It has been considered generally good blogging advice to enable and use comments on posts. On this blog, comments are disabled.
As I prepare my editorial calendar to begin resuming regular updates, I realized I never explained why I have decided this.
The idea of having comment threads on a blog is to create a tiny social network on the author’s site. Someone posts a comment, and they check back to see who responded. You develop a community on your page.
I believe we have plenty of social networks. There are plenty of ways to express yourself, without censor, without publisher, without editor. Networks like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit as social platforms offer link sharing/commentary. Even better, it is possible to compose your comment or reaction on Medium, Blogger, WordPress.com, Ghost, or one of almost countless free systems where you can begin to tell your story on your own site or blog.
It’s not an original idea, Seth Godin stopped the comments on his blog over 11 years before I did.
In short, I don’t need to host, moderate, and control your commentary. You can make it in the public space, or on your own space. I want to encourage more conversation, not control it.
If you want to get in touch with me directly, you can email me at wordsmith@eternalrevolution.com. You can email me if you want to make sure I see your new creation.
Paul Nowak is a husband and father of 7, who also happens to be a writer and author. He has written The Way of the Christian Samurai among other books.