Interview: Jeff from Jeffro 2pt0, community, interaction, and comments

Hello everyone. Today I’ll be interviewing the creator of Jeffro2pt0, Jeff. Jeffro 2pt0 is a site that revolves around talking about the emergence of the newer web and blog applications, and related technologies. Jeffro 2pt0 is an increasingly popular site which blends in a lot of interactive elements to show readers what other readers are doing on and around the site.

Because of the different initiatives Jeff is taking around the site, it is becoming more and more important to keep the reader’s level of comfort in mind. Jeff has also been a supported of RA Project for a while now. So far, Jeffro 2pt0 seems to be doing well in keeping up with what the readers want, in terms of the readers having enough tools to interact with Jeff and one another around the site. I decided to interview Jeff as he seems to be good at making sure that the things he rolls out on his site are well planned, or at least are under control, which can affect reader appreciation a lot in my view.

One of the things you may notice is that the questions can sometimes be very specific and long, or a bit general and short. This style of mine allows for more input and output from generally the person asking the question and mainly the person explaining the things as an answer.

Interview with Jeffro2pto – Readers, comments, interactions, and beyond

Thank you for your time and for allowing me to interview you, Jeff.

The Beginning..
1. Bes : Could you please tell us a bit about yourself? When and why did you start blogging? What do you blog about? Did you design the layout yourself?

   Jeff : My actual name is Jeff, but I think Jeffro2pt0 just has a nice ring to it. I’m 23 and currently residing in the buckeye state of Ohio within the continental U.S. I’ve been blogging since *2004* but only recently have I decided to take things a bit more seriously. I used to post on a blog located on the EFx2.com (http://efx2.com) network which I somewhat consider to be the WordPress (http://www.wordpress.org) before there was WordPress. Back in 2004, I used the blog to share things that were going on in my personal life such as *photographs, news and events, recent trips* I took and various other musings. I essentially used the blog as a diary for a long time.

   In late *2006 into 2007*, I decided to concentrate on sharing my thoughts on general news items I was discovering across the web. I would merely post a quote of the article, include my thoughts and then provide a link to the article in question. This formula worked rather well as there always seem to be a few comments left on every post. However, this became pretty boring.. In* early 2007*, I decided that somehow, someway, I was going to break away from the self serviced blogging platform and do things on my own. I just didn’t know exactly what my niche blog was going to be about.

   Then, one night in Talkshoe (http://www.talkshoe.com), I was participating in a **LIVE** podcast when I met **Pete Balasch JR**, otherwise known across the net as xyour925job (http://www.xyour925job.com/wordpress/ ). We started discussing various topics during the show such as *SEO, blogging, web2.0*, etc. Pete told me that there were quite a number of people who still didn’t understand what *Web 2.0* is. He suggested that I start a blog around the topic of Web2.0 to see where it would take me. Up until this point, I watched the Web 2.0 space from the sidelines, never really caring about what was coming out of the gate next. I had a general idea as to what Web2.0 was all about, so after sharing a few of my ideas with the crowd, I ended up choosing the domain Jeffro2pt0.com (http://www.jeffro2pto.com) .

2. Bes : So your blogging passion revolves around the concept of Web 2.0 . Do you believe that there is such a thing as Web 2.0 then? How do you think it affects bloggers and readers?

   Jeff : The more I look into the subject of Web 2.0, the more I believe there is no such thing. Since I’ve started my blog, I’ve read numerous articles that try to define what Web 2.0 is and what it isn’t. The fact of the matter is, the web as a whole does not have a version number attached to it. Furthermore, web 2.0 is a term that describes a series of concepts. Those concepts can be different depending on who you talk too. I think in the end, we have coined the term web 2.0 to help us differentiate changes and the old way of thinking that have taken place on the web.

   The concepts of web 2.0 have enabled bloggers to embrace new technology and have allowed them to voice their opinions and knowledge in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Most notably, video. Bloggers can now use technologies associated with Web 2.0 to engage their readers in the form of video which I believe, really adds a personal touch to the blog, thereby strengthening the connection between blog author, and their audience. In essence, Web 2.0 has allowed everyone to be more SOCIAL and when it comes to blogging, SOCIAL is where it’s at.

Jeffro2pt0 site elements, forum and reader appreciation..
3. Bes : Looking at your blog, it seems that some of the elements of the site revolve around the reader activities; for example, shout boxes, latest comments, polls and the recent MyBlogLog readers list. What made you shape your site in this manner? How has the reader reaction been to such things?

   Jeff : One of the main goals I kept in mind when starting this new blogging venture was to build a community. A community of like minded and not so like minded individuals that could get together on my blog to discuss the topics at hand. I love being able to interact with my audience and adding those various pieces to my puzzle has helped me in that regard.

   So far, the response has been pretty good. I have a core group of people who continuously visit the blog and leave comments which is great because it keeps the conversation flowing. I’ve recently launched my own forum which is attached to my blog and I am hoping that I can take some of my community building success from my blog and transfer it into the forum where user’s will have the chance to take more of an active role within my domain.

