Blogs Are Not Press Releases

My Saga of Commenting on ASU President Michael Crow's and ASU UTO Adrian Sannier's Blogs

and My Efforts to Find Out Why My Comments Were Held Up for Over a Week

First let me start off by explaining my assumptions. If I am way off base here, please tell me now so that I can stop my boiling anger and look in the mirror.

• Blogs are not another medium to distribute press releases


• Blogs are meant to bring about discussion


• Any message / information a blog is able to distribute is a very handy byproduct of writing a blog

With those assumptions, as well as my ever critical attitude towards bloated bureaucracy, especially at Arizona State University, I recently commented on ASU President Michael Crow's blog (ASU President Michael Crow's Blog) as well as Arizona State University Technology Officer Adrian Sannier's blog (ASU UTO Adrian Sannier's Blog).

The Bureaucratic Commenting Process

President Crow's blog is easy to comment on... same system as 95% of blogs, leave your name, e-mail address, optional URL, and your comment.

ASU University Technology Officer Adrian Sannier's blog is not so easy to comment on. The blog's audience as near as I can tell is anyone... He posts a lot about tech stuff related to Arizona State University, but also manages to squeeze in Marvin Gaye songs, and mentions of Refresh Phoenix. Yet when it comes to attempting to comment you are first required to register. This process in itself is bureaucratic.

1. Right off the bat you are told "Attention ASU Users:Enter your ASURITE UserID as your Username." What if I am not an ASU user, can I still register? What if I am an ASU user, but do not want to use my ASURITE UserID? Why do you want me to use this as my username?? What if I realize that your blog system is in no way connected to the ASURITE UserID system and decide to deviously register with someone else's ASURITE UserID?


2. Then, before you can comment, you have to wait for your confirmation e-mail which can take a few minutes (much longer than I typically would wait to comment on a blog)


3. Then even after you have registered (after figuring out if you want to play by the strange rules), verified your e-mail address, navigated BACK to the post to comment, submit your comment...

ALL COMMENTS ARE HELD FOR MODERATION

With both blogs, even if you have already commented on the blogs before, all comments are held for moderation. When I made my comments on the afternoon of April 27th I really didn't think much of this issue. Then when I checked both of the blogs the evening of the 28th I was a little frustrated to see that they had not been posted yet. Then by the afternoon of April 30, 3 full days later, when they still hadn't been posted, I was outright angry. I responded with vigor.

Read the e-mail I sent to ASU President Michael Crow and UTO Adrian Sannier after the jump...

My E-Mail to Michael Crow and Adrian Sannier

Below is the e-mail unedited which I sent on April 30 at 7:21pm:

To: Adrian Sannier; Michael Crow
Subject: Your Blogs are Not Working
Dr. Crow, and Dr. Sannier,
I recently posted comments to each of your blogs. I have since revisited each of your blogs many times over again only to see that my comments are either still being held for moderation or have been deleted.
While both of my comments raised issues that some may call controversial, they were both on topic with their respective posts, not inflammatory or derogatory to any person, and an unmentioned perspective.
I don't think that I have to tell you that the value of a blog is not in its ability to distribute information, but in it's ability to gather it. The spread of the content that you post is a handy byproduct, and if you are blogging to market, you should stop blogging all together. Dr. Sannier, from the discussions you have participated in at Refresh Phoenix you surely understand this, and Dr. Crow, from our multiple brief discussions (about how cutting university costs is an important and valuable measure - remember me??), and the many times I have heard you empathize with students request for a voice, you too should be very aware of this idea...
A notable blogger, Bryan Veloso, recently posted guidelines that he uses when reviewing comments on his blog. Like most blogs, his comments are not moderated at all... they appear on the site the moment the author of the comment pushes the button... then if they are flagrantly against his guidelines he considers deleting them. I encourage you to take a look at Mr. Veloso's guidelines: http://avalonstar.com/2006/04/10/my-rules-for-commenting/.
If my comments have not been posted because no one has gotten around to moderating them as acceptable than I would ask that you respect your readers and commenters by making it a priority. If my comments have not been posted because they were deleted, please also do your readers a favor and distribute your messages through a press release.
More angry than sincere,
Rick Maher

I Spread the Word

Allowing my anger to overtake me, I started searching around the net for blogs with posts talking about how great it is that ASU senior administration is so open and in touch with students... There are plenty... and I posted plenty of comments on those blogs noting the difference between "open and in touch with students" and "willing to crank out a wordpress blog as a means of distributing press releases to students". I also posted yet another comment to Adrian Sannier's most recent blog post (here) with a little piece of my mind:

Apparently comments are not allowed after all. I jumped through all the hoops to register (btw, what if someone wants to comment that does not go to ASU or does not have a asurite id? so much for accessibility), I posted in accordance with general comment guidelines, and yet my comment has been stuck in moderation for almost 2 weeks. God help me if my computer breaks with this service level. Sad.

Not surprisingly, that comment also did not appear... not that it should, I was merely looking to make sure WordPress sent out another e-mail to the blog administrator saying that there were comments in the moderation queue.

Magically, My Comments Appear

Still without any direct response (not that I expected any) from ASU President Michael Crow or UTO Adrian Sannier, sometime on Tuesday May 2 (6 days after posting the comments), my comments were approved and appeared on their respective websites.

Okay, I'm Happy Now... Err, Wait, No I'm Not.

The point really wasn't to mouth off and be a tough guy to the big administrators from behind a monitor, it was to raise the issues which are mentioned in the comments. These are important issues to me (a paying customer of their organization), and I posted the comments with hopes of inspiring a discussion. Are my comments surely going to create discussion, probably not... but did they miss visitors because of an ineffective moderation system (at the very least)... YES.

BLOGS ARE NOT PRESS RELEASES