I, like most bloggers, welcome comments on my site. In fact, as much as my closed-door writing can encourage them. However, I am not a fan of reading comments at other people’s blogs. I go to a blog to read its posts, not the responses to them. If I think that I need to share my opinion, I write a post and send a handy-dandy trackback: why bury my ideas in the sea of words that I gloss over, when I have a blog of my own to parade it on?

Matt Stinson has a good post on this issue of comments, and has arrived at some salient conclusions:

1. All other things being equal, commenters who agree with the blogger will almost always be more extreme than the blogger’s original post.
2. On highly partisan blogs, anyone who disagrees with the blogger, but offers constructive criticism, is very likely to be treated like a troll by the regulars.
3. The higher the volume of comments, the greater the likelihood that all of the comments sound the same.
4. With a few exceptions, people who come across as mean-spirited in comments tend to be more thoughtful when they get around to blogging.
5. On high-traffic, strongly partisan blogs, any moves toward reconciliation with political opposites will be treated by regular commenters as an act of political betrayal.

— Matthew J. Stinson: The Old Comment Debate Returns

When I do leave comments, they are short, devoid of most scathing opinion and tone, and almost always directed to the blogger despite all of the comments left ahead of mine. I don’t “do” threads, at least not usually anymore. This is the kind of comment I would leave somewhere: Thanks for the link, Z-boy. The rejoicing just reeked too much of shortsightedness for my taste.

There are a couple of reasons for me not commenting much. First, I have my blog. I have full control of what I want to say here, without worrying about offending my host and others. Second, keeping track of my words. I browse so many sites in a day that I cannot keep track of where I leave my comments. If I added every URI that I commented on to my bookmarks I would have a very unwieldly list. I believe in being accountable for my words online, since they are the closest things I have to actions in cyberspace, that I refuse to leave words that I may regret at one time or another. (Either by “proving” that I contradict myself or am a hypocrite, or what not.) Let us remember that the Markos Zuniga kerfuffle was started not by a blog post, but by a comment left by Markos towards the post of another. I will never know when I make a fool of myself by letting out opinions like this one:

I’m very disappointed in Rev. Donald Sensing. Wittingly or unwittingly, he has chosen to align himself with the enemies of our country and our civilization. All Muslims must be profiled and sternly watched. The first suspicious move by a Muslim should result in his being thrown off the plane, while the plane is in flight. Better a dead Muslim than another 3000 or 3,000,000 dead Americans. They are NOT “poor, oppressed victims”. They are our enemies. Anyone who shields our enemies is a traitor and deserves to be treated accordingly. Political Correctness is treason. Political Correctness is destroying us.

— Steven Malcolm Anderson, in a comment to Dean Esmay’s post: Annie Jacobsen’s Followup

Steven has been spending much time at Dean’s World and less time at his blog. It is really easy to see a comment like that and think ill of him, since a comment provides little background info its author’s headspace. Rev. Donald Sensing’s rebukes him by saying: There are many sharp retorts that occur to me, but they aren’t terribly pastoral so I’ll let them go. Besides, Anderson’s cruel stupidity speaks for itself. Only, Steven isn’t really cruelly stupid. His opinion was, since I am a familiar reader of Dean’s World (and the comments to whose posts I do read fleetingly), but the person is not. However, leaving a comment like that leaves one vulnerable to the kind of laconic rebukes that the Reverend and I are issuing. Should he have posted that on his blog, he could have given his readers access to his own posts, and the ability for others to discern his intentions in the context of his headspace. (As an aside, the matter of his opinion itself is annoying and disturbing me. Would he have Sissy Willis dead? I mean, better a dead Muslim, right? How about the next woman who observes Hijab at the mall. Better a dead Muslim, right?)

Comments are posts on another’s website that you have no control over. They are there, and will remain there for as long as the host is willing to keep them, and for as long as they exist (and even if they no longer do, thanks to webpage caching) they can return to haunt you. I like to cover my own arse, thankyouverymuch.

(HT: Rhesa, over IM, for the Don Sensing and SMA quote.
Editorial note: I added the last two sentences of SMA’s comment. Let’s see now if I am taking something out of context.)