New blog feature: Chat with other commenters

Moderating comments on this blog is a constant pain. That’s partly because there are always commenters which ignore the comment rules, thus forcing me to step in and reprimand them. Trust me, I don’t enjoy it. But this is a minor hassle. The real trouble with comment sections, here and elsewhere, is that they fulfil two different roles which conflict with each other.

See, my main interest in the comment section is that it contributes to the topic of my blogpost and adds valuable information for other readers. Many commenters, however, would rather use the comment section to discuss their own ideas or have an exchange about something else entirely. Now, in principle I think it’s great if my writing stimulates discussion, but I don’t want it to clog my threads. This brings me in the unfortunate position that I constantly have to tell people to shut up and go elsewhere instead of encouraging them to discuss.

But I may have stumbled over a solution for this problem.

Late last year, I got an email from Ben Alderoty, who had been working on an app that allows website visitors to have private one-on-one conversations. The app is called “Conversful” and if you’re on a laptop or desktop you should see it appear in the bottom right corner of your screen.

Click on the icon, and you are asked to enter a name or pseudonym and a topic you want to have a chat about. I would suggest that you use the same pseudonym that you use for commenting here, so that others recognize you.

Since blogs tend to collect like-minded people, I hope the chances are good that you will find someone to exchange thoughts with, especially since many of you have gotten to know each other over the years already. This blog receives most of its traffic from the USA, Canada, the UK, and Germany. This means that the traffic is the highest between the morning and early afternoon Eastern Time, or between the early afternoon and evening Central European Time, respectively. During these times you are most likely to meet other commenters here.

I want to emphasize that this is a test-run of software which is not yet fully developed and does not have all the functionality you may want from it. But I believe that this idea has much potential. It essentially turns websites in virtual meeting places, where you can have conversations without blasting your words out to the whole world.

If you have feedback or comments on this feature, please let me know, most easily by leaving a comment on this thread. The feedback you provide will go directly to the Conversful team for them to make improvements to the app. If you are running a website yourself where this app might be useful, please get in touch with Ben at ben@conversful.com. For more information about them and their vision, you can also check their website conversful.com.