That's not true. Provably not true. On either side. Dumb comments get lots of people more followers on twitter. - Robert Scoble

Weeee... Boobies on a donkey!!!! *sits back and waits* - Johnny Worthington

Dumb or smart comments, I'm not getting more friends or followers either way :) But why would dumb comments on FF get you more friends? - Umit Namli

No wonder this got my attention :) - Jemm

Touché Jemm - Umit Namli

Umit: I just followed you, proving that Gabe is right sometimes. Or wrong. I'm losing track! Heheh. - Robert Scoble

I hope you don't mind getting some dutch updates once a while Robert (or should I say scobleizer) - Umit Namli

Purple Monkey Dishwasher - Jamie Martin

What is a "dumb" comment? - Mattb4rd

I think to Gabe anything that isn't worthy of his algorithms are dumb. So this comment is pretty dumb. - Robert Scoble

LOL this is the funniest thread on FF I've seen in a long time! Boobies on a dunkey! LOL! - Colide81 (James)

Mattb4rd: OMG LOL that is like so totally hot OMG. - /Users/bryce/

No, dumb comments attract a crowd either way. A strange fascination. - Steven Rodriguez

At the moment social media is a rather small society - and it resembles any small social elite - it is more about being noticed than it is about quality, it is more about being one of the first to mention/know of the latest thing than it is about intelligence or creativity or depth. So people try to be the first to post links, and put little comments up when not. Lots of recycling to other sites too. Not very different from, say, the socialite scene in paris or london. This phase will most likely pass. - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Another A-Lister inside baseball discussion. And later the rest of us will be thanked for just playing along. - Paul

'Dumb' is a variable - Don Schuetze

I'll tolerate a lot of stupid before I drop, but racist, sexist or homophobic and you're gone. - Phil Boiarski

Dumb, insightful, inspirational, mundane, sad, funny, informative are all qualities that make FF and Twitter a compelling read. On any given day we all get to play the Village Idiot, Walter Cronkite, Albert Einstien, or the Great Philosopher. If you post on a regular basis you will end up at one time or another playing any or all of these rolls. - Paul

you said it a lot better than i did, with my complicated comparison - but in the end in a small group like social media still is, *any* kind of participation that has enough panache will be rewarded, whether smart or stupid - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Paul: thank you for playing along. :-) - Robert Scoble

Looks like Paul decided to play the role of poet today. That was the most beautiful, most logical thing I've read in this entire thread - except for the "roll" part, but I'm a picky English major. :) - Shawn Farner

seems there is a real delta between comments and conversation. smart comment filtering would be a nice utility for improving signal to noise ratio. Filtering rules would need a smart algorithm to ensure maximum utility. A reddit style comment promoter may be useful as a baby stop or maybe Gabe could open source his engine :-). - Jim Posner

Speaking of rolls: http://is.gd/AJ - Ken Sheppardson

Jim: comments are like gaming techmeme without doing the work of writing a blog post. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Perhaps some comments are that way, but I have often found more insights in the comment stream that in the original blog post. Especially on political blogs. I think real breaking news shows up in comment streams before it shows up on twitter or blog posts. Classic needle in a haystack problem that software is allegedly good at solving. - Jim Posner

Shawn, my language arts teacher girlfriend would let me have it for that mistake. Sometimes my spelling ability deserts me. - Paul

Jim: there often are insights in blogs that game techmeme too. Look at today's techmeme. Why is everyone writing about Steve Jobs? Hint: anytime you write about Apple your traffic will probably double. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I think professional bloggers care about traffic. Commenters not so much. Additionally I think most/alot of blog posts from professional bloggers are about information rather than insights. Information seems to have a "use by" datedness, true insights are often more timeless. I think in the ecosystem you need both. I really would like to see comment promotion on FF, because what I am truly interested in is who had the smartest comment (as deemed by the crowd) rather than the most recent. - Jim Posner

Dumb is very subjective word... - Cody Heitschmidt

Agree with Cody. Is "dumb" something that is defined by the A-list people? - Rutger Blom

Rutger: in this context, yes. Gabe runs techmeme.com and he and I are having a little fight. I believe that he should add tweets and friendfeed items to techmeme like what http://www.techfuga.com does. He doesn't believe that, saying that techmeme should only be for highly authoritative and credible news. - Robert Scoble

Dumb and irritating? Or dumb and intriguing? Or dumb without any other quality attached? Depends on the type of "dumb" I suppose. - Martha

Hmm..really?So,If I'm dumb, I get Twitter followers? hmm.. - Terence

"dumb" is essentially a judgment based on limited data (...we don't know, what we don't know...).often laced with "projections" (i.e., my pictures of what's going on, or how things "should" be) driven by a conscious or more often unconscious agenda(e). the question is, am i alert and conscious or sleep walking in my story..... - Gregg

I am kinda conflicted here. I hate these "Do it my way or it's dumb" mindsets... But at the same time, the make for some truly incredible discussions here on this little thing called internet!!! - Cody Heitschmidt

+1 Paul for playing Great Philosopher, +1 Gregg for pointing out one man's dumb is another man's genius. Gabe, you underestimate the global market for Stupid. I'm guessing the box office receipts for MTV's "Jackass" outstrip the ones for Bergman's "Wild Strawberries." - Karim

my vote for quote and key insight of the day....."Gabe, you underestimate the global market for Stupid." Thanks Karim.. - Gregg

+1 Karim - always amused by your perspective - cjmart