On Lack of a Comments System
When I was first creating this digital garden, I was wondering if I should add a comments system so that people can react and discuss to my posts. There could be genuine community and engagement developed through that.
It's possible I may change my decision in the future. However, I have been hesitant to add a comments system. Instead, if someone wants to react to something I've written, I hope they will use the "Send me a comment" form on the bottom of every page, or write to me directly if it's someone I know in real life.
Reasons I am hesitant to add a comments system:
- Comments can be performative. I would prefer someone messaging me something meaningful directly rather than them commenting publicly in order to show to the world or to others that they were here, or simply to show to me that they were here. I would hope for real discussion.
- I don't want to have to deal with spam comments, or comments that I may not be happy about being there (and dealing with the dilemma or removing the comment or allowing free speech).
- Comments might interrupt the feeling of simplicity and purity of just having my writing here.
Reasons that make me want to add a comments system:
- I think it would be cool to develop a sense of community around things I've written[1], which only happens when comments are visible to everyone and people can discuss things with each other.
- Public comments means someone can share knowledge or thoughts with me or others. This could lead to interesting discussion or new insights.
- Having a public comments section may make someone more likely to write something rather than writing to me privately, which might seem more intimidating. This could increase the chance of someone sharing something that could be helpful to me or others.
- Maybe part of why I am hesitant to add a comments system is because of the fear of an empty comments section and making it publicly obvious that what I've written has not had engagement. I don't want to not do something simply because I am scared or anticipating shame[2].
- 30 minutes after typing the above, I opened the Insight Timer app for a short meditation session[3] and the quote of the day was: "May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears." Feels like the universe responding to me or something. (Also... the quote has a comments section.)
And then I go and leave a comment on my friend's blog, and I'm thinking... shouldn't I let people do that on mine, too?
I feel arrogant to even claim that anything I've written would lead to "community", whatever I mean by that, but I still think it would be cool. ↩︎
to be clear, I don't think I should be ashamed at any lack of engagement. I write on here happily regardless of whether anyone engages. But those feelings may still come up. ↩︎
I just use the app for the timer feature. I set a never-ending timer which rings a chime every five minutes. Helps me to not wonder about how much time is passing (which yes is maybe something to work on not worrying about) ↩︎