I strongly object to the fact that this post says absolutely nothing about the way the administration's bailout plan is tailored to the needs of General Electric's capital operation.

I also strongly object to the fact that this post uses the words "sex" and "swedish" in an unscrupulous effort to boost your standing among Google searches.

As a blogger, I think that actually exerts a subtly pernicious influence on my writing. The posts I write that get the least comments are those with actual reporting in them: Congress did this, or an administration official explained that. The second worst are wonky posts. It's easy enough to understand why those pieces end with single digit comment sections: There's less to say about a fact than about an argument.

I would differ a little on your conclusion here-- the "wonky stuff" is only considered "fact" if the reader doesn't know more about the specific issue. No blog post contains all of the relevant facts on the issue, so there's plenty to comment on if you are fully immersed on the issue. Of course, with health care, not many people here spend their day working in this area, so they don't have a lot to comment on-- the wonk posts really serve to inform, not spark debate.

On the overall point I agree-- no question the fluffier and politically charged posts get more posts. I only visit this blog for the health care stuff, and its what differentiates you from a sea of other bloggers. So keep doing what you're doing. Or more.

I'm not sure if I should comment on this post. It might encourage you to make more inconsequential introspective posts. Then again, I have nowhere else to express my indecision...

well, in addition to being a forum for ideas, your blog is also like the old neighborhood coffee shop....the kind like an old diner....
there are the tables for the "regulars" and the stools at the counter for those passing through....

and though everyone around the table will discuss the news of the day, they still enjoy the humanity and kindredness of waiting on lines at the dmv, discussing favorite books and the contents of a good recipe.
people still love to share about the lighter sides of life...commiserate, give counsel and be curious....
we are still all human, after all.

But the coffee is bad in this shop, even early in the AM. :-/

(j/k)

It could be worse, Ezra. No comments and no visitors (lol).

I've often wondered why blog software only seems to value posts by number of comments, ignoring the number of readers.

Ezra,
Do you see any parallel with your earlier post on the lack of Treasury Plan questions during the President's press conference?

Maybe they don't ask because they know they don't understand enough to formulate coherent questions, understand the likely answers, or add anything of interest.

And much the same can be said for their audience.

Ezra, I hereby promise to leave a comment on the next post you write that I don't understand.

jimfromportland

please pass the maple syrup.....

Well in any case reporting n analysing and opinionating about the real world out there are all better than insular, solopsistic blogging about blogging.

Therefore, I hope that this silly post gets no comments.

oooooooops.

Uhm I take that back. Ignore this comment. In any case don't count it (it's the 7th but who's counting).

well, in your piece yesterday detailing what the FDIC does you got most everything wrong, and portrayed the FDIC as guaranteeing bank assets that it actually has to swallow when a bank is seized. I assume that was a reporting piece (or maybe a wonky one) and it was factually wrong and misleading to your audience. I don't care so much about Kafka, but good luck with that.

I agree. If I am reading reactions to the Treasury Plan, for example, I go and read a bunch of posts and articles and try to build an opinion. I won't necessarily comment, especially if I am at the stage of trying to figure something out. If, however, I see "Kafaesque" used improperly, well, then the Know-It-All inside me has to comment.

If you work on the Hill, like I do, you are facing a hectic day, every day. Getting 10 minutes every now and then to read some blog posts is much looked forward to. But I definitely don't have time to comment. Keep up the good work.

Put a set of post-rating radio buttons for each post and people not moved to comment may instead simply recommend a post.

I do not go to a comments section and comment just to say "Awesome Show! Great job!"

I refuse to comment on such a self-serving post.

Just absolutely won't do it.

bdbd: I join you in wishing that Ezra had acknowledged that he'd been had by James Surowiecki on FDIC.

On the way to falling asleep, I broke the lamb-counting spell with the recollection that folks just don't understand some aspects of bank accounting.

A bank balance sheet is just the opposite of a corp. or personal one. My cash deposited in savings/checking is NOT a bank asset. It is a bank liability. Conversely, when a bank makes a loan, that is an asset on their books, not a liability. Hence, bad loans result in toxic assets for the banks who made the loans.

There is no way, as Surowiecki does, to compare a demand deposit to a bank by J6P with a loan by the BOA to finance a mortgage. They are on different sides of the bank balance sheet.

I'm not SURE that Ezra has this confusion, but it sounded like it, and commenters pounced, including you and I.

I'm disappointed that Ezra didn't revisit this issue because it is fundamental to understanding that the FDIC is NOT (normally) in the biz of guaranteeing bank assets/loans, but only bank liabilities to depositors for their demand deposits.

