Seven Types of Online Writers and What They Say About Commenting on Articles

I summarized responses to my previous article “Caution: Please Read the Articles You Are Commenting On” and came up with seven types of online writers that compose my audience. It is interesting to note that although many writers just cut-and-paste their comments, more than half are actually serious readers and writers.

Online Writers

Online writers and online writing are interesting phenomena that characterize the world of the internet. It is amazing how internet technology can bring out information about people’s preference in so short a time never before possible without the internet. In just two days, it is possible to gain insight on what writers’ preference are in online writing and gain valuable insights in the field of online writing — a unique platform to be heard all over the globe.

I’m referring to my previous post titled “Caution: Read the Articles You Are Commenting On” which I wrote due to the apparent proliferation of spam articles in Triond. And I was surprised that many online writers have a wide variety of opinions and sentiments about the issue.

Unwittingly, I also sensed, or rather discovered that many online writers took the whole thing as Triond’s fault, in not being able to accommodate the editing requirements to prevent spam articles from surfacing. In fact, I wrote Triond suggesting that they improve on their spam filtering system to get rid of spam articles and comments. They must have employed a spam blocker to do this because in fact, in item 12 of Triond’s Terms of Service, it has an anti-spam/junk mail policy which says that “You undertake, represent and warrant not sending any emails, messages or otherwise communicate with any other users of the Site, which is not wanted or requested by such users. Bulk email messages that will be sent to a group of people who have no desire to receive such messages are forbidden.” That means that the writers themselves should be responsible enough not to spam other online writers’ articles or mailboxes.

Comments

Eighty-eight (88) comments were made on that article as of this writing and comments still keep on coming. Responses range from extreme positions to lukewarm attitudes that reflect different personality types among writers. Of course, the automated, cut-and-paste responses are still there, oblivious to the fact that the article is about them. A real blunder. Notable among these responses is the extreme suggestion to castrate (!, Oh my…) those who cut and paste comments (It’s not a serious suggestion, right?). I actually read and re-read the comments as I find it amusing. This may be the reason why Cynthia Cox  and Louie Jerome did a double take. Thanks everyone for your comments and particularly to Glynis for taking time to submit my article to Stumble Upon.

I’m always fond of statistics and I use it to come up with an empirical understanding of things. Specifically in this instance, I used it to find out how writers view the matter of commenting on other writers’ articles and get to know the composition of my readers.

7 Types of Online Writers

I summarized the responses in my article on making comments and came up with 7 types of online writers (Pardon me if you find the descriptors inappropriate, but these are the categories I can surmise upon writing and after making several revisions on the categories). Here are the categories:

1. Serious Writers and Readers

Those who believe we should really read and comment accordingly.

2. Advisers/Philosophers

Those who gave some advise or their own brand of philosophy on the matter; also includes those long comments. I thought some of them can even be an article itself. This also includes those who suggest writing in another online writing site.

3. No Position or Neutral Writers

Those who did not show preference or position such as IDK (I don’t know) or just posted their observations.

4. Automatic/Cut-and-Paste Writer

Those who still do the same habit of commenting without reading the author’s work or computer-generated comments.

5. Tolerant Writers

Those who believe short comments will do as long as it assures the article was read.

6. Light-hearted Writers/Jokers

Those who take the issue lightly and crack jokes.

7. Unsure Positions

These are those people who have unclear positions or very brief notes like tl; dr . I don’t know what these things mean.

After making the groupings, I graphed the frequency of responses in Excel. I omitted from the analysis my own response and follow-up comments made by some writers to correct errors or see the comments again. Here is the result.

SEO Companies

I earlier pointed out that an online writing site is only as good as its writers. So, the statistics presented is a comforting fact that Triond is still a viable writing and reading site to share articles bearing in mind that at least more than half of the writers are aiming for and looking for quality articles.

It is possible, however, that I may be rating a non-human in this analysis because some of the responses are very similar and I suspect these are computer-generated responses created by an automation software. And I don’t know how this is being done if ever. The result, therefore, will be those cold, unemotional, uninspiring responses. Also, this may actually be products of writers availing of SEO companies who offer automated systems to get more traffic. I am not aware, however, if these strategies are actually being done as I do not subscribe to any SEO company that promise to increase viewership through some means. If such is the case, then this is preying on the true writers’ honest reciprocation of reading those writers’ articles who comment in a cut-and-paste or automated manner.

If my conjecture is true, I would say that online writing is no longer a human realm but actually an extension of automated systems and a demonstration of what machines can do. True writers are dealing with uncaring, unemotional, and unethical machines. This may be the beginning of the scuffle between humans and machines. Ah…, I remember Keanu Reeves in the film Matrix and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator series. We are dealing with monster machines.