One of the key decisions every blogger needs to make is whether to keep the comments functionality open or disabled.  I can see pros and cons in either approach.  It is nice to build a sense of community in your blog and allow people to make comments.  Well thought out comments add real value to a blog.  But moderating comments and responding takes time away from writing quality content that could be of higher value to readers.  Should bloggers allow comments?  What do you think?

Steve Pavlina decided to shut off comments to his blog and makes a good case for disabling comments on the Blog Comments post.  Casey Serin experimented with turning off moderation on his blog and got bombarded with nasty, inappropriate comments.  He had to delete 162 of them!  See his first comment in the 24hr-Facing Foreclose Fast post.  Not to mention having to deal with spam.  Is it worth going through all this trouble?

The power of the internet is that you can reach millions of people with your message, but you have to be open to disagreements and criticisms. That comes with the territory, and it is fine with me.  But when you have to sort through hundreds of comments and delete them because they contain profanity or other inappropriate content as Casey experienced, isn’t that a waste of time?

My initial thought on this was that I would request users to login before they were allowed to leave comments.  The idea behind this policy is that people who are regular visitors and want to make well thought out comments probably wouldn’t mind signing in.  It is similar to Steve Pavlina’s rationale for having people register in his newest solution for comments: a forum.  In the post Forums Off to a Strong Start Steve describes well this thought process:  “The forums require a one-time free registration to be able to post, which shouldn’t discourage long-term visitors who really want to discuss these topics, but which should be just enough to deter most drive-by trolls.”

I have received several emails about this policy and some people have complained about having to login.  Some just sent me the comments via email and asked me to post them, which I have done so far.  I am still experimenting with what works best for this site, and I feel at this point in time that the site would gain from having more comments and user interaction.  Therefore, I have decided to remove the requirement to login in order to place a comment for now.  You still need to enter a name and email address, but that is it.

Since you don’t even have to login now, please leave a comment with your thoughts on this subject.  This seems to be an interesting dilemma that every blogger must deal with.