Proposal: flexible blog commenting for all - 8 comments

The Wardman Wire has a post about the relationship between blog aggregators (i.e. things like B4L) - or 'portals', if you will - and their constituent blogs, and asks whether or not those aggregators should (or indeed could) accept comments on behalf of those constituent blogs.

Perhaps I just haven't looked widely enough, but this seems to be yet another opportunity for some keen web developer to fill a yawning gap in the market and make life easier for a lot of people.

It seems to me that if you've taken the time to post a blog entry, and accept comments on your own blog, albeit with certain limitations (e.g. no anonymous commenters, or only approved people who appear in your WordPress database), you should be fairly comfortable with the idea that a Bloggers4Labour reader who reads your post might be able to (again, assuming they meet the same criteria) comment, without even having to click through to your blog. Plausible? Well, perhaps this is somebody who prefers to receive round-up emails, or use a feed reader application - they might not even Bloggers4Labour's site.

So, you'd be happy with wider access in theory, but what wouldn't be of any use to you is if Bloggers4Labour kept all those comments itself, causing you to have to check (and monitor) two sets of threads, rather than one. Unfortunately that would seem to be the only likely solution at present. I now refer you to the first comment I left at The Wardman Wire:

The vast majority of blogs use the comment facilities that come with their blogging package: if more could be persuaded to use external services then there’d be the opportunity for B4L (and perhaps other savvy aggregators) to accept comments for a syndicated post and push them onto the same queue/list that the source blog uses, which would seem to be the ideal: maximum exposure for comments, and without duplication.

I haven't come across any external commenting service that does allow this. Here's my next comment:

I guess if Google opened up comment feeds for the vast number of Blogger blogs, a service akin FeedBurner could wrap the vast majority of blog comment feeds up; they’d then only need to allow other (authenticated) people (e.g. those who run aggregators) to publish to them, and you’d have the kind of ideal system I mentioned earlier.

Nice little online business opportunity for someone there! Sadly I don’t have the time any more.

Just to clarify how this might work:

1. Google reveals how all Blogger uses can publish an authenticated comment feed URL.
2. 17-year-old web developer simultaneously launches new external comments service ('acmeComment.com'), having been inspired by this post, naturally.
3. Keen B4L blogger signs up with said service, entering his Google or Blogger account and password. A 'wrapped' comment feed becomes available within seconds. ('acmeComment.com/keenType/comments?type=rss'). All new comments on his existing blog will likewise appear there.
   
4. Keen blogger then grants B4L (itself) the right to display the relevant 'Comment' button/link.
5. B4L publishes that link for each article it syndicates. Though Blogger users might need to log in (depending on the Keen Type's requirements), B4L readers will be able to publish comments to the shared comments feed URL, that Keen Type will be able to track in any feed reader, or at: 'acmeComment.com/keenType/'

The procedure would be pretty similar for WordPress, etc. bloggers, who would instead have to submit their database login, and user table details, etc.

I'm not going to write any such system myself, but what level of enthusiasm is there for such a thing?

Presumably if the answer is "any", then it's only a matter of time before it appears (I notice that Google has just bought FeedBurner, for what it's worth), and perhaps if this post has inspired you, you'll buy me a drink with your first million of advertising revenue.

Auto-login / B4L Customisation - 1 comment

Anyone with an account on this site - that is to say, a login, that gives them the ability to subscribe to a newsletter, and use our widgets on their own sites - will soon be able to take advantage of new facilities that will make Bloggers4Labour more useful and customisable: for example, the ability to say that they'd rather 5 recent posts appeared on our front page, rather than the long-standing 3 - or indeed none at all.

Basically, meaningful user preferences will exist for the first time. All you'll need to do is set up an account if you haven't already, then log in once. The cookie we send you will keep you logged-in for a year. Sure, I will gain the ability to steal your credit card records, take out mortagages in your name, and watch you through your webcam, just like in Sandra Bullock's The Net, but most importantly, you won't have to re-login every 30 minutes whenever you, say, want to add a blog post to a B4L-managed clip-blog, or maintain your personal favourites/links list, hint, hint.

As an aide-mémoire, a new box with a (currently) grey border will now appear in your B4L sidebar. Please click the link to log in if you aren't already, because the more people who do, the more it's worth my while to customise the site according to your preferences.

By the way, if you have any ideas for customisation, please let me know, or come along to the meeting on Monday.

