John Gruber:
Now that DF has achieved a modicum of popularity, however, what I tend to get instead aren’t queries or complaints about the lack of comments, but rather demands that I add them — demands from entitled people who see that I’ve built something very nice that draws much attention, and who believe they have a right to share in it.
They don’t.
I love this. My view on comments has certainly changed over the years. I feel like I used to be suspicious of any site that didn’t have them. But now I don’t have them on this very site.
I suppose my time at TechCrunch (and VentureBeat before that) changed my opinion. I came to realize that the vast majority of comments on popular sites are useless — or worse.
Like Gruber, I much prefer when people use their own sites to respond to something. That small barrier to entry seems to ensure that the quality of the discussion will be higher.
There are exceptions, of course, but they’re few and far between. And I feel like the comment problem on the Internet is getting worse, not better.
And yes, I’ve tried all the various third-party commenting platforms. Some work really well. But the fundamental problem remains that most people on the Internet are idiots — especially when they can be anonymous in some way.
Plus, comments tend to make sites look ugly.
