Because a) they don't care [Swartz] or b) they are worried that having comments brings down the quality of the article. [Svbtle] [1]
imho, the latter reason is idiotic. It's the quality of writing that determines the quality of comments. (I have written quite a few blog posts on the topic, as I sorta gained my fame/infamy through blog comments)
I removed the comments system from it, because in my past blogs, comments were rarely useful. If a post is interesting enough to need comments, it usually ends on social media anyway, where people can comment there (like HN, Reddit, Facebook, and so on)
I have to chime in and agree with this approach. When I built my blog, one of my "must-have" features was a comment system free of 3rd parties such as Reddit and FB. After some soul-searching and an honest look at my traffic logs I decided that as the primary purpose of my website is to serve as a resume and archive that anyone who wished to comment could simply email me and that lacking an embedded comment system
- Freed me from having to monitor any conversation and its contents
- Helped disguise how low-traffic the blog is (nothing says low traffic more than a single comment)
- As the Svbtle guys point out, most comments are relatively uninformed and tend to add little. There are exceptions such as HN and the StackOverflow family where intelligent(ish) discourse is the norm but the internet at large is wild and untamed.
- Were I to run my own comment structure I would feel obligated to provide security the guarantee that there are no XSS or other code injection vulnerabilities stemming from user-submitted text.
Consequently my blog has no commenting functionality.
Spam is a problem, but other sites have even worse things to worry about. As an example, I read a variety of news sources in an attempt to maintain objectivity, and I've noticed that conservative news sites that allow comments are plagued by a bunch of immature, white supremacists. Another example is Reddit. Some of the subreddits are absolutely amazing, but for the majority of the site, comments rarely seem to have anything at all to do with their associated posts.
Sometimes it's for legal reasons. For example: In Germany, the website / blog owner is liable for any kind of content that is shared through comment systems. You have to continuosly monitor your blog for any comments that might contain illegal material.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 35.4 ms ] threadimho, the latter reason is idiotic. It's the quality of writing that determines the quality of comments. (I have written quite a few blog posts on the topic, as I sorta gained my fame/infamy through blog comments)
[1] See Medium's reason for dropping comments. http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/21/medium-becomes-a-more-full-...
I removed the comments system from it, because in my past blogs, comments were rarely useful. If a post is interesting enough to need comments, it usually ends on social media anyway, where people can comment there (like HN, Reddit, Facebook, and so on)
- Freed me from having to monitor any conversation and its contents
- Helped disguise how low-traffic the blog is (nothing says low traffic more than a single comment)
- As the Svbtle guys point out, most comments are relatively uninformed and tend to add little. There are exceptions such as HN and the StackOverflow family where intelligent(ish) discourse is the norm but the internet at large is wild and untamed.
- Were I to run my own comment structure I would feel obligated to provide security the guarantee that there are no XSS or other code injection vulnerabilities stemming from user-submitted text.
Consequently my blog has no commenting functionality.
Click on the title of any blog post.
Scroll to bottom and click read comments?
Am I missing something?
SSO, threaded comments, reputation/karma/pruning, etc. are features that seldom exist on blogs.
(Yes, if you use the default Wordpress comments, don't, but that's another topic.)