zlacker

From conception, I've never wanted a comment section on my blog. I just put a line that in effect says "if you want to comment, you can send me an email at xyz".

If you are coming to a blog post of mine that has been shared to you, my assumption is that you want to read my article, and not to be distracted by whatever performance is happening in the comment section. I am aiding you by not even putting a comment section there.

I realize there is a slim chance for there to be enlightening conversation in a blog comment section - but that is not what my blog is for. You are better served doing that here on HN or a more dedicated forum. Here it can be be more visible for others, for people who want to read discourse.

>>liampu+(OP)
It's a bit sad that content creators, from individuals to big companies, have to (or at least feel like they have to) disable comments on their content, wether it's a video or an article.

Sending an e-mail is not the same thing, it's like Youtube removing the unlike button count and instead sending the info only to the creator.

This doesn't apply to your blog, but I've seen low quality or misleading content without a possibility to comment. Even worse: scams that include a fake comment section.

>>liampu+(OP)
I agree. Your blog represents you, so it must be fully curated by you. Others' opinions, you can always pull them manually into your website whenever necessary in whatever method and format you prefer. There's no reason to be bothered by random strangers injecting random things onto your own persona. They can always go to other communities if they seriously want to talk about your posts.

>>liampu+(OP)
>my assumption is that you want to read my article, and not to be distracted by whatever performance is happening in the comment section

Pfft. Half of the fun on the Internet is arguing with people about what other people said. I like to link to this blog post with over 500 replies about a constructivist who doesn't believe in the well-definedness of real numbers and shows up in the comments to respond to people: http://www.goodmath.org/blog/2011/02/10/e-e-escultura-and-th...

I really do not believe that blog would be better by not having comments enabled.

>>liampu+(OP)
I like the way Mark Seeman (ploeh) handles blog comments. He asks users to open a PR[0] with a comment on the post. Obviously the volume of comments is very low, but it sure is effective at targeting the right audience and keeping the bots out.

[0] https://github.com/ploeh/ploeh.github.com#readme

>>fluori+DL
I'm not in any way stopping you from having half your fun there, be my guest. I personally find internet arguments to be a waste of time most of the time, but the internet is wide enough to accommodate both camps.

I propose to you that you should be in favor of a diverse internet, that is blogs that have comments sections, blogs that have likes, blogs that have neither, and blogs that do something else. That is probably the most enriching outcome.

>>liampu+bu2
>I'm not in any way stopping you from having half your fun there

I mean, you are. You are adding friction to the process. If someone wants to talk about a post of yours they have find some forum where it would be relevant and link to it. I don't know what it looks like on your end. Maybe adding the ability to comment would be more effort than you think is worthwhile, but if it was as simple as a checkbox, you would still leave it turned off, am I wrong?

>I personally find internet arguments to be a waste of time most of the time

Of course it's a waste of time. So is blogging, as well as many other activities humans engage in.

>I propose to you that you should be in favor of a diverse internet

I'm naturally going to be for an Internet that accommodates the things I want to do, against one that doesn't (when it could), and indifferent about one that accommodates things I'm not interested in. I don't know what your blog is, so I don't want to comment on it, so I'm indifferent whether it gives readers the ability to comment, so I don't particularly care to try to convince you do anything.

But, I have felt that tiny bit of frustration when I read or watched something and scrolled down to see what people said about it and saw there was no comment section, either by design or omission. Sometimes that has been enough to disengage me from the thing in question.

>>liampu+(OP)
> my assumption is that you want to read my article, and not to be distracted by whatever performance is happening in the comment section.

Besides the general issue with the assumption, what prevents you from using a non-distracting style instead?