Blog comments are like cash: they make a horrible master, but a wonderful slave.

If you do have comments enabled, leverage them to make your site better. Use comments to strengthen the content and design of your weblog. Don’t let the comments rule your site, let them support it in the direction you want to go.

My reasoning for disabling contents is that it opened the door for stress-free maintenance and publishing. If you’re not sure if you want to enable or disable comments on your site here are a few reasons why I have disabled them here.

• More Time: One thing I love about having comments disabled on shawnblanc.net is how much time, energy and thought it frees up for me. I don’t have to check akismet. I don’t have to moderated, edit, or anything. Once I hit publish I’m done.
• A Gift to the Readers: If you’re a regular reader of a weblog there is this unspoken pressure that you ought to say something, but on a site with comments disabled there is no pressure. Once you’ve read the article that’s all. The author requires nothing of the reader but to enjoy the content. There are no awkward expectations. The article is a gift.
• More Personal Communication: By not having comments it encoureges more genuine communication from the reader to the author via email, instant messenger or Twitter.In the six weeks I have been publishing shawnblanc.net I have already received more emails from readers than on The Fight Spot all year long. And each of those emails were from readers offering something positive. Some noticed typos and/or misspellings (which are a dime-a-dozen around here), some shared links to articles they thought I would find interesting, and some were just saying hello. Every email (save one) has been kind, polite and personal.