Posted by Valentin on June 8th, 2009 | Comments

No, it ain’t gonna be about negativism.

I’ll write about the power of negative-like advertisement and stuff, related to blogging.

Blogs are tools to let readers know author’s opinion about a certain subject.
Of course, one is free to use a blog for whatever he want, for example to write for his readers about his product, or simply show news, or as adsense template (or any other advertising system), or simply to amaze people with his knowledge in making money area (often using others expertise). But basically, a blog is a place to put on spot light author opinions.

What makes a blog to be interactive ? The comments area.

There, blogger receive readers feedback. Well, when readers have the balls or the mood to give “answers”.

Many times readers “forget” to use that facility. Some because the article touched almost all areas (subjective reason, related to reader’s personal expertize and / or experience), some because they are used to only read (web 1.0 style), some forget why they have a keyboard attached to them computers, some are lazy, some are shy ..

Yet, commenter are able to find “holes”. Some to cheer the “atmosphere”. Some to complete the article or correct eventual errors. Some to disagree blogger opinion and use the comments area to say that.

Among the last one, there are two categories, basically.

Firsts, simply disagree. They see things different and they feel to let others to know that. Some (but not all and not always) don’t forget to bring in the conversation proofs either to support them or to stand against blogger opinion. Others are (only, also) grumpy.

Second category is a very rare one.

I use to call them “devil’s advocates”. Those ones look for errors (real errors or on purpose misinterpretation) in the author’s logic or knowledge and don’t hesitate to use that. Some simply do believe things are the way author present it, yet they do them job to flame the atmosphere. Flaming, not insulting.

Flaming someone favouring bloggers view is useless and childish in comments area. And is insulting toward author. But flame the “blogger” or certain “commenter’s” (again, without personal attack, without insults, flaming the ideas, the content, the behaviour and not the author as person), despite is seen as in the title of this article, is very productive and … controversial.

Controversial, in the direction of (re)-open the topic for more debates from readers-commenters. Who’s benefit ?
Both author (more traffic, more commenters, more time readers spend on site) and readers (they are subject for a open debate, then to see more ideas about the subject).

As blogger (author), use of controversial subjects, time to time (use, but not abuse), may be a way to attract readers-commenters. Subjects may be carefully selected to not rush into “dangerous” areas for blogger reputation. Even more, blogger must be ready for “negative” inputs he’ll receive in comments area and be able to answer them paying attention to same “danger” – avoid destroying own reputation.

As commenter, a “devil’s advocate” should be a person ready to take insulting feedback from “untrained minds” and / or spam in own blog

A “devil’s advocate” should be one with huge sense of humour, creative minded and able, ready, willing to involve. Actually, a such a presence in a blog’s group of readers-commenters is in benefit of blogger far more than lack of him.

Two main problems may come out of this :

One is related strictly to ability of “devil’s advocate” to stay in the limits of civilty, to avoid spreading insults, offenses. Once the one is creative enough, it shouldn’t be a problem ..

Second is about blogger control on “devil’s advocate”. There are often situations when would be better if blogger can communicate with the guy (exchanging hints and even planing things). Sometime also to reward him …

Do you find presence of a “devil’s advocate”, in your comments area, to play his role, useful ?
Compared with paid reviews and thinking long terms, do you think a “devil’s advocate” would / could be useful for you ?

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resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil’s_advocate

In common parlance, a devil’s advocate is someone who takes a position, sometimes one he or she may disagrees with, for the sake of argument. This process can be used to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure.

Tagged as: against, bloger, comments, contrary, devil advocate, disagree, negative, no, offensive, opposite