I'd say it depends on content. I have comments on my wallpaper pages [0] and they are very useful and inspiring for me.
P.S. It is ironic that this very page is full of valuable comments :-)
Ask HN: Are blog comments a thing of the past?
41–50 of 147 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are blog comments a thing of the past?
#42I have been blogging for about 14 years - 7 of these on a blog dedicated for software engineering topics. I removed all commenting options after about 8 years of blogging. The reason was spam, noise and little value add. Around 2015 70% of comments coming in to my blog were from bots and another 10% from anonymous folks making irrelevant, and sometimes insulting comments which I all had to delete. About 20% of the co…
I can confirm this with what I've experienced. I've blogged since around 2003(ish?) and around 5 years ago I decided that it's just not worth the hazzle.
If your goal is to provide a safe discussion space, it's way too much maintenance work for a non-financially-driven and no-clickbait blog.
The bad people of 4chan were always commenting from time to time in waves, but last year kind of made me realize that I probably will never feature comments ever again on any website I'm building.
Your life as a blog author is just way better living in blissful ignorance than reading so much hate before you delete it anyways :) 4chan and other imageboards infiltrate your thoughts through hate, and I just don't have time for that and don't want to waste my time thinking about trolls.
Re: Ask HN: Are blog comments a thing of the past?
#43Ad a user, I love comments. and the few I stumble upon are very often very helpful or insightful.
Either correcting something in the blog, or an update due to new software releases or alternatives that might work in other contexts. Etc.
Extremely helpful and very much appreciated.
Re: Ask HN: Are blog comments a thing of the past?
#44On my own blog - started over twenty years ago - spam was always a problem. I'd sometimes get good exchanges involving real people, but not often enough to be worth wading through the spam.
On the few blogs I've visited in the last few years that have comments, there seems to be another problem - groupthink. Such blogs tend to attract very devoted regulars, who often converge on a very particular set of opinions on the blog's topics. Sure, they have their internal disagreements and conflicts, just like the mean girls in Heathers, but that's nothing compared to the way they'll gang up and harass anyone who doesn't kowtow to the clique as a whole. Even when it's a not-quite-regular (i.e. repeat visitor over a long period) in generally good standing, disagreeing on a fairly minor point, they'll get absolutely hammered into silence or departure. Sometimes it's not deliberate or coordinated, just people who all like to have their own say and don't stop to consider whether the not-so-nice thing they're about to say has already been said by ten others. Other times it seems more like a peer-pressure thing, scoring points (or even competing) with each other by each trying to take their best shot at the Target Of The Day. This consolidation tends to compound over time, too, so the oldest blogs tend to be the worst afflicted.
Either way, it turns the comment section into an exclusive social club, and precludes any substantive discussion. I can think of several blogs where I've seen this play out, and not one where real discussion has continued over the long term. So yes, maybe there are some exceptions somewhere, but at a first approximation blog comments are (and certainly should be) a thing of the past.
Re: Ask HN: Are blog comments a thing of the past?
#45If the content on your blog is valuable, people will discuss it anyway in various places where discussion happens. They will discuss it on HN, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, the fediverse. Everywhere where it’s convenient.
I’ve come to the conclusion that adding one more discussion outlet won’t concentrate the discussion in one place. Even when said outlet sits right next to the posts themselves and is ‘canonical’, that’s just not going to happen. On the contrary, it will just contribute to the dispersion of discussion.
Besides, having comments under an article means that the article stops being a document and starts being an application [0], and that’s something I’d like to avoid. So, no comments on my blog.
But I do plan to link to HN threads so it’s easier to find discussion where it happens. I just don’t see value in it happening next to the articles themselves.
[0]: https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2019/10/07/web-of-documents/
Re: Ask HN: Are blog comments a thing of the past?
#46I have been blogging for about 14 years - 7 of these on a blog dedicated for software engineering topics. I removed all commenting options after about 8 years of blogging. The reason was spam, noise and little value add. Around 2015 70% of comments coming in to my blog were from bots and another 10% from anonymous folks making irrelevant, and sometimes insulting comments which I all had to delete. About 20% of the co…
Maybe that's an idea for a product: find discussions on HN, Twitter, Reddit, FB etc about your blog post and embed them on the blog where you would usually see the comments. Not sure how big the market is, but...
Re: Ask HN: Are blog comments a thing of the past?
#47If the content on your blog is valuable, people will discuss it anyway in various places where discussion happens. They will discuss it on HN, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, the fediverse. Everywhere where it’s convenient. I’ve come to the conclusion that adding one more discussion outlet won’t concentrate the discussion in one place. Even when said outlet sits right next to the posts themselves and is ‘canonical’, that’…
As a counterpoint, I dislike any blog that links back to HN for discussion.
It’s not a playground for everyone’s blogs to use, and there is no guarantee an article will be posted at all - unless the author resorts to systematically posting his own content, which is another undesirable outcome.
On Twitter, you might get different people posting about it, and accompanying thread, but no way to find them. I think there’s still room for comment systems.
Re: Ask HN: Are blog comments a thing of the past?
#48Blogs themselves seem to be on the way out. I hate that this is the case, but it's true. The first problem is the asymmetry between downside (substantial) and upside (very little). We don't live in the world we had in 2004. Authoritarian governments and employers (which are basically authoritarian private governments) will find what you say and it will only be used against you. Text's strength and downfall is that it…
I would not say they are on the way out, but definitely out of the mainstream and growth is limited in this space. I would say the same is true of podcasts to a certain degree, with quick videos taking over this space.
Re: Ask HN: Are blog comments a thing of the past?
#49[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Are blog comments a thing of the past?
#50If the content on your blog is valuable, people will discuss it anyway in various places where discussion happens. They will discuss it on HN, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, the fediverse. Everywhere where it’s convenient. I’ve come to the conclusion that adding one more discussion outlet won’t concentrate the discussion in one place. Even when said outlet sits right next to the posts themselves and is ‘canonical’, that’…
As a counterpoint, I dislike any blog that links back to HN for discussion. It’s not a playground for everyone’s blogs to use, and there is no guarantee an article will be posted at all - unless the author resorts to systematically posting his own content, which is another undesirable outcome. On Twitter, you might get different people posting about it, and accompanying thread, but no way to find them. I think there’…
And HN threads die and lock out after a time, there’s no long term commenting.
But for most people who have a blog and don’t have a “trusted group of commenters” the value of comments is low to nil.