Comments are Dying

I decided to remove comments from Swedish Pixels for the foreseeable future. Having a website in Swedish, about obscure topics such as running, life style design and other miscellany never attracted that much discussion anyway.

John Gruber recently had to–once more–defend his decision to not offer comments on Daring Fireball. He claims they don’t fit with the vision he has for his site. Venerable gentlemen of the internet, such as John Hicks, Derek Powazek and Shawn Blanc joined the discussion. They explained how omitting comments changes the tone of a website and makes it a more personal outlet. Hicks also points to the reality of pestering spam comments, an ever growing irritation.

I find allowing comments makes me want comments, which makes me write to attract comments. That never ends well. Back in 2004, when a predecessor of Swedish Pixels was born, I much too often wrote inflammatory posts on controversial subjects, just to make visitors respond. I blush when I think about it.

However, the most important reason for my flipping the comment switch in Wordpress is the way consumption of the internet has changed.

I rarely fill out comment forms myself. While I’m sure my laziness has something to do with it the main reason is that I almost never read content on the website itself. Instead I use my RSS-reader, or Instapaper. Traditional blog comments are tied to the website, which makes them invisible to me. Syndication feeds, stripped-down reading services and even the Reader-function in Apple Safari 5 illustrates the growing division of contents from presentation. Nowadays producers of the web have very little control of how their content of viewed.

I believe the tradition blog comment is dying. It’s easier than ever to publish on the web, be it on your own blog, tumblog, or on Twitter. You might just as well respond to a website there, making the internet a richer place for as all. The trackback, or pingback, would be a nice way to tie the discussion together, hadn’t it been for the absurd attractiveness to spam-bots. I’m sure someone will think of something new, something better.