One of my favorite bloggers, Becca, of Becca’s Byline, launched a new site a few weeks ago. Write on Wednesday is, according to Becca’s introduction, “a place to gather if you love playing with words and putting them to the page.” She encourages readers to respond to the topic she posts each Wednesday either by posting on their own site and linking back or simply posting a comment at Write on Wednesday. She opines that “sharing is the name of the game” (hence, the title of this article) and invites writers to “join us around the table. Bring your best notebook and a freshly sharpened pencil.” The topics she has discussed so far are thought-provoking and her own responses extremely insightful and interesting.

Sharing — knowledge, information, skills, and a sense of community — is indeed supposed to be the name of the game in the blogosphere. So I have been pondering why, of late, I have discovered so many blogs operated by individuals who don’t seem interested in sharing. In fact, the sites in question look very much like blogs, but are really just static websites.

The difference? In my mind, what separates a website from a blog is one important element: Interactivity. I began building websites in the mid-1990’s. I bought a book explaining HTML, got a free site on GeoCities and began tinkering with my crude creation. But the websites we built in those days were one-way communication devices because, although we posted email addresses to which visitors could send messages, there was no functionality allowing for comments to be posted on the site.

Once I discovered blogging software, there was no going back. I converted all of my static websites to blogs and have never regretted that decision.

So I am admittedly baffled by a trend that I have observed in recent months and find, frankly, disturbing. More and more blogs seem to be completely disabling visitors’ ability to post a comment or requiring visitors to register as a site user in order to comment.

I first noticed this a few months ago in conjunction with the weekly blog carnival I administer, the Carnival of Family Life. At first, I received one or two submissions each week from sites that either did not permit comments to be posted at all or required registration. But as the weeks progressed, more and more bloggers were submitting articles for the Carnival from sites operated in that fashion.

As the number of such posts continued to climb, I evaluated the situation and reached a decision: I stopped accepting articles from authors running such sites. At first, several bloggers argued with me, contending that their articles were worthy of inclusion in the Carnival because they provided valuable on-topic information. In most instances, they were right. I found myself torn about rejecting well-written, articulate articles.

But in the final analysis, I concluded that featuring articles published on sites that only permitted communication to flow in one direction was inherently unfair to the other Carnival participants and intellectually disingenuous. After all, I operate a blog carnival and, as noted above, my belief is that what separates blogs from old-fashioned websites is the give-and-take that occurs between the author and his/her readers.

Of course, not all of the articles in question have been top-notch. And many have come from sites that appear to exist solely to sell a particular product, as evidenced by the fact that the email addresses provided at the time the post is submitted for my consideration are not even valid and the emails are returned as undeliverable.

Some of the site owners argued that they began requiring registration to prevent spam. Sorry, but I don’t buy it because there are plenty of safeguards available, including Akismet and Bad Behavior, just to name two plugins. They also contended that requiring a user to register discouraged those visitors who were simply spoiling for a fight, thereby eliminating contentious comments and the “comment wars” that can follow. Again, it has been my experience that truly contentious comments are rare and, if received, easily deleted. While I do not practice comment moderation, for the most part, I have no qualms about deleting a comment posted solely for the purpose of provoking me or another reader which adds nothing valuable to and/or does not advance an otherwise productive conversation taking place on the site.

Comment moderation, i.e., the practice of preventing comments from being visible to readers until approved by the site owner, and registration are, in my opinion, huge deterrents that should be avoided by bloggers. I will not take the time to register and, candidly, find the practice offensive to the point that I will not frequent the blog that requires it. I will also skip leaving a comment on any site that announces comment moderation is enabled. In my opinion, both practices send a message to a blog’s visitors: Your feedback is neither solicited nor particularly welcome.

Becca accurately stated that “sharing is the name of the game” in blogging and, more broadly, writing. Prohibiting readers from commenting in response to your writing or demanding that they take the time and go to the trouble of registering before being allowed to do so is, in my estimation, antithetical to that guiding philosophy of blogging.

What do you think? When you encounter a blog where comment moderation is employed or you must first register in order to comment, do you feel disinclined to do so? If not, what justification(s) for one or both practices do you offer?

And as to the Carnival of Family Life or, for that matter, any blog carnival, do you agree or disagree with my decision not to accept posts published on sites that either do not accept comments at all or require registration in order for readers to comment?

Also published at Write Anything.

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Yesterday, at Write Anything, Paul wrote about the joys and frustrations associated with a collaborative writing project. With regard to the development of a fictional character when several writers have input into his/her future direction, he said:

We each cannot say with certainty what will happen next, only that we will have to accept it, process it, and make use of it.

