• A lot less hassle - Writing the post is only half of the work. Then, for the rest of the post’s existence you have to monitor all the comments that flow in. Some may need a response, some deleting. If you didn’t have comments in the first place; when you hit the publish button - that would be it. Shawn Blanc puts it best:

When I hit publish - I’m done. The article has now been completed. It’s off to print. That’s all she I wrote.

• No comment SPAM - This could be reason enough for anyone. Sure, Akismet does a good job, but I still have to go through the SPAM folder every so often to make sure that nothing has been accidently missed.

• More personal communication - If someone has something that they feel you want to know, they’ll email you directly, it gets rid of those who are leaving comments for the sake of a link and allow you to get a stronger relationship with you most faithful readers.

Who Has Done It?

One prominent blogger out there, John Gruber of Daring Fireball has. He is the sole author of one of the most popular Apple orientated blogs.

This is what he had to say on the matter (transcribed by Shawn Blanc):

I wanted to write a site for someone it’s meant for. That reader I write for is a second version of me. I’m writing for him. He’s interested in the exact same things I’m interested in; he reads the exact same websites I read. I want him to like this website so much that he reads it from the top to the bottom, and he reads everything. Every single word. The copyright statement, what software I use, he’s read it all.

If I turn comments on, that goes away. It’s not that I don’t like sites with comments on, but when you read a site with comments it automatically puts you, the reader, in a defensive mode where you’re saying, “what’s good in this comment thread? What can I skim?”

It’s totally egotistical. I want Daring Fireball to be a site that you can’t skim if you’re in the target audience for it. You say, “Oh, a new article from John. I need to read it,” and your deadlines go whizzing by because you have to read what I wrote.

I believe that whether to turns comments off is a battle that everyone has to fight at some point. Some make the decision straight away, and for others it takes a while for them to realize. Some may disagree, but I think some of the points made provide quite a convincing argument.