Day: August 4, 2012

It's been five years since I moved from a blog with comments to the current set-up. Recently, folks who don't know about my rich interactive history in the pre-Facebook blog chatter trenches are giving me well-intentioned advice on how to "open up" my blog to the possibilities of social media. One commenter described this site as "claustrophobic and Web 1.0"; another worried that certain decently-wrought posts would just "sit there" without the pot-stirring of comments. My favorite are the people who say they won't respond to something I wrote "until I open comments." Writers have been writing for thousands of years without a place at the bottom of the papyrus for people to add their thoughts. Suddenly the decision to go commentless is treated as highly morally suspect.
It's true that comments can "keep a blogger honest" but so can email.
As for the lack of interactive bells and whistles I opted long ago not to have a "stat counter" on the blog, or other hard numbers showing visitors, shares, likes, and all that. This is an "art blog" not a statistician's blog. If you have anxiety about the lack of quantification -- "klout" -- around here I advise you to seek medical help.