John Welch on the 'no comments on my blog' brouhaha

He hits the nail square on the head and actually makes a point I haven’t thought about: Search Engine Optimisation.

It’s a good and honest post, with a healthy amount of profanity mixed-in.

My take is that sometimes it doesn’t make sense to add comments to a blog, but many bloggers, developers and journalists who used to have comments on their site, are simply being dishonest about the way the removal of comments influences a potential discussion.
If you want a discussion on the topic you wrote about, allow comments or give people a way to make their opinions heard/read not only by yourself.
If you don’t want a discussion, or simply don’t want to be disagreed with on your own site, you don’t allow comments.

Other explanations, like this one from MG Siegler;

Earn your voice.

are just excuses so you don’t have to tell people the truth:
“I don’t care for your opinion as long as you’re not popular.” — which brings us back to what John Welch was saying. Go ahead, read his article.

Alex Hoffmann @mangochutney