Comments.

La Shawn Barber is wondering if she should get rid of the comments on her blog. In fact, she's asking people to comment about whether she should get rid of the comments. I read a lot of the comments, and it got me thinking about the possibility of putting my comments back. La Shawn holds me up as one of the examples of bloggers who don't have comments. I had comments last spring, and most of them were great, but dealing with nasty comments was a big drag. Here's my post from last May explaining why I turned off the comments.

Writing this post, I started to feel like turning the comments back on. I saved this post as a draft last night, then had to leave the house for an appointment. By the time I got to my car, I had come to my senses. I remembered a thought that went through my head back in May: I don't want to live like this.

Surely, if I turned the comments back on, one or two people would make a project out of ruining them again. Some of what would otherwise be great reader comments becomes email, and I often update posts to quote the email. That's the way it's going to have to be.