Update: I'm afraid I clumsily broke some pages in the process - these were all fixed by approximately 3.10 pm today.

MPs' money to boost understanding of political process - 3 comments

Paul Evans, transpero.net, and Designing for Civil Society have already covered the vote (a fortnight ago, I admit) by MPs for a £3 million allowance to boost the "public understanding of Parliament" through web-sites (and other things). Still, here are a few thoughts of my own.

Firstly, as for the amount of money on offer, £3 million would be a bargain if it really did improve the public understanding of Parliament, or at least, the political process, the making of policy, the scrutiny of bills and government business, etc.

Expressed, however, as £10,000 per MP, it does sound high. Perhaps I'm missing something, but if I can host Bloggers4Labour (at a pinch, I hear you cry) for £1,000 per year, why should the running costs of any single MP's site be so very much higher?

I'd like to criticise the idea that the £3 million must be divided equally, rather than invested in a system (which, in the guise of TheyWorkForYou, already provides a sound basis for future development) upon which all MPs could host their presence. This has the following advantages: first and foremost, it reduces the amount of money spent on web design/web-development: on the wages of those who offer money for old rope, as well as the evenings and weekends of keen youngsters.

This isn't simply about the costs of web development: there should be a strategy - or, at the very least, guidance - on best practice in civic and political engagement. What the online civic/political world is crying out for is a mechanism through which electors and elected can maintain an informed, committed conversation as equals. The vast bulk of web designers, in my experience, know about CSS, graphics,"web usability", and perhaps how to embed a video widget or integrate a blog, but they lack a vision of how a site can, or should, be used to boost popular engagement. MPs are more likely to have a sense of that vision, but are constrained by their inability to speak the same "technical" language as designers. Furthermore, by being placed on a level playing-field, MPs could receive instructions together on making the best of the facilities provided.

I do have a few ideas for what a new-look, hosted, MP web-site would offer (DfCS offer six, most of which I'd mildly go along with), which I might talk about in future, but such a site would be blog-based, albeit with a narrower audience, and much closer interaction and commitment than is usually talked about. I would also try to work around Jack Straw's concerns that sites would simply turn into advertisements and exhortations for the MP and/or party in question (helped, perhaps, by the fact that such things would probably carry little weight with the public), so that the planned restrictions that Paulie rightly decries could ultimately be lifted.

In the meantime, surely organisations like TheyWorkForYou and MySociety should be lobbying in a similar kind of way to convince the government/individual MPs/groups of MPs to make the very best use of this opportunity, and the money as/when it arrives?

Power Bloggers II: a response - 7 comments

Fellow B4L-er Mike Ion has posted enthusiastically at Comment Is Free on the subject of political blogging, citing the extent of these bloggers' influence, and suggesting Labour's upcoming deputy leadership campaign indicates that Labour politicians are beginning to use blogging to engage ('meaningfully', no less) with potential supporters. You might be surprised to find that my assessments differ almost completely with Mike's. That's not pessimism on my part, I'm just optimistic about what can be achieved, and realistic about the value of what there is now.

I must say that if I was tasked with defending and promoting blogging, I wouldn't introduce well-known right-wing gossip blogs (with which you're already familiar) so soon into the conversation, not even to indicate the level of 'influence' bloggers have, nor would I substitute online media pundits for off-line ones by introducing ConservativeHome's Tim Montgomerie as a a "respected and influential commentator". Still, if blogging influence is to be measured by being given the opportunity to appear on Sky News at 2 am and read blogland title-tattle to a fuddled news anchorman in order to pretend one has important information the dead trees don't, then I'm happy to plough my lonely furrow - or rather, we are.

Debate is all well and good, but what this article doesn't address is (slightly going back to my "2020 Vision" points): how are arguments actually won online? How do you change minds? How can you bring the power of your argument to bear on a policy-maker? How does a politician actually assimilate 'feedback' in the real world, when talk is cheap, and voters can be strategic rather than honest? Blogging, as it stands, doesn't represent the slightest step towards a more participatory democracy: whatever progress has been made towards a more 'reasoned debate', the absence of any direct responsibility between on-line politician and blog-reading voter, and the limitations of the current blogging model - where politicians post and then respond to reader comments in the hope/belief that they are a guide to public opinion - just frustrate policy-making. Moreover the noise and anger of the most vocal political bloggers has fostered - so often - a poisonous atmosphere that prevents co-operation between people with different political views. This seems to be prevalent even among politicians as close to the electorate as local councillors - particularly so, from my experience, especially when Liberal Democrats are involved.

