{"id":198,"date":"2009-04-07T15:34:36","date_gmt":"2009-04-07T20:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.adam-jackson.net\/?p=198"},"modified":"2009-04-07T15:34:36","modified_gmt":"2009-04-07T20:34:36","slug":"no-more-comments-on-this-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/04\/07\/no-more-comments-on-this-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2605 No More Comments on This Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today I saw <a href=\"http:\/\/mrgan.tumblr.com\/post\/93630125\/on-internet-comments\">this blog post<\/a> via <a href=\"http:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2009\/04\/07\/mrgan-comments\">DaringFireball<\/a>. I&#8217;ve included it in its entirety below but only because it&#8217;s so perfect that I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ll have to write anything else to explain my decision to not allow comments on this blog from this point forward.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"regular\">\n<div class=\"regular\">\n<h2 id=\"internet-comments-as-heckling\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mrgan.tumblr.com\/post\/93630125\/on-internet-comments\">Internet comments as heckling <\/a><\/h2>\n<p>I remember seeing blog comments for the first time in the 90s, thinking they were so awesome. The whole world could tell me what they thought, not just <a href=\"http:\/\/inessential.com\/2009\/03\/30\/comments_theory\">about anything<\/a>, but about my own stuff specifically. Wow.<\/p>\n<p>Then came YouTube. No, that\u2019s not quite right; YouTube is just the holy grail of awful Internet comments.<\/p>\n<p>So the <a href=\"http:\/\/daringfireball.net\/\">cool<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/hotdogsladies\">kids<\/a> of the Internet don\u2019t like comment posts. This has come up a lot recently, and there\u2019s a <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/danielpunkass\/status\/1443771174\">minor<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/timoni\/status\/1443797182\">backlash<\/a>. The analogy to comments in real-world situations &#8211; Q&amp;A sessions, business meetings, performance art &#8211; is helpful, but only if we can figure out\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2026 some similarities between\u00a0Internet comments and\u00a0real-world comments:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They can be moderated heavily (confirmed users\/registering with real contact info), moderately (anonymously registered users\/Q&amp;A session) or not at all (direct, anonymous posting\/shouting match).<\/li>\n<li>They can be very useful (additional information,\u00a0provocative or inspiring questions), bland (making the speaker repeat points already made, going off on tangents) or harmful (vicious arguments, heckling, trolling).<\/li>\n<li>Even at their best, they are often missed (by people who don\u2019t stick around for the Q&amp;A\/don\u2019t read comments); even at their worst, they can do some good (by showing how the speaker handles stress, by making them clarify their message as they restate it, by illustrating what not to do).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some differences between real-world comments and Internet comments:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Public comments are far from anonymous. We can all see you, dude. Notice that some forms of public comments allow more\u00a0anonymity: talk shows on the radio and TV, for instance. Also notice that the quality of this type of feedback isn\u2019t always great (\u201cHi, I don\u2019t have a question, just a comment\u2026\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Leaving a troll-y post on a blog or forum takes a few seconds of rage, three or four clicks, and some unedited typing. After that, the troll can go on with their day as if nothing happened. Contrast that with the heckler, or even someone who asks an incendiary question at a conference\/talk: they now have to deal with the entire crowd, and maybe even with a bouncer.<\/li>\n<li>Public comments are transient; Internet comments stick around and bait every new visitor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Consider this:<\/p>\n<p>The single worst Internet \u201cfeedback\u201d I have ever seen was a YouTube comment on a video of a family visiting the zoo. As they watch bear cubs play, the three-year-old says, \u201cawww, they\u2019re like little kitties!\u201d The comment, plainly visible on the first page: \u201ckitties? they\u2019re bears you stupid bitch\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Can you imagine a public forum &#8211; a tech convention, a book signing, a high school debate &#8211; where a lone sociopath could get away with this sort of thing?<\/p>\n<p>Some people do better in collaborative, challenging environments. Others prefer to work in peace and solitude. Some writers and directors read reviews of their work, others don\u2019t.\u00a0There\u2019s likely no\u00a0<em>rational<\/em> answer to the question of whether comments on the Internet are a good thing or not. <em>Managing<\/em> comments is the best we can hope for, but this is where the technological temptation rears its head (\u201cjust throw better PHP at it\u201d). <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Captcha\">Captchas<\/a>, user registration (including banning), comment moderation, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/guidelines.gne\">community guidelines<\/a> all help, but not everyone wants to spend time running their blog like a night club. Some people just want to, you know, <em>write<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>With that said, I&#8217;m no longer allowing comments on this blog. You can reply to me on Twitter and I&#8217;m working out a system to make that easier. It&#8217;s the best way to manage the hecklers and trolls and allow me to just write.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today I saw this blog post via DaringFireball. I&#8217;ve included it in its entirety below but only because&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-announcements","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-3c","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":226,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/04\/13\/facebook-connect-solves-all-problems\/","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":0},"title":"\u2605 Facebook Connect Solves All Problems [COMMENTS ARE BACK]","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm going to begin pissing everyone off by becoming a Facebook Connect Evangelist. If you work with me on a project, ask my advice or mention starting a site that relies on user interaction, I'm going to recommend you use Facebook Connect and I'll even set it up myself. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Announcements&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Announcements","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/announcements\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":276,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/05\/04\/sfgate-comments-on-anonymity\/","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":1},"title":"\u2605 SFGate Comments on Anonymity","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"May 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"SFGate.com is the online destination of The San Francisco Chronicle and I'm pretty sure all of their print stories are put on the website but it's a known fact that the comments on SFGate are only a step above YouTube in the category of ignorance, grammar mistakes and trolling. For\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ideas&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Ideas","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/ideas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":419,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/07\/09\/my-internet-will\/","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":2},"title":"\u2605 My Internet Will","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"July 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Every day, I put more of my life online and less of my life is offline. I don't keep a diary and I don't have physical photos or video of my memories. Everything is stored on hard drives and on servers located across the world. When I die, the data\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12029,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2023\/03\/07\/linked-reddit-gets-a-tiktok-style-feature-that-introduces-a-separate-video-feed\/","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":3},"title":"Linked: &#8220;Reddit gets a TikTok-style feature that introduces a separate video feed&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 7, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Via TechCrunch: Today Reddit announced updates to its platform, including the test of a TikTok-like feature that separates text and video content into individual feeds. Dubbed \u201cRead\u201d and \u201cWatch,\u201d the two split-view feeds will allow users to switch from browsing text-based posts to videos, depending on their mood. Me on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3907,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2013\/01\/03\/linkage-offline\/","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":4},"title":"\u2605 Linkage: &#8220;Offline:&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I've linked to Paul Miller's \"Offline\" project before. Paul is a writer at TheVerge and he's taking a year away from the Internet and using sneaker net to send in his articles to colleagues. Occasionally, comments will be printed off for him to read. It's an interesting thing and something\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Motivational&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Motivational","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/motivational\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3718,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2012\/05\/04\/a-complete-shift-in-my-media-consumption\/","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":5},"title":"\u2605 A Complete Shift in My Media Consumption","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"May 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I think we all saw this coming. How long could I sustain so much intake of technology articles and independent YouTube videos and cute cat videos and Tumblr GIFs? My first blog was\u00a0published\u00a0in 1999. I get emails from young guys who read this blog with birthdays in '99. I'm an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ideas&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Ideas","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/ideas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Our Local Newspaper","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3430\/3217541085_58b0141a7c_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}