I don’t think it’s even as profound as that, its just a way for readers to respond in whatever way they want to.

If a reader wants to add value to the discussion, cool. But if they only want to let me know that they found the post useful or funny, they are also most welcome.

For me any comment (as long as it’s not utter spam or swearing) is just great. For this I have the top commentators plugin and I am happy to see people come and comment and why not, battle for that top spot.

Still, after the blog is growing, so do the expectations for the commenters. The blogger knows his/her blog is already a source of potential good traffic for the commenters and this makes some be more willing to diss anyone who’s not getting into their quality limits they set now, since at first any comment was good comment.

It’s something like “equality, but not for all”. I know some comments that are too short might be a tad frustrating since you’d expect some info, but as you said, maybe it’s just a visitor who’s pleased to read a good article and wanted you to know that. On the other hand, getting on the top list means that innocent visitor kinda knows the drill of the top commenters and was on a posting spree.

Maybe some guidelines would be good for such bloggers who want more quality commenting. I assume I’d do this too, if a normal comment wouldn’t suffice anymore. Don’t know .. never was in this position.

I think you’re right about the purpose of the top commenters plugin, though I’m sure we’d all much rather it functioned simply to reward authentic commenters, rather than people trying to “get to the top” by any means necessary. Still, it was probably a mistake to assume that it *would* work the way we’d *like* it to work — and in the comments at Middlebrook’s blog, there’s a healthy discussion about that.

Beyond that, there’s a deeper issue. I think you’re right that the purpose of comments is not to provide value to other readers. But what *is* the purpose of comments? I think it has to be a way to add value to the *conversation*. We could let people tell us “you look nice today” with a much simpler mechanism than commenting, without opening our sites up to the threats of spam, flame wars, etc., by just putting up a digg-like button. Every click would be a “Good advice” registered and appreciated.

I’m not sure it’s too high a bar to expect thoughtful responses in comments. I think it shows a pretty healthy respect for readers to say “Here you go, have your say — I expect it will be something thoughtful, because I know my readers are smart, thoughtful people.”

I agree with you about the top commentator plugin. It’s a way to reward people for placing comments. It doesn’t have a filter in place for judging the quality of the comments, just the number.

Using the plugin essentially sets up a contest, and the most comments win.