I came across a posting by Dave Winer (via Joel) about blog comments. Dave doesn’t easily allow commenting because he thinks it takes away from message that the blogger is putting out. The power of blogging is that anyone (outside of some 3rd world countries) can express their own message. Allowing comments brings in other views that can dilute or contradict your own view.
Joel adds the astute observation that allowing comments and lead to childish flame wars and other useless craps. His view is that if you want to express your own view of a blog entry, post in on your blog. Like this very posting. I liked the Penny Arcade reference illustrating his point that anonymous posters are not always desired.
99% of I read in the blogs is through Google Reader, so I miss most of the comments anyways. Usually, the only time I see comments on a blog is when I add a comment to a blog. My experiences with comments has been pretty positive, with some rare comment spam. Of course this blog is on the z-list and any comment is a rare event.
I can see that point. But there is another side to blog commenting. It allows the blog reader to correct or enhance positions posted by the author. I have also seen plenty of blog postings where the author invited comments. He/She was trying to solve a problem and was soliciting feedbacks. As long as you can reasonably block comment spam, I’m in favor of allowing comments. No one is forcing you to read them.