To Comment Section or Not

Early this year, a blogger, Christian Lauf, expressed dismay over my decision to remove all the comment sections in my blog. Christian explained that he wanted to link to a blog he encountered in a comment on my post and was disappointed that the information was no longer available. I got in touch with him and sent him the comments so all was well, but his post spurred me to reflect on the merits of the comment section for a personal blog. Bear Blog doesn’t come with a comment section and it’s by design. When I first joined Bear Blog, I was disappointed about this and immediately set up one with Cusdis1. In retrospect, I think that was more of a knee-jerk reaction because I was so used to everything online having a comment section. Arguments for comment sectionsWhile I agree with Bear Blog’s founder and Christian that the comment section is often not where nuanced discussions happen, I also believe it highly depends on the original post’s topic and the overall genre of where the…