4. Bes : Do you think running a forum is different than running a blog or a non-forum site, both in terms of personal experience and reader appreciation?

   Jeff : I think the biggest difference between running a blog and forum is that, a forum gives user’s a chance to begin conversations. With a blog, the commenter is limited by what the blog author writes. Each concept revolves around the aspect of community and I find them to be very similar to each other in many ways. The difference between the two is minimal.

5. Bes : I notice on your site that you usually respond to many commentors, and from personal experience, that you usually respond to e-mails in a timely manner. Do you respond to each and every comment and e-mail, or do you respond to comments and e-mails that ask for responses?

   Jeff : I try my best to answer every comment that is left on my blog. I also try to answer any email that I receive in a timely fashion. I always look forward to coming home from work and checking the inbox to see what sort of conversations are taking place on the blog. There are so many blog authors on the net that will publish a story and then move on. The story will end up receiving a fair amount of comments and yet, you’ll rarely notice the blog author getting involved. Why this is, I have no idea. But I see the post as the first step, the conversation starter. Having these sorts of conversations with the readers of my blog not only makes them feel like someone cares, but it allows me to get to know the person a little more. It also adds that PERSONAL touch which is lacking on numerous sites across the net. I don’t want anyone to think they have wasted their time when they leave a comment.

Dealing with different comment situations..
6. Bes : Have you ever had to close down comments for some post or a blog for any reason? If you have, did that affect your blogging or the commentors in any manner?

   Jeff : There has been 1 post which ended up making me shut down the commenting section for. A commenter said something that another one wasn’t really too fond of. They went back and forth for a little bit and I finally decided to end it by closing down the commenting section and then moving the conversation off the blog. I spoke with both parties and cleaned up the mess.

   Closing the commenting section for that blog didn’t raise any controversy on the site. I did receive a few questions about it but those individuals understood why I had closed it down.

7. Bes : Do you think that is one of the more efficient ways of handling disputes between readers, by closing down comments and taking the dispute away from the public comments area? Would such an approach work in every or majority of the situations, in your view?

   Jeff : Well, in that particular situation, I backed off and just monitored the comments to see if those two could settle the dispute on their own without my intervention. Once it looked like the dispute was over, one or the other would come back and post something else. After awhile, I pulled the plug because it looked as though the issue was never going to be resolved.

   I think the most efficient way of handling disputes is to at least give them a chance to resolve it themselves. If that doesn’t happen, then for the sake of your readers and yourself, take the matter off of the site and handle it somewhere else. I believe this method will work in all if not most cases. Disputes happen and I think it’s only fair that you give them a chance to be settled without intervention. After that, desperate times call for desperate measures.

8. Bes : What kind of commentors do you not allow on your site? If such commentors do come and offer some useful comment, how do you treat such commentors or such comments?

   Jeff : I allow anyone who wants to leave a comment to do so. I don’t have a publicly viewable commenting policy but all I ask is that the comment be written in an intelligent, respective manner. There is no need for threats, flaming or a showing of stupidity. If a commenter breaks the rules, I’ll immediately remove the comment and contact the person in question and let them know why it was removed. This gives them a second chance. Usually, they don’t waste their time.

9. Bes : How would you deal with readers who have been on your site for a long time, but their comments do not add anything useful to a post? For example, a comment that says “**Nice**” only may not be useful in the eyes of some people. How would you treat such a comment?

   Jeff : Interesting question. Actually, as I think about it, it is quite the conundrum. I think ultimately, as long as I knew the person was a reader and not a spammer, I don’t think I’d be bothered by it. This problem can also be relegated by using plugins or third party services that allow users to rate comments. So if I and my readers took an active role, over time, that persons comments would probably be weeded out allowing those with added value to shine through.

10. Bes : So basically, you and other readers can rate the public comments, and the public can decide, like a democracy, whether or not the overall comments by a single person are interesting or not, correct? Would you delete comments or be concerned if you had no problem with a commentor but the rating that commentor is getting from others is very low? In your view, can such a system allow us to have more quality content comments, or is there a possibility that the comments will be more catered around what the public wants and thus not necessarily always be of great quality?

    Jeff : Well, when it comes to having the public involved versus a single entity, there are going to be ways to game the system and the “wisdom of crowds theory” usually never pans out. I would most likely not delete a comment that has a poor rating, especially if I myself deemed the comment to be of any value to the post. Keep in mind that majority rules, minority rights. That is, the public will decide which comments are interesting and relevant while the others are hidden away. Thats the way anything dealing with the public works. Anytime you introduce the public into a way of doing things, it’s like introducing a double edged sword.

Bad comments, and the Digg culture effect on comments..
11. Bes : Is there anything that you do not currently like about commentors or commentor behavior on the blogosphere?

    Jeff : This is a big question. Most of the blogosphere writes because it’s a hobby, passion, or just something to do. They don’t do it for the money because there is little money to be had. Most of the time, bloggers are creating content that the big media companies don’t have and this content takes TIME to create. I can attest to this fact as sometimes it takes me 2 or 3 hours to write up a review or some sort of blog post. For someone to leave a comment such as “This Sucks” or “What A Waste Of Time” is just wrong. You could say that bloggers should have thick skin but the fact of the matter is, these kinds of comments really do affect a person on some level. Get enough comments like these and it could really change a bloggers mentality.

