Why are Blogs and Websites Turning Off Comments?

The beauty of the Internet is how it allows people who have never met to communicate on a wide range of topics.


But that’s the downside too, especially when trolls and spammers hijack comment threads and increasingly steer the conversation in a different and less productive direction.

That’s just one reason, of many, that some websites as well as bloggers have made the controversial decision to turn off their comments.


Why Websites are Disabling Comments
The purpose of any website’s article comments is to give voice to the readers. If they disagree with the writer, it often fosters conversation and lively debates. Yet, with the anonymity of the Internet, lively debates aren’t always so friendly or productive. Comments like “you’re stupid” or spam add nothing to the conversation, and can aggravate the writers as well as the website’s other readers.

For Popular Science, they saw an even bigger flaw with commenting on science articles, which they backed up with a study from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. When people, or spammers, made scientific claims on their articles, they influenced public opinion, which in turn could affect public policy. To them “scientific certainty” is not up for debate and does not need to be “commented” on.

But why not just allow readers to flag spam or abusive and offensive comments? Because that won’t solve everything. “We’ve seen that sometimes our even our social media audience takes misleading comments as facts,” a marketing manager of Empire Southwest LLC, a Caterpillar dealership, recently said. “And when someone is misled about our products that affects our ability to do our job.”

For websites, the heart of this matter is that if comments are affecting the bottom line — whether it be negative comments from trolls or the time spent moderating — then it’s not literally not worth the effort.

Other Reasons Comments Aren’t Always Productive
For bloggers, commenting is often one of the few ways to communicate with an audience. Comments also serve as yet another way for bloggers to learn about topics they’re interested in by getting responses to their questions from readers. But, like popular websites, for some comments are increasingly becoming more trouble than they’re worth, for reasons like the following:

Takes away from time writing. Moderating comments can take time, even with systems like Disqus. But that’s just a part of this issue. Some popular bloggers like Seth Godin have been vocal about the fact that when comments are turned on, he sometimes feels like he’s writing to get comments, rather than blogging about the topic he’s most passionate about.
Don’t offer anything to the conversation. If blog readers tune into a blog only to find unmoderated junk spam, what’s the point of the comments? And why should readers even read them — or the article they’re attached to?
Loads of spam. CAPTCHA and many other filters aren’t fool proof. Spammers are increasingly finding ways around these filters, and once again waste the time of bloggers and writers, who would rather spend time writing than moderating.
The problem of anonymity. While Websites that use Facebook comments don’t have this issue, many other commenting systems allow anonymous users. Even when a person has their named attached to a comment, it’s as if they feel they’re given a free pass to say whatever they want, even if they’d never say them in person or over email.
But What About Fostering Debate?
The critics of websites and bloggers who have turned off comments often point to the value of fostering debate through commenting. But comments aren’t needed for conversation, especially in this day and age. What these Websites and bloggers are hoping for by turning off comments makes sense: they want readers to share the article on Facebok or Twitter, and to respond with feedback on those sites. Or even get more personal and send the writer an email.

Even better, what if the commenter feels particularly passionate about an idea? Hopefully it’ll inspire them to share their thoughts in their own blog post on their own Website (and link back to the original article). Whether they choose to keep comments on or off their blog though is totally up to them.