Turning off comments

June 25, 2014

When I created this site, it was based on a suggestion by my marketing mentor, Seth Godin.

Actually, it goes back further. When I first started blogging for Random Curiosity, I took some, but not all, of Seth’s advice. Then when I started this blog, I took more, but still not all, of that same advice. Now I’m going to take a little more:

I believe that everyone should write in public. Get a blog. Or use Squidoo or Tumblr or a microblogging site. Use an alias if you like. Turn off comments, certainly–you don’t need more criticism, you need more writing.

But I left the comments on. I mean, why not? What could it hurt, right?

I found the answer. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the comments you all left. Every comment I can remember was insightful and interesting, and quite a few made me smile.

But that wasn’t the point. The point of this site was for me to write. The goal was to write often, and poorly, and in public, so I could become a better writer, and maybe give you a peek into my mind along the way.

Comments aren’t bad because of you, they’re bad because of me. As Seth opined years earlier, I found myself checking for comments, moderating comments, and comments subtly changed the way I wrote. At Random Curiosity I treasure this change, but as I said yesterday, I treat writing here fundamentally differently. On RandomC it’s a collaborative experience, whereas here, the point is simply to write.

So I’m going to continue writing poorly, and in public, and often. But there won’t be comments anymore. If you want to talk, you can email me, or message me on Twitter, or quote a post on your blog and link back to here. I still enjoy discussion, but that’s not what this site is for. It needs to be for writing, so I can release that book I’ve been talking about – but not finishing – for far too long.