on decommenting
D'Arcy Norman,
D'Arcy Norman Dot Net,
Jun 17, 2010
D'Arcy Norman has turned off comments on his blog and in this post he explains why. "I've been thinking and feeling about my blog and how I want to continue using it. And I've decided that comments are not helpful for that. If this blog is my Commonplace Book, if it's my Outboard Brain, I need to be able to write whatever the hell I want, without thinking, even for a second, about what might happen in the comments." Fair enough, though now I'm sure he will simply transfer this to thinking about what other blogs - like mine - might post in response.
More to the point, though - there is a great convenience (largely broken by Blogger, but I digress) in having a comment form right next to an article. The issue isn't the having of a comment form, it is in what happens to the comment. When other people can place their thoughts on your page, their motivations are different - they're more likely to be outrageous, self-promoting, spammy. I think comments should end up on the commenter's own website (which is what mIDm was all about). But it hasn't happened yet because OpenID has been hijacked by social network sites.
More to the point, though - there is a great convenience (largely broken by Blogger, but I digress) in having a comment form right next to an article. The issue isn't the having of a comment form, it is in what happens to the comment. When other people can place their thoughts on your page, their motivations are different - they're more likely to be outrageous, self-promoting, spammy. I think comments should end up on the commenter's own website (which is what mIDm was all about). But it hasn't happened yet because OpenID has been hijacked by social network sites.
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