News and commentary on Religion, especially Southern religion.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

No comments = no future [updated]

SBC Today is a Southern Baptist niche blog which has called attention to itself by exiting the blogoshphere.

Specifically, it has no blogroll, it doesn't accept linkbacks and has announced that they will no longer accept comments on its posts (it was that last action which marked their exit from the blogosphere).

Wikipedia accurately describes the blogosphere:

The collective community of all blogs is known as the blogosphere. Since all blogs are on the internet by definition, they may be seen as interconnected and socially networked, through blogrolls, comments, linkbacks (refbacks, trackbacks or pingbacks) and backlinks.

Clearly, little remains for SBC Today to remove itself from even the possibility of participation in the worldwide online conversation that drives the blogosphere, except perhaps to take itself offline altogether.

We don't agree with those who say SBC Today is no longer a blog. Its entries are hyperlinked, printed in reverse chronological order and make some use of hyperlinks to outside resources. Its publication platform is blog software. So in a truly minimalist sense, and you may quarrel with us about this, even with comments off, SBC Today remains a blog.

Just not a blog which respects its readers enough to accept comments.

Too bad.

The wages of disrespect for one's readers is typically death.

Addendum

Wade Burleson wrote Saturday in a blog about his differences with the Baptist Identity movement, that "the premier Baptist Identity blog, SBC Today, has chosen to terminate all comments. . . . Shame on them. . . . ."

Burleson finished by quoting one of his frequent commenters, Jim Champion, who nailed the key online issue, writing: "If I want editorials I'll go to print media."

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