Back to Old School Blogging
I just took out the comments on my blog. All of the old ones, and no more new ones. All gone bye bye.
Yep, I'm going old school - just my thoughts on my site alone. I've had comments enabled for years now, so it's really a big change. But it's something that needed to be done. It's actually part of a whole re-org of my life as I get my priorities in order. Comments were taking up too much time to manage, and too many mental cycles as I processed them in addition to emails, IMs, SMS, Phone Calls, etc. I've gotten over 680 comments since Jan. 1st. That's an average of 20 a day - though sometimes many more - and I get at least 2 or 3 anonymous idiots per post as well, and the occasional spammer. Dealing with the comments takes time, and considering that I'm disorganized already, it's something that needed to be cut.
I've gotten into some really bad habits as well. I've found myself posting, and then obsessively checking my comments over the next day or so, moderating them, responding, etc. Since I always learn something from at least one of my commenters, this was something that I was willing to do. But over the past year the percentage of worthwhile comments has started to drop, while other priorities in my life demanded more of my attention - yet I was still obsessively checking comments instead of doing other things (like answering email). Since I'm not one to break bad habits by simply saying to myself "don't do that any more," the only real solution is to cut out the comments all together.
So! People who really want to contact me from now on will find my email (buried in the About page), and others will use their own blogs to respond to my thoughts and link to me. I subscribe to several Ego feeds from Technorati, Google, IceRocket, etc. so I should see the response if it's out there. See you in the blogosphere!
:-)
-Russ