Blogs with no comment feature

My dear friend Bible Monkey points us toward another blog that doesn't take comments. I've expressed my opinion on this before. I do not like blogs that don't take comments (or take them and NEVER get around to publishing them).

Out of curiosity, I googled blogs without comments and there are a lot of opinions out there. Some go so far as to say these sites are not blogs. Others defend the practice.

I don't know who these folks are. I just found them in the search and thought what they had to say was interesting. Some of them are OLD!

Here's a post from Seth Godin - a no comment taker:
I think comments are terrific, and they are the key attraction for some blogs and some bloggers. Not for me, though. First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning. Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them. And finally, and most important for you, it permanently changes the way I write. Instead of writing for everyone, I find myself writing in anticipation of the commenters. I'm already itching to rewrite my traffic post below. So, given a choice between a blog with comments or no blog at all, I think I'd have to choose the latter.

From WayneD - a please comment blogger:
I had been getting a bit depressed lately. No one has been commenting on my blog posts even though I get more than 500 visitors a week. I know that lots of people don't comment on blogs but nothing?

Turns out he had them turned off somehow. Didn't quite follow it because I don't use what he uses, but . . . Poor thing figured it out. Can you imagine the feelings when everyone stops commenting!

I do read some blogs that don't take comments, but they are high-post-count bloggers and I'm scanning them most of the time anyway just looking to glean tech info. I also don't tend to think of them as blogs but purveyors of info that I want. One of the sites I looked at said blogs with no comments are just personal websites. I tend to agree with that.

Utilizing a blogging platform to convey information does not a blog make.

JMHO of course ;)

Comments

  1. When I first started blogging, Bitsy, I didn't have my comments turned on. Why? Because I was a little scared of dealing with people who might disagree with me. Then I discovered a lot of people out there very much like me, who really wanted no more of me than to have a little conversation and friendship.

    I suppose the no-comment blogs have their place, the kind of high-traffic ones you were talking about. But I certainly prefer the ones that are open to readers' comments.

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  2. I don't read blogs that don't allow comments, as a rule. They are blogs in name only, and basically using the blog format while functioning as a website. Conversation is integral to blogging IMO.

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  3. I like reading comments. They're the conversation that the blogpost prompts, the most enjoyable part of blogging! That said, I love your posts too, including this one. Hope you comment in reply to Gary, Nathan, and / or me too.

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  4. @ jkgayle

    I didn't know you were blogging somewhere else now... I've been missing you hehe.

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  5. Thank you all for commenting! I try to respond to most, although sometimes things just have to end. Some get lost too and I'm surprised when I finally see them. what to do, what to do? ;)

    Gary, we do open ourselves up a bit when we write out in the open like we do. I've seen some pretty hateful comments in a few places and I certainly understand why someone wants to moderate them. I've been lucky. I've also been lucky in finding blogs that I not only like to read but like join in on the conversations. Sometimes the content is out of my range of expertise and I chose to be quiet. Still reading though and wishing there was a way I could let that be known without sticking my foot in my mouth! Sometimes I've just gone ahead and done that too! That I've made such good friends blogging is amazing!

    Nathan, in my mind, it is the conversation (or at least the opportunity) that makes it blogging and not just an article. BUT I also love to talk about just about anything. What I mentioned about being able to use the platform and calling it something besides a blog should be considered. WordPress has lots of nifty features (even the free one). On the blog I started for my class project, I set a static home page and put the posts on another page. Any blog that doesn't take comments has got to have something I really want to keep me coming back.
    psst finding Dr. Gayle ;)

    Dr. Gayle, you are always so kind :D Nick Norelli had a post not too long ago about posting what you want. The majority seemed to agree blogging is really about the community. It's the conversation that builds that. I can't imaging not getting to know at least one person who reads my blog. I would be the poorer one for that. Nor can I imagine reading blog after blog and never really getting to know at least one blogger. I don't know how long I'd remain in their audience. The posts get things started, the comments move them along.

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  6. As you know, blog is short for weblog, like a diary on the web. But I don't know if the first weblogs had comments or not. Anybody know?

    Nowadays though I think of blogs without comments as web sites with articles. That's fine but it doesn't fit what a blog is these days.

    Since I don't write about controversial stuff very often, I don't get stressed about people disagreeing with me and debating stuff to much. Or I just tell them I'm not a good debater (which is the case) and maybe other people could help me out. Fortunately I have some people with heavy armor to cover my back.

    I want comments because I want to learn. And if someone criticizes me on a non-controversial post, it's usually because I got something wrong and needed to be corrected, which is what I want. I'd rather be correct than feel good.

    That's my take on it.
    Jeff

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  7. Jeff, most of the people I see in the blog circles I read are so incredibly nice that I am surprised when I see a comment that's ugly. I don't say much controversial either, but I have been taken aback at times when something I said off the cuff - here or on FB was treated with disdain. I think most of those have been educationally related.

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  8. Hurrah for educator snobs! Gotta love 'em.

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  9. Hurrah for educator snobs! Gotta love ‘em.
    Definitely the easiest route ;)

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  10. [...] July 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment Bitsy Griffin, of the blog “Jack Of All Trades,” recently linked to a couple of bloggers and their posts on comment practice and policy with respect to blogging. Her post is “Blogs with no comment feature.” [...]

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  11. Early blogs usually didn't allow comments, because the software for this didn't exist. Dave Winer's blogging software "Frontier" did add comments (at some point) and a lot of early bloggers used that, but not all turned comments on. (I never did, though I did post some discussion topics using Philip Greenspun's software, and I posted my email address.)

    I preferred to refer discussions to Usenet/netnews, which is now called Google Groups.

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  12. Hi robotwisdom! Thanks for posting and nice to meet you! I have done some research on the early days of blogs for my grad work, but now that I think of it, I don't remember information about commenting. I need to dig around a bit more - for comment specifics.

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  13. I remember Usenet before spamming. Intelligent conversation with etiquette. Not that there weren't trolls.
    Jeff

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  14. Regular 'static' HTML doesn't offer any mechanism for commenting-- you have to run special software on your webserver. That was way beyond the reach of most early bloggers. In the early days, weblogs were lists of links, so comments would have been more appropriate on the pages that we linked to, anyway, not on the blog itself. The bigger online magazines did run webservers and often allowed commenting.

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