Jeff Atwood’s blog entry titled,
“Because Reading is Fundamental” addresses the concern that users are not
reading enough of the content to make quality commentary. Reading over his argument, it appears his
audience is 20-55 years of age, moderately to highly academic, with at least a
12th grade reading comprehension.
Exploring the links Atwood provided to highlight his points, it would
seem his primary audience would be either in the technology or research,
internet savvy and independently educated.
Much of his references were of academic studies and analytical in
nature.
Atwood introduces a screen capture
that illustrates his argument that displaying the number of blog posts next to
your username affects readers and users negatively, implying that the higher
the number, the better the quality of writing.
Atwood explains that excessive writing can confuse the audience, and
that effective and concise writing is the best approach to blogging. He states,
“The best conversations are with people
who spend most of their time listening,” whereas listening means reading. He
argues that users jump to comment before absorbing the content which leads to
lower quality conversation and experience. Atwood also warns that displaying statistical
information leads to a false implication of worthiness.
Atwood cites a few anecdotal stories but relies predominantly on two
experiments to support his argument: the Ars Banana Experiment, and The Slate
Experiment. The first experiment asks readers to comment with the word “Banana’
mid way through the article. The first
user to comment “banana” was the 93rd comment on pg.3. It would appear nearly every comment was made
before the reader finished the article. The second experiment finds that only
50% or less of the content on a page is being absorbed and suggests
incentivizing listening (reading). The research claims there’s already too much
incentive to talk. Value should be based
on how much you’ve read as much as how much you’ve talked.
While both experiments do help back up his argument, the possibility the
data could be off is too high to make either a realistic reference. Users
could’ve simply thought commenting “banana” was stupid or consciously avoided
the request. In addition, there’s no real accurate way to know how much of an
article was read, or media consumed. There’s too much room for error.
Atwood proposes a number of solutions such as remove interruptions, mainly
pagination, to get endless content. Measure read times to determine worthiness
of readers and content provided. Give rewards such as a badge for reading a
determined amount. Give a Real time dynamic such as continuously updated
comment, post sections. As well as making a message board/comment section a
living and evolving thing.
It’s clear that Atwood truly believes reading Is fundamental. He makes a
good argument that quality content is in direct correlation with the amount of
content consumed, however some of his support needs to be expanded on
realistically. Users are far more diverse than what two flawed experiments can
portray. Incentivizing “listening” sounds like a good thing, but Atwood’s
writing highlights why it can do the intended opposite if you aren’t careful.
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