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Comments on a blog are crucial to building community, meeting others, and (most importantly) interacting with your readers.
We’ve written many articles here on the importance of having comments enabled. Even Liz Strauss has weighed in on the issue:
My personal opinion is, that if I read a really great article and I come to the end and I can’t leave a comment… These days, my response is sort of like, “They don’t want to talk to me, I don’t want to talk to them.”
However, there are some times when it might be better to disable comments, regardless of the consequences.
You’re On Vacation
When going on an extended vacation, perhaps it’s better to disable comments temporarily rather than let a potential spammer take over your blog.
An alternative to this is enlisting the help of a trusted friend to help moderate your comments while you’re away. If you are in charge of a multi-author blog, perhaps temporarily promoting one of your authors is a good fit.
You’re Done With Blogging
You’ve had it! You’ve experienced everything the blogosphere has to offer and you’re ready to move on.
If you decide not to sell your website and just leave it up for archival purposes, then it would be wise to completely disable comments on your blog.
You’d Rather Concentrate on Writing
In the case of Shawn Blanc, he didn’t want readers to think they had an obligation to comment on every post. Shawn concentrates on his material, and allows readers to weigh in to him via e-mail.
Prominent blogger Seth Godin also follows this approach.
You Don’t Ever Respond
If you find yourself never responding to comments, then perhaps it’s time to turn those comments off.
I’m definitely not perfect, but I do try to respond to all comments. However, if one never makes that attempt, then perhaps comments aren’t a good fit.
You Don’t Have Time
A while back, a blogger named Avinash decided to disable comments on his site. It was temporary, but I understood his reasons.
Some bloggers simply don’t have time to manage comments.
Bloggers have to deal with:
- Spam
- Moderating
- Trolls
- Responses
- Requests
Managing comments is a lot of work, and if you simply don’t have the time, then perhaps leaving them off is a better solution.
There Are Legal Issues
There has been some debate in the blogosphere recently about who owns comments.
There are also countries out there where the blogger is liable for a reader’s comment.
If a blogger is fearing arrest (or worse) over a comment someone else made, then perhaps it’s better to leave them off.
Conclusion
I’m absolutely 100% for having comments enabled. It’s one of the first steps in reader appreciation.
However, comments aren’t for everyone.
In your opinion, is there ever a time when a blogger should disable comments completely?
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I think you’ve pretty much covered all cases for turning off the comments. There’s one more that you didn’t mention though is when the comments are disabled after a particular period of time. Say Mark Boulton turns off the comments on older posts after 30 days, which is a smart thing to do for popular blogs like his with lots of tutorials and how to guides.
Or like in the case of your personal blog, where you disabled comments for one particular post, which was getting too much of unwanted attention.
When I first started blogging, I never responded to comments. I was stuck in an old media mindset, I think, because it never occurred to me I was in a conversation. I thought responding to comments would make me look like I was trying to drive up the number of comments.
I now respond to every comment, and I am embrassed to think of all the people I snubbed.
@Vivien,
You’re right! Totally forgot about those individual posts that I disabled. I also disabled comments on my plugin pages so that people would e-mail me instead. It’s worked out rather well.
@Alanna,
Looks like you’ve got the Liz Strauss mindset. Good for you.
Good post, thanks for that!
I always have comments enabled on the blog. However, I need to limit the length of the comment. Is there a plugin or code I can use to limit the amount of text someone can submit in a comment?
I’d turn off comments on that timeless content post – I’m still getting emails with new ones!! You might want to turn off comments when you get too many – the comment pagination in wordpress 2.7 leads to duplicate content and multiple URLs.
I like the idea of comments. It is annoying though if I don’t get a reply. It’s also good memories. I may not come back straight away, but say after 10 years the post is still up and it would give me a smile.
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