The blogosphere and social media may have given us more channels to discuss and debate the arts, and while anyone and everyone can more actively participate, British author and arts critic Michael Billington argues there is still as much need as ever for “traditional” critics.
What has changed is the technology: any opinion is now [...]

The Hierarchy of Disagreement represented as the Argument Pyramid, with reasonably informed objections to a point-of-view at the top, and outright name-calling and insults, with little or no regard to the original discussion or debate, at the bottom.

I’ve never bought into the argument that a blog must offer a commenting facility in order to be considered a blog, it’s something that is down to the author of the blog, and like anything it’s different strokes for different folks:
Some people do better in collaborative, challenging environments. Others prefer to work in peace and [...]

“If that lot were told to jump out the window they’d be lining up to do it”, being a line uttered by a disgruntled former colleague at a past workplace, frustrated at the apparent policy of hiring only staff who would acquiesce without question.
See now the logic in a “team of rivals”…
I have worked [...]

I linked to a poll yesterday asking is graphic design art, yes or no? As of the time I voted (no, btw, based on the strict interpretation of what graphic design is), about 60 per cent of respondents had answered yes.
Given I didn’t think there could really be a straight yes or no answer, despite [...]

Actually it’s not just social media dialogue or exchanges of communication. I’m looking for a term that describes the ever disparate discussions we have with each other, particularly friends and acquaintances.
I’m talking about the snippets of conversation that can take place by way of blog comments, social network messages and wall posts, instant messaging, forums, [...]

Ten ways to go about encouraging more meaningful comments left in response to newspaper articles online. Derek Powazek has given the matter quite some thought.
If you think bad comments bug you, they bug the good commenters twice as much. Yes, you should be paying someone on staff to be the Community Manager. In addition, you [...]

In ten plus years of online journalling/weblogging/whatever else, the comment facility here has only been operational for about the last eight months of that time.
That was mainly because disassociated ran off hand coded static HTML files for most of the first ten years, and installing a comment feature, though possible, would have been tricky.
I was [...]

I have often thought about implementing some sort of commenting system on disassociated. A lot of sites, usually weblogs, provide readers with the facility to make a comment on a particular post or article. Often they can add value to the original post and they also promote discussion and sharing of ideas.
Since I continue to [...]