My blog no longer has comments

It's not the end of the world. You can still reach me. The only thing that has changed is where the conversation happens.

It no longer needs to happen under each post, inside a little comment box that I have to maintain and moderate. These days, people already talk elsewhere: on Twitter, Facebook, forums, their own blogs, and whatever other spaces they use. Those places are more open, more flexible, and mostly self-managed.

So no, comments are no longer necessary here. Write to me on Twitter, send me an email, or publish a reply on your own blog. For a real debate, that last option is probably better anyway.

I've been running this blog for eleven and a half years. Not one year. Not two. Eleven and a half. There are around ±50,000 comments sitting in the database, and I have read at least 98% of them.

That gives me enough experience to say this plainly: most comments do not add much.

"All big bloggers have their comments closed because they are too uptight and conceited to care about what their readers have to say. They are a bunch of arrogant bastards. They can't stand it when people don't agree with them..." - An internet idiot.

It does not matter whether the post is long, thoughtful, and full of information, or whether it is just a short, regular update. The result is usually the same: the vast majority of comments are unsubstantial. They do not really move the conversation forward.

When I say they do not contribute, I do not mean that every comment has to be brilliant, deep, or perfectly argued. I mean that most comments are just noise around the discussion. Some agree with the author. Some disagree. That alone does not make them better or worse.

An unsubstantial comment can be friendly, like "Thank you, you're a genius," or nasty, like "This is a shitty piece of writing, you're a son of a bitch." A comment does not need to become a doctoral thesis, of course. But most replies do not bring a real point of view, and that creates a problem for the person who has to maintain the blog.

In a way, I understand why this happens. It is a problem with the medium itself. A blog comment section is not a great place for discussion. There are better places for that: forums, Facebook, Twitter, and plenty of other spaces where people can argue, reply, quote, and continue the conversation however they want.

I thought about this for a while. After looking at many popular blogs, I came to the conclusion that a lot of posts almost invite low-value comments. Even interesting posts attract them. And in the end, comments mostly mean that you have to:

1. Put extra work on your server with database requests and scripts.
2. Keep captcha systems and anti-spam filters running.
3. Spend time and attention on moderation.
4. Stay exposed to spammers and their scripts.

Why social networks are better for discussion

One reason Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms work better is simple: they remove the moderation burden from the blog author. The problem does not become smaller. It disappears from your side.

And believe me, moderation was a complicated issue. In many cases, you end up having to act as both judge and executioner. That creates a level of annoyance that is hard to overstate.

"Comments are not the only, nor necessarily the best, form of interaction between authors and readers of weblogs and were not part of the medium's structural beginnings." - José Luis Orihuela

There is also another obvious problem: many people visit blogs to promote themselves. The classic move is to congratulate you, leave a comment, and include their URL.

I understand the logic. If someone contributes something useful, it feels fair that they get some kind of recognition. A link can be part of that exchange. I know this has always been part of blogging, and it probably always will be.

But in many cases, it became a double-edged sword. It encouraged spam. Six years ago, I wrote about this same problem:

"I removed the web addresses in the comments and emails to see if the user commenters were really providing feedback altruistically. Of course, in a week of testing, it didn't yield good results. People hardly ever commented, at least the locals never left comments. Removing the links, there was no longer any interest at stake."

I was not surprised. You can still see this behavior today on almost any blog that carries the message, explicit or not, of "we are popular."

Another major advantage of moving the discussion outside the blog is that each person owns what they say. In a hypothetical case, I do not get to end the discussion. You do. You decide when to continue, when to stop, and where to take it.

That is the real advantage of discussing a post somewhere else: the blog author cannot control the conversation. Once a topic is public, it can be discussed in open networks, without being limited by the author's comment box. I see that as a good thing.

You can talk about a post on your Twitter timeline, on Facebook, on Reddit, on Menéame, in a private or public forum, or on your own blog as a direct reply. You can link to the author or to the article, share your opinion, and let other people follow the thread from there.

The debate can grow better in a decentralized environment than in a centralized one.

That is what I mean when I say blogs, in particular, no longer need comments. People already discuss things inside their own circles.

If you have a blog and only one out of every ten comments is useful, I think you are better off removing the comment system.