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No comments allowed on your blog : you're lame

Leading lawyer blog publsihers are turning off the comments feature on their blog site. Many turn off the trackback feature as well. Are you really publishing a blog at that point? Looks like a Web site to me.

I have heard the standard response, 'I get too many spam comments and spam trackback links, I do not have the time to deal with it.' Spam comments on decent blog software never make it to the blog site – they are moderated and deleted. Both the comments and trackbacks are easily deleted on the backend of the blog software. Takes me a few minutes a day.

As the Scobleizer says, “No comments? Lame. That tells us you don't think we're important enough to listen to. So, go ahead. Be lame. Make my day.”

  • http://jas-law.typepad.com/death_and_taxes/ Joel S.

    Let's see — it's been about 2 weeks since I posted my first comment here, and it still hasn't shown up. How is that any less lame than having no comments at all?

  • http://kevin.lexblog.com/ Kevin O'Keefe

    I think I am lamer, if that's a word Joel. I really apologize to you and anyone else who did not see any of your comments posted here.
    Here's what I think happened, and it is no excuse. Moveable Type (MT), the software I use, kicked out a new version to put a patch on the email notification system. It created a ton of problems, one of which was my receiving an email notice of each comment.
    So I needed to go in and look in the backend for non spam comments to approve them to go live on the blog site. It looks like I missed some, including yours.
    You made my day – at least as far as wanting to crawl under a rock.
    By the way, for those who have not seen it, Joel has a great blog going at:
    http://jas-law.typepad.com/death_and_taxes/

  • http://jas-law.typepad.com/death_and_taxes/ Joel S.

    Thanks for the kind words, Kevin, and sorry to give you a bit of a hard time.
    I do agree that blogs need to promote interaction and community. I think it serves our readers to have some give-and-take, and helps us become better writers (sort of a peer review process, like in academia).