    In a nutshell, the one thing I don’t like about commenter’s is their lack of appreciating how much time and effort goes into a lot of the content they see.

    I also wanted to add one more thing. This doesn’t directly involve the blogging world but more or less, any sites that allow commenting. I find it a damn shame that the commenting section of websites that contain very interesting articles are filled with trashy, lame, one line comments which add no value to the original conversation (aka the article) Digg (http://www.digg.com) is the best example of how everyone can work together to find excellent content, but by looking at the commenting section, it would appear as though the digg crowd has no intelligence what so ever. I wish commenter’s would pick up where the story leaves off instead of ending with a bunch of people things that are completely unrelated to the story.

12. Bes : I see; so what you’re saying is that just because something has a huge following on Digg does not mean that the comments for an article can be overlooked, correct? Do you think services or trends like Digg result in people focusing more on how many Digg votes a site is getting instead of the quality and nature of comments that site is getting? Could it be that services like Digg make many people forget how the art of commenting can result in a blog conversation to continue, just as you implied?

    Jeff : Actually, I would almost consider the opposite. That is, something can not be overlooked based on the comments a particular item has on Digg. There have been too many times where the comments for a particular item have been short, unintelligent postings which sometimes have nothing to do with the article but upon checking out the article, it’s actually a great piece of work.

    You actually raise an interesting point. Those that read and follow the comments on many of the posts on Digg may consider that this is the way commenting is done everywhere else on the web which is simply not the case. In the case of my blog, each post is a starting point. I voice my views, opinions, and whatever else for that post and once I publish it, I want other people get the ball rolling and continue the conversation until we have all reach a conclusion or an agreement. I am only one person and I don’t know everything which is why I try to encourage people as much as possible to share their knowledge in the form of comments.

    Commenting should be about sharing knowledge and coming away with learning something, instead of using it as a way to verbally attack someone or something.

    After I publish a post, I sit back and wonder where it will end up. Who will discover it or stop by and take the post into a new direction. That’s what I love about commenting.

The future of Jeff on the web and Jeffro 2pt0..
13. Bes : What are your plans for the future in the online world? Where do you think Jeffro2pt0 is headed, and where would you like it to?

    Jeff : I plan to continue my blogging project until May of 2008 which will be the one year mark. At that point, I’ll have to review the stats and check our how far I’ve come in terms of blogging. I had an initial goal when I started the blog. As time has progressed, the reasons and inspirations have changed. One thing that hasn’t changed, is my desire to build my own community.

    Ultimately, I’d love to be able to publish a blog post and have 5-20 comments. I’d also love to have a bustling forum filled with discussions across various topics. Building a community takes time and so far, the blog aspect of things has done really well. I can at least say that I have a core group of readers who are always commenting on articles, contributing their knowledge to the site. My forum project was recently launched and it’s been rather stale but I hope to change that over time.

    I’m not the guy who has 5,000 Facebook friends or follows 1,000 people on Twitter and vice versa. I don’t live in an area that is absorbed by technology everywhere you look. The closest thing we have to a tech conference in my state is a LAN party. For these reasons and many others, the inspiration was their to try and create my own community of like minded individuals. I gave myself a year to see what I could do and when that year is over, I’ll have to make the decision to keep going or consider the project dead in the water.

Thank you Jeff for the amazing insight into how you operate and your site, and what you think of different things. Thank you also for taking the time to answer all the questions.

Interview thoughts

Jeff and his Jeffro 2pt0 are good examples of how to have a consistent plan about different things related to blogs and readers, and how online tools can be used to improve interaction in the online world. Jeff uses different tools to run different parts of his site, like the commenting section being run by users so that the article in question can expand with reader input. At the same time, Jeff has preferences too, making the site part of his personal goals and thus giving a more direct and personal touch to it. The web 2.0 views that Jeff expressed may sound surprising to many, but in reality as more and more applications for blogs and other things pop up, many people can see whether something is a new invention or whether something is simply an add-on to an already working tool.

Some other things in the interview can help your reader appreciation efforts also. For example, how to deal with commentors who are in a dispute with each other, opening a forum alongside your blog and how it is different than your blog, and giving more power to the readers: all of these can help you realize how others are dealing with reader appreciation, and how you can too.

Some questions for you

• What are your thoughts about what Jeff is doing?
• Do you think Jeffro2pt0 is going in the right direction, if you look at it as a blog reader?
• Do you think giving publicly social control to rating the quality of comments can be good?
• Do you agree with Jeff that a blog allows for a conversation only when the blogger starts a post, while a forum allows anyone other than the blogger or the forum owner to start a discussion also?

Thank you for reading. Please feel free to ask me or Jeff any questions here, and also let us know about anything on your mind on anything related to Jeffro2pt0 or this interview.

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