Comment Chaos

Posted on March 25, 2010

Out of curiosity, I decided to see what opinions exist about blogs without comments enabled. I had no idea how much of a sore spot it is for some people. The impression I get of people who are upset over not being able to leave comments is that they’re spoiled and/or immature (like a child who doesn’t like being told he can’t have something when he wants it). If that wasn’t so, they wouldn’t be verbally malicious towards non-conformists. What ever happened to respecting individuality?

After having read some of the negative opinions about blogs without comments, I got the feeling like I just heard a tempter tantrum. What if I had a hissy fit over all the blogs that enable comments? What would others think of me if I were to express how annoyed I get over wasting my time reading what ends up being mostly meaningless chatter? When I go to a blog, I usually only want to read what the blogger has to say. On rare occasions, I might be curious to see comments (e.g., comments about commenting).

A blog is defined as being a chronological journal, diary, or regular record of your thoughts, opinions, reflections, hobbies, and experiences that you put on the Internet for other people to read. I wonder how many people procrastinate or decide against having a blog because they don’t want a dialog or thread of responses if they were to have a website.

Personally, I appreciate anyone who has the courage to start blogging (regardless of whether or not they have comments enabled), especially relatives and those who live in my neighborhood community. I like visiting sites which reflect local events that have taken place. For example: annual street festivals, community fair days, church events, etc. It’s wonderful to see pictures of those whom I haven’t seen in a long time. If no one bothered to put them online, it would be a sad loss to no longer experience that feeling of connection with the local community.

I hope the variety of interests this blog (“S ~ S”) has attracted will someday become more narrowly focused. Maybe being more restrictive in what I post in the future might not be enough. If I have to, I will do some manual manipulations (i.e., deleting posts) in order to make that happen. Time will tell.

Because this blog is still somewhat general, the quality of comments will most likely make enabling them again not yet worth it.

I’m in complete agreement with what Jeremy Keith says in his uncommentable post Comments on community on his Adactio Journal weblog,

Does every little blog post really need to accept comments? Wouldn’t it be better to save them for special occasions? Comments should be disabled 90% of the time.

For comparison, read Robert Nyman’s comment enabled post A blog without comments isn’t really a blog from his Robert’s talk weblog.

Postscript — This post is continued in The Potential Atmosphere of Comments.