Do bloggers in general, and those of us who write about current scientific research in particular, have an obligation to our readers?
The obligation to accurately describe and interpret the results at hand is a given. But do we also have a duty to continue to engage with our readers? To answer the same questions over and over again, even when it’s clear that it won’t make the slightest bit of difference to the commenter’s beliefs?
Even when it’s been almost a year and we’re heartily sick of it?
Yes, I’m talking about a specific blog post. And yes, I’m hoping that your comments will help me to justify not spending hours and hours answering more questions. But I am truly ambivalent about this issue and would like your honest opinions!
Way back in June 2007, I wrote a post on my other blog describing my postdoctoral research on endogenous retroviruses, and specifically why a creationist website was wrong to list one of my papers as evidence for intelligent design / creationism (but right to eventually take it down! Yay me!).
The post attracted a lot of attention, and also a smattering of creationist commenters. My early exchanges with these people were surprisingly civil and respectful, and I initially enjoyed answering their questions. But eventually I realised that all my hard work (literally hours and hours of writing and rewriting responses, looking up references etc.) didn’t seem to make the slightest bit of difference. And then more creationists found me (it’s consistently been my most-Googled post), and the questions just kept on coming.
I have a couple of unanswered questions / comments waiting for me on the original post. (Hey, I promise to respond to all comments, but I don’t specify a timeframe). This bugs me – I hate the lack of resolution. But each question would take hours, and probably a blog post each, to answer satisfactorily. And each post would probably spawn more questions.
Does there come a point when I can stop playing this game? Just tell them that I’ve spent far too much time on this already, it’s been a year, please move on? Or, having started the damn conversation, do I have an obligation to continue it until everyone’s satisfied?
Does the answer change if I’d already started thinking of ways to turn the same subject matter into articles that I might be able to exchange for genuine cash money?
I’ve had this problem with creationists, too. But hey, it’s your blog, and therefore your rules. If it were me, I’d summarize my views in a succinct but polite way, with
pointed bulletsbullet points if it helps, and add that you really don’t think that the argument will develop any further. You could then say that people should feel free to comment fuerther if they wanted, but from that point you wouldn’t feel obliged to answer them.I agree – its your blog. People can read it if they want, but even on that criteria probably more of your readers want to see more posts, not comments on something they last looked at 9 months ago. Make your points (say the science has moved on – its a rapidly moving field 🙂 and then move on. Obviously say you’ve done this and why.
I have some rules on the about page on my blog including that I reserve the right to change them arbitrarily as I see fit 🙂
Well, I don’t know about blog posts in particular, but I can attest that I have spent years and years answering the same small subset of questions from a range of different people. It does get a bit tedious. But “hosting” the answers in one place does help a bit, at least in saving one’s typing fingers from fusing (ie when you respond, just respond with a URL to wherever your stock answer is).
I would say that if this is occurring on your blog, it is fine to block the commenter, if you want to. Journals don’t publish everything that is submitted to them;-) (Looking at online comments to articles, if unmoderated, can be quite an education!)
Dr Ennis, take it from one who spent many years worrying about the questions and sensitivities of one’s correspondents and critics that they are rarely completely satisfied.
By answering in detail you do them a great courtesy: some may be enlightened and informed, some may be grateful, some, I remember will then write a poisonous review of your work.
I wrote some years ago that ‘he who wastes an hour does not know the value of life’. Are the questions about which you fret worth an hour of your life or are there other waters to be – I ask this to a fellow seafarer – paddled?
These days I would have written ‘he or she’, of course.
Hmm. Thank you all for the food for thought. The one thing stopping me from joyously declaring that I will stop answering questions on that post is that, well, I started it. And not just with an explanation of the science, but with a dig specifically at creationists.
However, Mr Darwin’s long experience with such matters to lend an extra weight to his comments. Perhaps I shall tell my creationist visitors to engage him in debate instead, while I go a-paddling?
When a post gets old and tired, disable comments for that post and move on. As others have said: it’s your blog, you make the rules, there are no obligations.
If the post was about ERVs, you could be naughty and give a link to ERV. She can be a bit, well, feisty, so the main attraction is the entertainment value. And the look on Henry’s face when he sees how she handles punctuation.
I think it’s polite to answer questions on your blog, but there’s no necessity.
What Henry said. You have no obligation to respond to comments, a blog is a pronouncement from your throne of genius. If you did want to still reply, you could put a limit on (I will only respond to queries that take up less than two column inches), or simply say ‘I’ve moved on – you are welcome to continue the debate amongst yourselves, but I think I’ve said all I want to on the subject.’
Ditto most of the above. It’s difficult, because it’s kind of in ‘public’, but not exactly, so it’s easy for unsatisfied commenters to draw whatever opinions they like. The fact that you’ve blogged on this suggests it still bothers you that you’ve been unable to resolve things. However, like you say, there simply isn’t time to provide full context to the text. And with creationists, it descends into circular arguments because they just don’t listen. I think it comes down to when you decide you are no longer benefiting from the discussion, because we do this mainly for pleasure and to learn (don’t we?). You made your stand, and good for you. There’s nothing wrong with politely agreeing to disagree and letting it go.
Ditto in particular closing the comments. I see lots of people do this. You could tie it off with a last response from yourself, perhaps reiterating your POV. I think Danah Boyd had to do this at some point.
Although I agree with the advice here (end comments etc), I don’t think it is only creationists who don’t listen! In my experience of blogging, which is fairly extensive, the great majority of people don’t listen, expecially those in comment threads. Instead they are there, or bothering to comment, because they want to state their position or view, often irrespective of what the blogger’s post states. I have lost count of the number of comments I’ve read by people who have not even read the post.
One example is in the double-blind peer-review editorial, opened for comments on Peer to Peer blog (I won’t link as I don’t want to prolong it!). There, people were suggesting in the comments that we (Nature eds) should look at articles that were referenced and discussed in the post, etc.
These weren’t creationists, rather many of the commenters were people with a general view on the topic, who wanted to state it, rather than engage with the content of the post itself. (Not all! There were quite a few good comments, not by any means only those that agreed with the position in the editorial 😉 )
This experience I see over and over again in blogging. (I am not writing about interesting digressions, but predetermined polemics.) So if you don’t like it on your own blog, then yes, tie off the comments (with the satisfaction of the last word, as Heather writes, if you like, as it is your Queendom!).
@Bob: Hah! It would indeed be fun to set ERV on these people. She did comment on the original thread, but hasn’t been seen since the creationists arrive.
@Lee: it does bother me. Maybe I inherited some of my family’s teaching genes after all – I hate to stonewall people who are asking some pretty decent questions about an area of biology that I love. Plus the fact that someone is bound to spin the whole thing as “she didn’t want to answer our questions, therefore creationism is true”.
I will come up with a good final comment over the weekend that sums up all the excellent points above, and then see if I can figure out how to disable further comments on that one post.
Thanks again to everyone who commented!