Thinking about turning off comments on this blog and making it read-only. I recently read a philosophy on the subject and it has given me some thoughts.
What I picked up is that this site should be my notebook where I post my thoughts. But by having comments enabled, it becomes our notebook where we post our thoughts. I had hopes that having a blog would enable community with my people, but now that nobody goes to websites, that community is on platforms.
Phaysis has been my domain for over a quarter of a century, and the bulk of that time it has been powered by some CMS that supports comments. Yet in that period I’ve collected less than 200 human-derived comments directly on the blog feed. A portion of those are my replies. The remaining 10,000+ are robots.
The recent addition of Fediverse connectivity has netted me more comments and reactions, which is fine I guess. But still it becomes our blog. How do I publish to Fedi without allowing reactions? Which activities do I disable? Comments? Reacts? Retoots? Favorites? The Fediverse is designed for two-way communications, but this change turns Phaysis into a one-way broadcast.
Fedi could look like me subtooting a link to an entry and then inviting commentary on that subtoot. If someone else has something to say outside of my subtoot, then they can subtoot and talk there; perhaps that would force some kind of back-and-forth? I dunno.
Turning it off should be so easy that I can turn it back on if I don’t like it. Trial period. But first I need to find those switches.
This is my blog. There are many like it, but this one is mine.