Blog commenting - on or off?

[Kay]

For those of you who have blogs, this article may be of interest:

http://mattgemmell.com/2012/01/07/comments-commentary/

Personally, I enjoy most blog comments and think the comment function aids interactivity and conversation.

Obviously spam can be a bit of a nuisance at times but it's easy enough to delete it before it goes live.

Would you consider turning off comments or do you think they add to your blog?

[ruggie]

Not allowing comments suggests that the blogger is airing his/her views and isn't interested in what anyone else thinks. I set mine so that comments are always moderated - and, of course - run Aksimet. Then I give regular commenters immediate publication rights. If your WP-based site isn't really a blog, then that's different.

[Kay]

That's pretty much what we to do. If you read the article I linked to, then you'll see several fairly prominent bloggers justifying why they don't want comments. They have a point, but I agree with you, it seems to go against the spirit of blogging.

[ruggie]

I guess the prblem is that when you become really prominent, most of the comments are feeble, naive stuff that you haven't time to deal with.