Russel has decided to remove all comments from his blog and no longer offer commenting on future posts.
Which is really sad.
As a cluetrain fan, I’d have to say that a blog isn’t a blog unless it has comments. Where’s the discussion in that? etc,
Dave Winer famously left this comment on my blog on why he doesn’t have comments:
“… PS: You can, sometimes, leave comments on my blog. But I had the first comments on a blog, and it was great for a while, but then it turned into a constant cesspool of whining wiener boys. They drowned out the interesting stuff. I decided they could start their own blogs, and they did, and now we have a blogosphere.”
Vizzavi: ‘And that’s how I invented the blogosphere’, etc.
Back on the comments thing, I guess it all comes down to why we choose to run blogs, and participate in the blogosphere.
For me, blogs are conversations. Yes, you can use blog software to run brochureware sites very successfully, but the true purpose (IMHO) is to support the fabric of conversation.
Sure, you can ‘comment’ on a blog post by writing your own blog post – but not everyone has a blog. And those who do often have ‘themed’ blogs where a certain level of on-topicness needs to be maintained.
I’m toying with the idea of stopping all the personal and non-tech posts from this blog — but if my favourite MC’s and UK Garage promo’ers dropped their comments, where would I post my views? On my tech blog? Create another blog just for commenting on other blogs?
Rus – please turn your comments back on!