Can We Talk About Comments?

There have been a few Mastodon polls and posts lately about comments on blog posts — namely, do you allow comments or not?

I enjoy interacting with readers and encourage people to respond via email, but I don’t have open comments on the site. The reason? Open comments are a recipe for disaster and spam (see literally any example of a comment feed online).

Email responses are typically far more civilized and interesting. I rarely have someone who takes the time to write an email filled with hateful or hurtful nonsense, which I consider a win. Plus, it’s a lot of fun to connect with people via email — it’s like having pen pals all over the world.

Comments on Medium, however, are a mixed bag.

With the exception of my latest Substack piece — which got a lot of (mostly) legitimate responses — my Medium comments are often what I consider spam. They come in two forms:

1. People who want to write for The Writing Cooperative. These comments are typically some kind of plea and their Medium username. These are all well and good, the publication is popular, but I could spell out how to become a contributor more clearly if I tried. Hint: It’s here.
2. People who want to summarize the article in their comment. These are likely AI-generated and serve absolutely zero purpose other than potentially getting people to engage with them. Maybe? One was recently so bad that they forgot the summary part. Either the “person” realized it after a few hours or Medium deleted it because the comment eventually vanished.

I call both of these types of comments spam because that’s exactly what they are — they’re unwanted digital intrusions that are little more than “brand awareness.” The brand in question? Each “unique” user.

It is extremely disheartening to publish something, and then the comments are nothing more than requests and AI summaries. These people — if they’re people at all and not bots — who are “engaging” aren’t even bothering to read what I wrote. And for what? The off chance that the comment might bring them a few new followers?

This all probably sounds like me being a crotchety old dude, and I get it. But it’s only because I truly enjoy engaging with my readers. I want to know what people think and how my writing encourages them to explore new ideas or views. That just doesn’t often happen on Medium.

My website and email newsletter will always be the primary place for my writing. It’s where I respond to almost every email and connect with my readers.

Medium is my second space — the place I cross-post to. If you leave a heartfelt comment on Medium and I don’t reply or otherwise acknowledge, it’s more likely that your thought got washed out in a sea of other spam responses. And that really sucks.

I’m not leaving Medium, this isn’t one of those posts (frankly, if you’re not happy somewhere, leave — don’t write a whole thing about it trying to harvest resentment). I think the Medium team is awesome at what they do, but open comment feeds invite spam. There’s really no way around that.

I welcome all replies, thoughts, and opinions — I just prefer them via email.