The first weblog I came across that didn’t have comments was Daring Fireball about 4-5 years ago. The concept was so foreign and radical to me, I just couldn’t understand it. Why would someone discourage discussion? Everyone reads through those lists of “how to attract more readers to your blog” when they’re starting out. A common point in all of them is to be an active participant in the blogosphere. To comment on and link to others’ posts. It did make sense — give some to get some. So then why was such a popular weblog not following such a basic rule?⌘

Turns out that when I got the answer, I realised that I was asking the wrong question.⌘

Everything has a purpose

Writing, is an art. Sharing one’s knowledge and opinion in a way that others want to read, and keep reading, is an art — and like any other, difficult to master. Just because publishing has become easier over the years thanks to the Internet, doesn’t mean the paradigm has changed. The written word still has its charm. Unfortunately, most new bloggers are in it for a quick buck, and as more and more of these people proliferate the blogosphere, the general perception suffers. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the written word that is a reflection of a person’s thoughts about a certain topic or issue, with the motive of sharing it other people who have thought the same but are looking for a different perspective.⌘

I initially began blogging not because everyone was doing it. I had things to say, and having a blog seemed to be the fastest way to get them out. But even from the early days, I was never a “tips and tricks” kinda writer. My intention has always been to bring a certain analytical, intellectual bent to the issue I’m writing about, because I’ve always thought of it as not worth writing something if there is nothing original in it. That is why I take days to refine what I’ve written. I owe it to you, to put out the best possible rendition of my thoughts into words. After all, not a lot of worth a writer is without his readers.⌘

Comments on a weblog are like critique on the sleeves of a book. You buy a book to read the book, not the critique. When I write something, I write it for the person who wants to read what I have to say. I don’t really care for their opinion of my opinion. At least, not enough to have it on the same page as my writing. That why they have a blog, or my mailing address. Or even Twitter now. The idea is to take all the extra conversation off-line, so that only the important things stay up. Plus, in my experience, comments haven’t really added anything to what I’ve had to say. Part of the reason is the reader base I became popular with, owing to my beginnings as a Blogger customisations coder¹.⌘

Even if you consider popular blogs like (eyeroll) TechCrunch, which get hundreds of comments on almost every post, just skimming over them shows how worthless they are. It’s either someone pushing something they wrote themselves by adding a link in their comment, or chiding the author of the post for being fanboy-ish/biased, or worst, just a one line — “Nice post, enjoyed reading it” — compliment.⌘

Getting my mute on

Seeing how useless comments on weblogs usually are, and more or less agreeing with John Gruber’s reasons for disabling them on his, I decided to get rid of them from Geekaholic once and for all. It’s not like I get a lot of comments either, so it’s more of an unnecessary annoyance. I tried turning them off partly, allowing comments on my proper, big posts and not on my linked list. But people asked me to enable comments on those too, and I caved. This time I don’t plan to.⌘

I respond to people faster on Twitter than I do on my blog, and the conversation reaches more people that way. There was an experiment some time back on exclusively using Twitter to handle comments. I’m not really sure how that worked out. Seems pretty chaotic, so I won’t be doing that either. This place will be read-only from now on. If you disagree, or need to vent, well too bad. Only one person can talk at a time. Here, it’s me.⌘