Have you ever noticed that 50-60% (number based on blogs under one year old) of your blog, publication, or Web sites comments are negative? This wasn’t just taken from our Web site but also taken from other Web sites as well. When you look at big fan-base Web sites like digg.com where commenter’s are defending their favorite Web site you see that people will stick up for their fan-love. But how long does a Web site need to be around before you get this backing fan base? Can’t really tell you for sure. But I am sure that a Web site like digg.com was receiving tons of “you suck” and “I need to prove you wrong” comments before they got their humorous, and intelligent comments.

A blog or a publication usually spreads some sort of word or opinion, having a single person voice is what blogging is all about. But comments where built to just do the opposite, allow the visitor to have a voice or opinion. But what sparks the interest of the visitor to comment? Usually it is when the visitor feels so strongly about a subject that he/she feels the need to agree or disagree. But what does a commenter feel more strongly about, agreeing or disagreeing? Usually disagreeing, because anger has more emotion than happiness. The job of the blogger should be to spark either one of these emotions from the reader. But why do visitors feel the need to comment something more negative than positive? If you think about it, someone may only want to spend time out of their day contributing to something they believe in. If they agree with you, they might just agree with themselves and leave the Web site.

So what kind of content do people usually contribute comments to the discussion? Usually technology topics with general interest. A post that I was looking at on subtraction.com, where Khoi was discussing how everything on his desktop was blue. I noticed that his post, which only was about two paragraphs, had a remarkable amount of positive comments. People agreeing with him mainly. Khoi hit around 43 total remarks (comments) with only two paragraphs and a great image to accompany the post.

So where have all the positive commenter’s gone? Well, some people believe that blogging is dead, some people believe a negative comment achieves more attention than a positive one, and some people are just too lazy. Is your Web site achieveing the fan base for positive comments? Maybe this is the best way to analyze your Web sites total achievements.