions as part of a blog. These discussions can get so long and after a certain point, it's hard to track what people are replying to. Other times, the conversation gets diverted and a whole new topic is born. At that point, it's up to the reader to figure out which blog comments are related to the original blog topic and which comments are related to the new topic that came up as part of the discussion in the comments.
This, I believe, is the biggest problems with Blogs today. Comments need to be threaded so it's easier to keep track of who's saying what and who's replying to what.
Using Forums as Blogs
Looking at the issue from another perspective, I've seen some people use forums as blog entries. They actually post entries in a forum to advertise something, point readers to a link, and even just posting documents. When you read these entries in the forums, you can clearly tell that the author is not expecting a response. And sometimes others would comment. Usually, though, no more than 2-5 comments are added to these types of entries. These authors could have accomplished the same thing by posting the content in a blog!
Why have 2 ?
My thing is, why have 2 things that work almost for the same purpose ?? If nobody responds to a question / issue posted in a forum, how is that different from somebody writing a blog entry and nobody commenting on it? At the same time, say someone posts a question in their blog and get a multitude of response. How is that different from posting it in a forum, which has the added advantage of providing a threaded view of the comments?
Therefore, I propose that we kill Blogs or Forums. Or perhaps merge them together and create a new concept: Blums or Forlogs or even Discussion Blogs 
. Although, adding the capability to have threaded comments in a blog would be a huge step forward, I would hate to have 2 different solutions that share 99% of the features.
Others have also brought this up before, so at least I know that I'm not alone.
What do you think?
I think this is an interesting concept, I like Discussion Blogs. I think they are fundamentally two different things. A forum is where a group of people discuss similar topics and those topics are grouped by category. A blog is a journal of sorts, you can as a question, but that's not it's main purpose. It's main purpose is to log your thoughts or expertise. I could see this working if you had bloggers combine into one website under certain categories..there posts could be the "discussion topics" and their comments the thread...
ReplyDeleteOne more thought..with a forum you can be notified (usually) when someone has responded to your post, or a post which you have responded to. If you comment on someone else's blog, you have to check back to see if they have commented on your comment...there isn't a notification process...
ReplyDeleteI agree with parts of what you wrote. I pondered on this on the Greenhouse site some time ago - and agree that blogs could replace forums. But I disagree on having blogs be "extended". As you wrote; comments can become long and branch of in different threads and subjects. In forums this is even worse because they support threading. I actually prefer not having threading - keep it simple and on subject.
ReplyDeleteCarrie, re: your first comment, someone suggested the same problem in my internal blog. Ownership and categorization would be a problem in a merged world. Perhaps, we could get rid of categories and force people to start using tags and subscribe to Discussion Blogs via tags they are interested in!?
ReplyDeletere: your second comment, that's 1 case where I think blog technology could be improved!!! Just like you, I get frustrated when I comment in a blog, because that means that I have to subscribe to that blog's comment feed, or check back later. While subscribing to a blog's comment feed is not that hard, it adds noise in my feed reader, and I only need it temporarily. Instead, if we had a better notification process for blogs, perhaps it could be used to create better discussions! In my internal blog, someone called this a Blogum!
@Frode, That's a good point about going off on to different topics from the original blog entry. That would definitely be a challenge if both technologies are merged.
Hi Luis. Interesting point but I think there is still value having them separate. I read a blog (FastForwardblog.com) that had this quote "...forum is used to exchange information ad advice. Blogs are used as journals of individual experience."
ReplyDeleteHere is an personal example. Years ago I bought a Mac. Never used one before. Over the next 6 months, I was on Mac Discussion forums asking questions and search for answers. I couldn't see myself blogging or adding comments in a blog for questions like what does the apple key do or how do I add podcasts to my shuffle. The forums were a quick and dirty way for me to get information.
But I do agree that sometimes blogs and forums do get blurred, right now I will be sterring clear of your forlogs :)
You might want to look at some of the information in the article on blog based communities (where you got your images for this post) http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/2006/12/blogs-and-community-launching-new.htm
ReplyDeleteMy observations are that it isn't always so much the blogging software, but the pattern that the participants set up in how they interact. Now, with twitter, some of the conversation around a blog doesn't even happen ON the blog!
@Mark, I think your point is that users define how the software should be used, which I strongly support! In fact, I previously blogged about how social software should adapt to YOU. If users have to adapt to the software, adoption will suffer! What I'm wondering is if we can get rid of the two technologies, and just have one technology that's flexible enough to behave as a forum, or a blog, or whatever end-users want to make of it. That way, IT people only worry about supporting one infrastructure, and don't worry much about how end users utilize it. :)
ReplyDelete@Nancy, so glad that you found my blog!! I had already read and linked to your blog (see main entry above) and read it completely! I loved all the links that you had there (it gave me a LOT to read!) and, of course, I loved the pictures too :). If I read your comment correctly, you agree with Mark above. It's not about the technology, it's about how people use it. And like I said, I definitely agree!! My fear is that since we have so many different applications (twitter, friendfeed, blogs, forums, etc) are we unintentionally pushing people away from social software? One of the things that I often hear as an excuse is: "there's just too many things out there!". Thus, I'm proposing that when Blogs are re-architected (I argue that we are still in the Blogs v1.0 world), they should be done in such a way that it's a simple tool/solution/offering which can be used in many different ways, as defined by the end users! If we do this, then I think we can skip the question: "What's better for a community - blogs or forums?..." If we have such a technology, the community can decide as a whole what works best for them!
Hope to hear more from you soon!
@All, I think what differentiates a discussion forum and a blog is who has the rights to post an entry. Typically a discussion forum allows "all authenticated users" to post entries and replies/comments. A blog restricts who can post an entry but allows all to reply/comment.
ReplyDeleteIf you allow a blog owner to configure his/her blog to allow "all authenticated users" to post an entry, you essentially created a "discussion blog".
So I agree with Luis. Allow the person who creates a new blog to configure it as an individual blog, a group blog, or a discussion blog. There may no longer be a need for discussion forums by allowing "all authenticated users" to post a blog entry.
In reference to threaded blog comments, I think a better way is to allow the commenter to associate the comment to participants. We are already doing this now by putting an @Luis, @Nancy, @Mark, etc... Wouldn't it be nice if discussion participant's handles are automatically displayed with check mark boxes. You can now just "check mark" the users instead of manually typing @Luis,@Nancy, etc... Imagine now the ability to filter the displaying of comments by users. For example, show me all the comments that were directed to me.