Kill the Comments, Save the Girl

Most of the blogs I read generate reasoned and cogent commentary in the comments. If that happens "probably never" for you, you're reading the wrong sites.

There are clear business cases where this may be a correct approach. If you've enable comments as an ad-hoc form of viral marketing, or you want to provide a place to engage people with your brand, then the last things you want are comments which don't reinforce a particular idea or identity. I suspect the explosion of commenting systems relatively recently has more to do with a vague idea that "social" is good and that "comments" make your site more "social." And also, no doubt, wordpress.

There's no implicitly right or wrong decision. Some sites, and some authors, may benefit from the potential controversy of allowing comments, and might be willing to chip in for actual moderation. The key to remember, though, is that hosting comments imposes a technical and social burden on the content which you might not be ready for. You can't fire and forget.

But I do find it odd that the author cites third-party control as a downside to comments, then suggests as a solution allowing social media sites to host comments entirely. If comments suck then surely they suck on Twitter as well?

I wholeheartedly disagree. I like reading what other people think about, especially if I've just read a controversial piece. If the Washington Post disabled comments entirely, for example, I don't think I'd be as inclined to read their articles.

I find the comments on Hacker News specifically to often be quite intelligent and respectful. Can't say the same for most sites.

I don't like the idea of merely disabling comments -- there has to be some kind of thoughtful middle-ground.

This is really sad.

When I was younger, I used to visit slashdot and skip directly to the comments without bothering with the articles. The meta-discussions were generally the most interesting part. Not all sites are youtube.

This is a well reasoned and cogent commentary, I’m glad I read this.