And, James Surowiecki is full of crap in his analysis and should be called on it.

As usual, Ezra, you're exactly right.

People like to talk about things like the DMV or Kafka. That doesn't mean a post about those topics is more relevant or interesting or serves your readers any better than some of your posts receiving fewer comments.

It's just that, with some posts, there's just not much to add. You say it, I read it, and that's it. You definitely shouldn't allow the expected number of comments to influence your choices. You should write what you're thinking.

Well, I think the point is that one gets comments when one makes a post interesting: I'll comment on "reporting" when it matters. But I think the underlying point here is that Ezra's strength happens to be synthesis: when you are less the stenographer and more of a thinker... you've got something. When you repeat a lot of stuff other people told you... you're not as compelling. Yeah, partly, for sure, you get more response by taking a slightly outrageous stance and daring people to disagree; but the longest, most interesting discussions, it seems to me, have come when you synthesize an idea somewhat different from what else is out there. I think that's been especially true on healthcare, and I think one of your real strengths, Ezra, is your ability to adapt your thinking based on responses from your regular readers. I think tha distinguishes you, actually, from a number of the other "prominent" bloggers, and it's why, for the occasional frustrations of blinkered thinking on your part, I keep coming back (and, hey, it's also what inspired me to start a blog). One of the real secrets of blogging, I think, is that it fosters a conversation. It's not necessarily always productive... or especially deep (that DMV/Kafka post, or, say, comic book stuff)... but I think it defines why blogs have changed media. So, yeah, keep doing what you do best. Offer ideas. Take in feedback. Keep growing. We could do worse.

The blog world, which is masculine in style and male-dominated, looks down on, for example (but I think it's the best example), LiveJournal, which is feminine in style and female dominated, but the reverse is actually true as well: LiveJournal looks down on the blog world.

Why is this relevant? Brad DeLong is an economist, yes. And people come to his blog (he thinks and hopes) for economics. But economics is, in itself, not more serious or more important or a better use of anyone's time than sex or gender or trying to be a feminist ally or just a human being, which is what he was going for here.

So while I think that what you say in this post is true up to a point, I also think that the post buys into a devaluation of comment and discussion, and of things that are "off-topic," personal, sexual, and non-expert, in a way that falsifies to some degree the nature of internet communities and discourse and also attaches values to different types of discussion that I don't think you really believe in. That is, I don't think you really believe that sex is less important than bank bailouts, it's just that you ... hm, if I say you're more of an expert on the latter I'm admitting facts not in evidence and being insulting, not my intent :D. But anyway, the latter is your "job" and it's "serious," and you feel it's what you *ought* to be focused on, post about, care about in public.

My job is something else. I write on internet communities that are mostly female and mostly focused on sex and other trivia, and my background is in literary criticism (and btw I meant to write to you about the Zadie Smith lecture on Dreams from My Father in the NYRB that you linked to - what you are longing for when you comment on its brilliance is capable literary attention paid to political discourse, which is a very worthwhile thing to long for!! But I digress).

My point is that (a) I believe that the idea of a hierarchy of serious and trivial subjects of attention in writing has a history, going back at least to the 16th century, that is interwoven with the history of modern masculinity and of selling labor and (b) I believe that one of the fascinating things about the media revolution we are living through - the most profound revolution in the medium of the written word since that same period, the 16th century - is that it already seems to be confusing the rules and divisions and exposing what was hidden by/in the printed word. Feminism and postcolonialism and lots of other things have developed in tandem with the social and media changes to create a very different discursive field from the world of print publication as it existed 20 years ago.

So bloggers look down on LiveJournalers for, basically, being girly and trivial - but lots of people committed to print look down on bloggers for the same reason. And, more interestingly, LiveJournalers look down on bloggers from the other side, as too monovocal, too invested in comments as a form of adulation rather than exchange, too indifferent to community and relationships.

Which is not, I think, what you're doing here - what you're doing is dipping a toe into some very longstanding discussions within both internet-based writing communities and the scholarship about them. I think it's revealing that Brad D's post includes the word "squick," absorbed from a very different terroir (though one with a startling amount of overlap - people of the internet, our memes unite us!) Your post is reflecting (in much the way Brad DeLong wishes Ross D would reflect) on the people on the other side of the transaction - who we are, what we want, what you want from us, what that says about you, about us, about "the internet."

