4 ms·

Blogging without comments is weird to me. I have a small handful of blogs, one of which just turned 21 years old, and the reason I blog is the comments. I want

by donatj 5y ago

Blogging without comments is weird to me. I have a small handful of blogs, one of which just turned 21 years old, and the reason I blog is the comments. I want to hear what others have to say. I want to know when I am wrong. I am not an unquestionable pillar of truth, I am a dude that finds things interesting and wants to talk about it. I want to learn more, and the collective peanut gallery inevitably knows more than I do. My whole reason for doing it is a two way interaction. I think not enough people can just talk these days though, they get angry and mean about the silliest stuff. That leads to thinner skinned people just not willing to actually listen to anyone else, which is a shame. The most hate I ever got was a post about Go binary sizes of all things - literal personal attacks. Like I just wanted to have a conversation about compilers and people were insulting my mental abilities. So basically on the one hand can understand why people would not have comments, but on the other hand I have no idea why you would blog at all without them aside from ego.

notacoward 5y ago
Books don't have comment sections either. Neither do plays. Do you think everyone who writes a book or stages a play does so only because of ego? Some do, surely, but many just have information or insight or entertainment they want to make available to others. In some subset of those cases, the incremental value of adding comments is nil (or worse). Maybe it's those who do crave comments who are blogging out of nothing but ego ... or maybe such dismissiveness is just generally ill considered.
- donatj 5y ago
  > Do you think everyone who writes a book or stages a play does so only because of ego Yes. Especially in this day and age when there are other options, like a Blog, with a comment section. You write a book because you want something to put on your resume. A notable exception here would be Andy Weir's "The Martian", which started as a blog, with a comment section, where he received many corrections as he developed it.
  - notacoward 5y ago
    Only? You can't imagine a selfless motivation? Someone wanting to share or help others without requiring recompense and/or feedback? Just want to be clear here.
    - donatj 5y ago
      The thought that anyone would want to read what you have to say alone is ego. > share or help others without requiring recompense Most authors of book seek actual monetary compensation
      - notacoward 5y ago
        > The thought that anyone would want to read what you have to say alone is ego. I hope that was a generic "you" and not intended as an insult. In any case, it's untrue except for a definition of "ego" so expansive as to be meaningless. Is it ego to believe that some subset of people you already know and have some affinity with might derive some benefit or enjoyment from something you write? For many bloggers the mere possibility of that is sufficient to put the writing in a public place instead of a private diary, but they'd also be quite content if that didn't happen. I'm trying hard not to be as derogatory as you are with your implication that others are thin-skinned or egotistical, but I suspect that this goalpost-moving on "ego" reflects your own motivations more than any general reality. So does the "weirdness" you mention. Perhaps you should consider that other people are motivated differently than you are and that's OK. There's nothing weird or egotistical at all about wanting to communicate with others in a non-transactional way, for its own sake.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - cypher_31 5y ago
    Just as a counter point, I wrote a book because I wanted to prove to myself that I could. It will probably never see the light of day, but I did it and I found the experience valuable. But, maybe you are just talking about people who sell books? In that case, I think the majority of authors are not getting rich, famous, or hired for the number of books on their resume.
- axus 5y ago
  The author for "Scary Go Round" comics (which are turned into books) has great conversations with his commenters: https://badmachinery.com/comic/those-longjohns/#comments https://badmachinery.com/comic/those-longjohns/#comments
klibertp 5y ago
> and the reason I blog is the comments. [...] I have no idea why you would blog at all without them aside from ego. I would have not written any blog post in a decade if that (EDIT: comments instead of ego) was my motivation. My blog features a grand total of 5 comments in 12 years. Writing my posts takes a lot of time and effort - they are very (by today's standards) technical, and very long, and no matter where I try posting them to get any kind of attention, I just don't get it. I decided not to care - I now write posts for a reason similar to what motivates people to sail through Atlantic alone or run a marathon. It just feels really good to get to the finishing line. But it's also a fact that I would have been writing way more often if I knew the posts will be read and discussed; I'm just finding my ways to emotionally cope with the knowledge that they won't. Yeah, I'm just grumbling, so don't mind me. Still, I'm jealous. Being able to use comments as a reason for writing would be great. So, be happy that you can do this!

by donatj 5y ago

notacoward 5y ago

Books don't have comment sections either. Neither do plays. Do you think everyone who writes a book or stages a play does so only because of ego? Some do, surely, but many just have information or insight or entertainment they want to make available to others. In some subset of those cases, the incremental value of adding comments is nil (or worse). Maybe it's those who do crave comments who are blogging out of nothing but ego ... or maybe such dismissiveness is just generally ill considered.

donatj 5y ago
> Do you think everyone who writes a book or stages a play does so only because of ego Yes. Especially in this day and age when there are other options, like a Blog, with a comment section. You write a book because you want something to put on your resume. A notable exception here would be Andy Weir's "The Martian", which started as a blog, with a comment section, where he received many corrections as he developed it.
- notacoward 5y ago
  Only? You can't imagine a selfless motivation? Someone wanting to share or help others without requiring recompense and/or feedback? Just want to be clear here.
  - donatj 5y ago
    The thought that anyone would want to read what you have to say alone is ego. > share or help others without requiring recompense Most authors of book seek actual monetary compensation
    - notacoward 5y ago
      > The thought that anyone would want to read what you have to say alone is ego. I hope that was a generic "you" and not intended as an insult. In any case, it's untrue except for a definition of "ego" so expansive as to be meaningless. Is it ego to believe that some subset of people you already know and have some affinity with might derive some benefit or enjoyment from something you write? For many bloggers the mere possibility of that is sufficient to put the writing in a public place instead of a private diary, but they'd also be quite content if that didn't happen. I'm trying hard not to be as derogatory as you are with your implication that others are thin-skinned or egotistical, but I suspect that this goalpost-moving on "ego" reflects your own motivations more than any general reality. So does the "weirdness" you mention. Perhaps you should consider that other people are motivated differently than you are and that's OK. There's nothing weird or egotistical at all about wanting to communicate with others in a non-transactional way, for its own sake.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- cypher_31 5y ago
  Just as a counter point, I wrote a book because I wanted to prove to myself that I could. It will probably never see the light of day, but I did it and I found the experience valuable. But, maybe you are just talking about people who sell books? In that case, I think the majority of authors are not getting rich, famous, or hired for the number of books on their resume.
axus 5y ago
The author for "Scary Go Round" comics (which are turned into books) has great conversations with his commenters: https://badmachinery.com/comic/those-longjohns/#comments https://badmachinery.com/comic/those-longjohns/#comments

klibertp 5y ago

> and the reason I blog is the comments. [...] I have no idea why you would blog at all without them aside from ego. I would have not written any blog post in a decade if that (EDIT: comments instead of ego) was my motivation. My blog features a grand total of 5 comments in 12 years. Writing my posts takes a lot of time and effort - they are very (by today's standards) technical, and very long, and no matter where I try posting them to get any kind of attention, I just don't get it. I decided not to care - I now write posts for a reason similar to what motivates people to sail through Atlantic alone or run a marathon. It just feels really good to get to the finishing line. But it's also a fact that I would have been writing way more often if I knew the posts will be read and discussed; I'm just finding my ways to emotionally cope with the knowledge that they won't. Yeah, I'm just grumbling, so don't mind me. Still, I'm jealous. Being able to use comments as a reason for writing would be great. So, be happy that you can do this!