There have been some happy consequences of the upsurge in Labour-oriented blogging caused by the deputy leadership campaign. Activists from all sections of the party have clearly felt there is an opportunity to get their message across (at least, those with a matching candidate). It has also encouraged on-line community-building, with large Labour groups now developing on FaceBook. Best of all, activists are brought closer into the online Labour fold, as can be seen at Bloggers4Labour.

Nonetheless each glitzy deputy leadership themed blog site that appears represents tens of hours of some young designer's time that can't be transferred either to the wider movement, or to the delivery of policies. There's little evidence from around the sites of any great attempt to involve people online more substantially than the same old "post and comment" model, and I'm not at all convinced that the candidates, if polled, would honestly admit they knew what blogging was really about. Take away the RSS feeds and too often one is still looking at a "poster" site, packed with photographs, extracts from speeches delivered elsewhere, endorsements from "the great and the good", and destined to disappear or gather dust if the candidate fails to win through.

What this creates is a ghostly impersonality, when what would surely appeal more to voters is a feeling that a politician 'inhabits' the site, is watching and listening, is ready to respond honestly and frankly to questions and comments, and that the voice that responds really is that of the named politician, not that of a young acolyte. I don't want to discourage politicians from blogging, but when Mike refers it as being a "simple, efficient and effective means of engaging with [...] supporters", I think that misses the point of, and the seriousness of, the challenge - as well as being short of substantive evidence. The fact that supporters no longer need to fear email newsletters is a small prize indeed.

Blogging is a fine and worthy thing if you have a story to tell, want to explore ideas, resolve issues, crush bad arguments, and create links with other human-beings, but "politician blogging" is still in the Dark Ages. As is the 'new technology' that Mike cites (hand-coded HTML and messed-up templates in 2007?). Perhaps only when the 'web' of the future is unrecognisable, keyboards pensioned-off, and Blogger.com long-forgotten, will ordinary people be able to fully engage in an online democracy. I don't know (to use another predictable historical reference) what the "Great Leap Forward" is going to be, or how we're really going to make this democratic vision work and re-engage a disillusioned electorate, but (a) there has to be that leap, (b) YouTube clips sure as hell isn't it, (c) whatever it is, Nick Robinson will be telling us about "the mood amongst backbenchers" instead, while (d) Bloggers4Labour is as keen - on your behalf - as anyone to make it happen. We can almost touch it.

Aside: I notice Iain Dale has picked up on Mike's post. Read the comments, if you like your generalisations about "writers on the left since Orwell" broad and sweeping. And stupid. There are some nice touches from the left, though.

Update: Some sites I could have mentioned favourably: the serious-minded Ministerial blogs (David Miliband; the DWP's Pensions Reform, and Welfare Reform blogs), and My Society. Over to you, now.

MpURL and vastly more blogs... - 2 comments

I had a look last night at the updated MpURL resource that is available to all Labour members, to discover that all blogs hosted there offer RSS feeds - I'm sure that facility weren't there before.

We're now running 30 or so of the most active of these blogs (our total is now 440). The problem is that, though the feeds (and previews) are available to the public, and can be read by anyone at B4L, the posts themselves are (by default) only visible to party members with a valid membership login, so non-members will not be able to read the full article, or read selectively from the blog.

Now, Labour's software does provide the ability for these "private" bloggers to make their sites available to the general public, with a friendly URL. Only a handful seem to have done so, and the "public" blogs not only look completely different, but don't indicate the fact that there really is a feed available. If you discovered these facts the wrong way around, as I did, you might be a little confused, but I think I understand now.

What Bloggers4Labour does, therefore, is use the public URL and "private" feed if a public URL is supplied. That should deliver the best of both worlds. Otherwise, we fall back to using the private URL, and in these cases you'll need to log in to view the entirety of a post you've clicked.

There's a huge number of these blogs on the Labour system: a simple calculation suggests over 360. Some will be duplicates of/proxies for blogs we already syndicate, but many/most seem to be the handiwork of blogging newbies, who often wonder if anyone's reading. Hopefully our syndicating them will help.

What I can't explain is that we have a couple of sites with a public URL, but no discernible "private" blog to back them, hence no feed at all. Here are the two blogs in that boat:

• Cllr Matt Cooke
• Anne Snelgrove MP