The Art, Science and Etiquette of Commenting….

What is a ‘comment’?

I believe:

– A reaction to something a person reads, hears or sees.

– A reply to some content – either impulsively or after applying one’s mind.

– A completely new perspective of thinking to a topic that germinates as a comment, but becomes a point of view in itself.

Sure, comments can also be social, jovial and the funny ‘facebook’ types – but those are not the context of this discussion.

In this blog, I discuss why ‘commenting’ on media we consume has to have an Art, a Science and an Etiquette.

So that as Indians, we come across as an intelligent group of thinkers – and not farters – in the global realm of digital media as it explodes all around us.

Let me start with a comment I made, that I am still so proud of till date.

In 1995 (almost 17 years ago), the India-Enron crisis had become a center point of all media discussions. As expected, The Economist also wrote about it. 

In response to the same, I wrote a letter to The Editor (comment if you may) which was printed by them !!!

(Produced below – my letter in the issue dated Sept. 2nd – 8th, 1995 edition of The Economist)

Start from bottom left and then go to the top

Believe it or not, after that one letter to the Economist and that’s 17 years counting, I have still not been able to get a letter published 🙁 Despite having written to them over 50+ times.

Why so?

Simply because my letter quality has not matched the quality or gravity (person associated with an article) of other letter writers, competing for the same space!

Now, one can ask that in this age of Internet Media, should The Economist bother reserving only 1-2 pages for comments? Why not let everyone’s letters feature and make them happy?

I think that The Economist believes that any letter printed in their magazine is as sacred as the content in their magazine. If it ain’t good, then it ain’t good!

So, let’s agree that at the highest level, a comment must have a high quality to be really called a worthy comment!

ps – if you notice the ranking system of Facebook comments, this is the same philosophy at work.

Moving on, in the age of facebook, comments and tweets and G+ replies, let’s work with these views:

– At least if not of high quality, a comment must have the right CONTEXT!

A couple of days ago, I posted a blog about how Junglee will destroy the e-commerce market in India.

That blog was well received, and the well known site, pluggd.in also featured the same article

On pluggd.in, there were some critical comments and some positive ones. The editor Ashish Sinha and I addressed some of them personally.

Some of the critical comments are produced below:

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

There was a normal exchange of comments on this subject via twitter also. See one example below:

Quite clearly, commenting with context and agreeing to disagree drives the healthy process in the business of Commenting.

– Now, what worries me is when comments come through WITHOUT CONTEXT OR QUALITY.

Check this out: (Posted on Twitter with reference to the pluggd.in blog post)

The original tweet HAS NO CONTEXT! When you say “this is a foolish article” – what do you mean?

And another person Re-tweets the same!

In the same tweet messages, and also supported by another person, I explain the BENEFITS of this blog piece  (read the tweet messages again, as produced above)

When confronted further –  see what happens:

Well, the bananas begin to fall from the trees! 

I appreciate that if the HEADLINE OF THE ARTICLE is not ‘decent’ for your ears, then – STATE THAT!

As I have said earlier, CONTEXT is so important in a comment!

Now, the person says “Balls” is bad “mannerisms”! Sure – maybe improper (for you)  – but that’s my headline, further mutilated by pluggd.in – so, shouldn’t the tweet say “Guys, get decent. Use appropriate language to tweet a blog”…?

HOW CAN YOU CALL THE ARTICLE FOOLISH because of its TITLE??

So, to prove this point to these people, I send them an equally ‘OUT OF CONTEXT TWEET’

See below:

And sure enough, when the comment goes out of context… then the discussion becomes UGLY and PERSONAL!

Last one that is completely out of control:

In short, essential lesson learnt:

– Keep comments rich in content.

– If nothing, at least stick to the context.

– If the context slips, then everything else will. And the shit will hit the turbines.

Finally – why did I mention the SCIENCE of Commenting?

I believe that if comments are rich and contextual, then given the interactive and social pattern of the web, A REACTION MUST HAPPEN!

Check this out:

So, not only did the blog impact people but also, good, contextual comments HELPED some people as well!!!

******

Heavy, heavy, duty credit to Asha for editing !!!