Commenting on Comments

I've never understood the utility of a comments section following an article. The people commenting are usually anonymous, with no established reputation or credentials regarding the topic concerned. The writer's friends can pad the comments section with positive feedback. The writer's foes can pepper it with negative feedback. Unless the comments are made by non-anonymous people whose reputations or experience mean something, what is the point?

The answer, in most cases, has something to do with creating views or clicks to generate income. Comments add repeat views as folks tune in to respond, to see responses to their responses, and to respond again. If you're not trying to generate income or views, why activate a comments section? Not only does the generally anonymous back-and-forth serve little purpose; it wastes the time and energy of all concerned. In addition, enough initial research has been done to suggest this kind of interaction is an addictive process with little to recommend it.

One can argue that the author misses the opportunity to learn from the readers, and the readers lose out on further interaction with the author. That, however, is why people have emails, phone numbers, and real names. For example, any verifiably real person is welcome to contact me at integritysports@aol.com.

My first option for the comments section of this blog was to allow all commentary, which would include anonymous sources. I'll pass on that. A second was to allow designated commentary. I'll pass on that for the moment, since those same people can reach me via email. I don't really care how many views or reads this blog and my associated sites accrue. Call me non-commercial. What I care about is having a couple of dozen targeted people check in occasionally and provide some feedback. To that end, I repeat, my email address is integritysports@aol.com.

An additional and major issue with comments sections is that they take time. Just 10 minutes of daily comment organization for each of a handful of blogs and sites turns into 150-200 hours a year that could be better spent.

My current attitudes regarding comments and such have been recently influenced by Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise. The conflation of popularity and expertise is one topic touched on by Nichols, and it's an important and pervasive issue in 2019.


Bob Dietz -- May 21, 2019