Should I bring comments back?

19 Comments

  • Brian - 16 years ago

    In a recent post--titled something like "Housekeeping: Who Am i?"--you said that your goal for your blog was to create a welcoming space for intellectually honest partisans and non-partisans, or something like that. That statement stuck with me because it's such a worthwhile goal. But I think it's hard to make a webspace truly "welcoming" without making it significantly interactive, and enabling comments seems like the obvious way to get interactive.

  • eve - 16 years ago

    I like the idea of not all posts allowing comments, but have more posts allowing comments. The trolls and fools are not enough of a nuisance to outweigh the information and entertainment of the other comments.

  • Been There, Done That, Got Chased off by the Troll - 16 years ago

    Don't do it. The "Information Superhighway" has long since devolved into Tobacco Road, led by the political discussion and comments sections.

    Political sites and comments sections quickly get overwhelmed by a few people who end up chasing away any decent and reasonable posters. It never fails: there will be a "top ten" of people who are far and away the people with the biggest post counts, with number 11 and below on the list way down there in post counts. You end up with a private message board of people caught in a circular firing range.

    Without really on-the-scene monitoring (and who wants to do that?), you're not going to be providing anyone with anything really resembling a town square or town hall or any other thing that seems to promise real, reasoned and CIVIL debate.

    Just my 10+ experience on such things. Without exception, they've all crashed and burned. The trajectory is set in stone it would seem.

  • Trinity - 16 years ago

    There has been a notable lack of quality in your posts since you discontinued comments. I find that interesting and disheartening. I hope you will do one of two things:

    1. Reinstate the comment section.

    2. Stop acting like you give a damn if you have one.

  • sonya - 16 years ago

    I didnt vote nor really care. You didn't ask people if you should stop the comment section and I'm offended by your God like concern for bestowing us little people with the right to respond to your punditry. Its very strange for free media to be so Stalinistic. I only scan certain articles and have notice an decline in your reporting since you stop taking comments. I think most of the reporting is very narrisstic in conveying the concerns that you may have as opposed to understanding questions that viewers may have. Case in point the section regarding the Hillary/ Barack meeting. The questions posed were insipid and did nothing to illuminate how the meeting may impact the healing process of the Democratic Party. But the post was more concern about how the media would feel about being out of the loop ignoring the historical nature of the moment. It would be as if it was little concern that FDR and Churchill were meeting but emphasisizing how the media was duped. So kept the comment section as it and watch your viewership continue to decline since the comment section helps kept reporters (especially internet reporters) closer to the real world and honest.

  • ally - 16 years ago

    I agree with Steve C. and TCD. Your decision to refrain from posting comments is one of my favorite things about this blog and the Daily Dish. If I wanted to know what every idiot in the world thinks, I'd be reading Politico.

  • Nick - 16 years ago

    You must bring comments back. Whats a blog without comments.. nothing!

    If you find any comments offensive you can delete them whenever you read them. But you should bring comments back soon!

  • Stax - 16 years ago

    Enable comments and let the chips fall where they may. Bloggers who disable comments are, in my estimation, intellectual cowards. Andrew Sullivan included.

  • Steve C - 16 years ago

    I'm impressed with how you've handled comments since turning them off - giving people a specific topic to ruminate on and respond. I think you should do a little more of that, but I'm very much against turning them back on for all posts. The Greater Internet F**kwad Theory still applies.

  • Jim - 16 years ago

    If you could get someone to "screen the calls," I would welcome the comments for appropriate posts. The last thing we need, though, is for the comments section to turn into a haven for spam, trolls, inflammatory comments that add nothing to the debate, etc.

  • TCD - 16 years ago

    No - forget the comments unless someone moderates them. The Atlantic web site is becoming dominated by a group of yahoos who are totally uninterested in engaging in the type of give and take I would expect from a fine mag like the Atlantic.

  • Diamond - 16 years ago

    My biggest disappointment about your blog has been the absence of comments. But I'd be glad to go half-way. As someone commented previously, you may restore comments for certain posts where public opinion would make a lively conversation.

  • Mitch - 16 years ago

    Yes, but only on selected articles

  • jason - 16 years ago

    enabling them more often would be nice -- i particularly like them on veepstakes posts, for instance. but not EVERY post deserves a comment. if there's no opportunity for give-and-take or opinion in the post, then people will comment whatever they feel is appropriate, and that's when the crazy trolls start showing up.

  • BackFencer Zero - 16 years ago

    That's the issue - I'd rather he spend time reporting the blog and not patrolling the comments. The comments rarely add much of value here and there are lots of other places for people to vent/flame/spew.

    Leave them off.

  • Senator Alonso Parker - 16 years ago

    Enable comments, but patrol the threads, ban the persistently personally offensive, racist and sexist commenters. They are most of the problem IMHO.

  • Brian - 16 years ago

    Only if Hillary drops out and endorses tomorrow. Then it will be safe.

  • Charles - 16 years ago

    Andrew Sullivan asked this too ... I don't get what the issue is. Enable comments. If people don't want to read them, the tiny link is pretty easy to ignore.

  • doofman - 16 years ago

    You don't have to bring comments back for every single post, but you might want to try enabling them on more posts and see what happens.

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