Hmm, if you are going to release a thorough guide on blog commenting isn’t it just a wee bit ironic not to allow comments? At least on that blog entry?

None of the Gawker-based blogs allow comments or trackbacks to my knowledge, so this isn’t a huge surprise or anything, but I’d add one additional item to their list:

When publishing a guide on how to leave good quality comments on a blog, post it on a blog that has comments and/or trackback enabled

Not enabling comments on a blog makes it a one-way dialogue which detracts from the community possibilities with a blog. It certainly stifles the conversation when you have to go to email on anything. I rarely will do that for any blog. I emailed Lifehacker’s editor Gina one time to compliment on the job she was doing there. Never heard back — and didn’t expect to — but there has been a significant amount of good content on that blog and I wanted to send along my compliments to the editor for a job well done. Now I’ve said it publically.

The irony aside, there are some really good ideas in Lifehacker’s comment guide like: stay on topic and contribute to the discussion.

I’ve been pretty happy with the comments left on this blog overall. Don’t think this blog would be the quite the same without the comments, as readers sometimes help to educate me about things I might have missed and/or overlooked. Sometimes the tone of these notifications can be a bit harsh like Julie correcting me earlier today that Nintendogs do, in fact, poop: “they DO take a crap u idiots. They dont always pee. And, when they poop, its like a little brown pellet. U jus click on it, and its gone.”

It’s like that Jack Black movie with the Vapoorize product that allows folks to spray it on poop and it disappears, but then trouble mounts when environmentalists ask: “But where does it go?”

I guess I didn’t walk my Nintendog enough to find this out. Now I’m looking for empirical screenshot evidence to corroborate this doggy-doo sighting in Nintendogs and I must ask: “Where does it go?” Will Julie deliver? Pictures at 11. Maybe.

All kidding aside, Lifehacker is a solid example of a blog that can exist and provide good content without needing to have a comment/trackback system. They are doing like 33,910 unique visitors a day too, so I’m far and away not the only one who notices and appreciates their content. Keep up the good work, Nick, Gina, and crew!

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