I'm obviously not your typical reader, but you probably have lots of non-typical readers - people whose main interest and habitual reading lies in other areas but who are transfixed (and entranced) by the combination of Obama's election and the terrible economic crisis, looking for someone who will talk to them in a language they can understand, learn from, and trust. Someone who might even listen to them. That is a relationship, the internet is relational, and what you are reflecting about is utterly relevant to the whole project of writing a wonkish blog, IMHO :).

I really appreciate your news posts. But the main reason for reading you more often than many others is that I *like* you. Isn't that true of everyone who reads your blog? Isn't it true of you, choosing blogs to read? That's how blogs work! And one of the reasons I like you is that you reflect on your own discourse and point of view. I don't see how anyone can be any good at this kind of analysis now without blogging, and I don't see how anyone can be any good at blogging without being explicitly in dialogue, mostly with other bloggers but partly with "readers" (as we are still so quaintly known).

(((Ezra Klein)))

heh

Amanda Marcotte. Haven't seen or heard about that wack-job since John Edwards dumped her after knowing more about that idiot's rants. Frankly, I'm surprised she's still alive.

Is she still mooching off her boyfriend trying to sell some book?

While we're already in full-on Ezra navel-gazing mode, it's been a while since we the assignment desk made an appearance. Whatever happened to those New Years resolutions?

Apparently, it's also been a while since I took an English class.

I'm sure the number of comments correlates directly to how broad the topic is. Conversational posts will get a lot. Narrowly focused, specialty posts... well there's a reason you might say that's the blogger's bailiwick.

if this weren't hard, there wouldn't be so many comments...

I didn't know that you liked comments. I figured that too many bugged you.

I happen to have two comments on this post:

1. "The posts I write that get the least comments"

Should be "fewest comments." "least comments" makes my brain hurt.

2. I wish that you had linked to the post about the Swedish guy b/c I want to re-read it Now I have to look for it. Thanks for posting it in the first place.

Without getting too far into the particulars of Amanda's argument about Ross Douthat,

Go ahead and get into it. I assume you're friends with both and you're worried about alienating one or the other, right? Well, burning bridges is a way to maintain intellectual integrity... and if nothing else, it'll earn some comments. :)

I'm not sure that's always the best impulse.

Why? I guess there's a risk of a slippery slope to a point where reporting is completely displaced by editorializing, and there's a difference between starting an argument with discussion and with trolling, but those are safely hypothetical at this point. Blogging isn't impartial and impersonal and you have no obligation to aim towards that.

Also, Re: the first comment, Petey would be a treasure if we could just keep him offline during primaries. LOL.

I really appreciate your news posts. But the main reason for reading you more often than many others is that I *like* you.

I agree with this. I also enjoy your smart writing style. I read Dean Baker daily for the same reasons.

This is why Facebook has the "Like" button for posts and comments. It allows people to affirm those posts that they like, even when they don't have anything interesting/intelligent to say in response. It cuts down on the one or two word "Yes", "Love this", "What he said", "I agree" responses that are nice as a barometer, but light on the content value add.

A lot of people are reluctant to post those quickie affirmations and remain silent for two reasons. In the pre-web Intenet days, these types of comments were discouraged for creating clutter on mailing lists, wasting what was once precious hard disk space and network packets. Ancient technical and cost considerations aside, they tend to make the writer look like a lemming.

If you really want to avoid the sense of feeling like a crazy person ranting into the ether, maybe you should try adding a Like button/link after posts here. (Hell, maybe even a Don't Like, if you really aren't afraid of feedback.)

Frankly, I'm surprised she's still alive.

The Yellow Stain of Texas protests way too much.

I'm of the opinion that after 8 years of petty bickering, coupled with a two year election "season", and all the noise that accompanied it, people are more likely to avoid meaty political/policy posts for awhile. The more lighthearted posts probably get read more often, so all of this may skew any numbers we try to use as barometers...

Or, I could be talking out of my ass.

Clearly, if you want a reminder how much your readers love you. You should write a post about comments.
I'd comment on that.

Jane G,

That was the longest, stupidest comment I've ever read. The idea that drama queen LJ musings are serious business is ridiculous. Postcolonial theory? Aren't you a smart little trollop. How long did it take to write that obnoxious little rant? Stupid whore.

It has that same effect on my writing, too, but I do try to remember that it's important to build community as much as pontificate.

Hey...Amanda!

Do you have a real job? It's a fair question.

I only regret I have but one comment to give on my blog circuit today. So it goes here, instead of at the blog thread that linked me here.

Is there a national index of daily Total Comments Count on All Blogs?

How about a Blue-chip Industrial Blogs Index with a moving daily average Total Comments Count?

Huh? There's not, eh? Who do I talk to about that ...

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