I’ve been thinking about that sentence since I read it early yesterday morning.

It seems to me that Paul succinctly summed up the experience of writing, no matter what the genre, when we authentically tap into our creative energy source.

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Education

Marjorie presents Mother Doesn’t Always Know Best posted at Life Without School.

Leticia Velasquez presents Book Review: A Haystack Full of Needles posted at Cause of our Joy.

Family Cooking & Recipes

K presents Eat Your Rainbows posted at Almost Frugal.

Laura Williams presents Around the Homestead Today… posted at Laura Williams’ Musings.

Riley presents That’s How We Roll (Sushi) posted at All Rileyed Up, describing her first effort to make sushi.

Family Crafts and Activities

Melitsa presents Creating a lift-the-flap book posted at Play-Activities.com, “an easy together play-activity you and your children will cherish for years to come.”

SeaBird presents Swap: crafts for young children (update) posted at SeaBird Chronicles, presenting “several fun and creative craft ideas for toddlers and preschoolers.”

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Your Online Writing Life: Protect Your Reputation — and Future (Part Six)

Perhaps this series will never be concluded so long as the creative ways in which people use the Internet and the true impact of the information disseminated via the web continue to be revealed.

“Update: [Name Deleted] Wants to Pay Less” was the title of the post that caught my eye and compelled me to begin reading. After all, I’m naturally curious. I figured that the gentleman in question was probably a minor celebrity I had never heard about, but the blog owner was a fan. Next, I concluded that the post was probably about a celebrity divorce and Mr. [Name Deleted]’s soon-to-be ex-wife was seeking spousal or child support, most likely in a monthly amount that many Americans must live on for an entire year.

But as I read on, I realized the author was referring to her own son’s father. He apparently petitioned the court that has jurisdiction over custody and support issues, seeking to have the amount of his monthly child support payments lowered. The blog owner voiced her opinions on his legal maneuver in an extremely voracious and colorful manner.

The post immediately preceding that one was entitled “About a Boy . . . [Name Deleted] is Still a Deadbeat.” Therein, the author admitted her motivation for posting about what is inarguably a family matter:

The reason I keep making these posts by the way is because they show up on a Google search and since I leave the MySpace profile and blog open, anyone who is considering hiring [name deleted] or anything else can read all about him.

So naturally, I performed a Google search on the gentleman in question and, sure enough, her blog posts, including short quotes about him, were the first items indexed.

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This Week’s A Thousand Words Prompt: Number Three

One of the Top 5 Picks (as chosen by the July 11, 2008 WOOF Contest contestants; see below.)

I have an ongoing love-hate relationship with “the little village of Lodi,” as Paul Zimmerman referred to it regularly when writing about local events in the Lodi News-Sentinel when I was growing up here in the 1960’s and ‘70’s.

Last night was our annual “Celebrate America” event at Hutchins Street Square. You couldn’t ask for a more patriotic, wholesome exemplification of the American spirit. Local residents and their guests gather on the lawn of the community center that literally rose from the ashes of our beloved former Lodi and, later, Tokay High School — the campus from which I graduated in 1974 — with their lawn chairs and picnic baskets. They wave flags, blow bubbles, toss around Frisbees and footballs, eat hot dogs and apple pie, gossip about each other, discuss the weather, and stand when the Knights of Columbus and Boy Scouts present the colors. Attendees jump to their feet and place their hand over their heart again when the Lodi Fire Department hoists a giant American flag from its ladder truck and the National Anthem is played.

The more freedom we enjoy, the greater the responsibility we bear, toward others as well as ourselves. (Oscar Arias Sanchez)

The festivities kick off at 5:00 p.m. with an hour or so of music from the Lodi Community Band in which I have a great time playing my flute before joining my family and friends on the lawn to enjoy the rest of the evening’s events. We surrender the stage to a group of local women who tap dance in bedazzled shirts and culottes to “Can’t Smile Without You” by Barry Manilow and a few other tunes from the same genre. The show is usually capped off with a performance by a military band from a nearby base. By the time the sun sets, we are en route back to the car with our folding chairs, ice chests, and other gear.

As I sat on the lawn last night surveying the crowd, I reflected on what it was like growing up in Lodi. My experiences could be described as quintessentially small-town American. I walked or rode my bike to the neighborhood school, participated in extra-curricular activities including band and choir, took piano lessons, worshiped in the local Lutheran congregation with my parents each Sunday, took swimming lessons, summer band, and participated in the annual reading challenge sponsored by the public library in the summers, and stayed out of trouble. My late-teen and early-twenties rebellions were mild and short-lived.

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