An individual in one of the camera forums recently criticized my blog because I don’t allow comments. Why am I not surprised? But just in case some of my gentler readers were wondering the same thing, here’s why.
Do you recognize either of those guys to the left? Does one or maybe both of them look familiar? They are why comments are turned off.
I decided to add a blog to my website so I could say what I had to say about various subjects without having to deal with others wanting to offer their own counterpoints. This is not a forum.. this is my blog. These are my thoughts. I have a right to express them without having to deal with the kind of troublemakers one finds in online photography forums. If I desired to see the thoughts of those characters I would have created a forum, not a blog.
I do not make money off of this website. I am asked on a monthly, sometimes weekly, basis to accept and display ads on my website and blog. I always refuse. I get a lot of traffic here but I am not interested in trying to make money from that traffic. The cost of running this website is about $150 a year.. I think I can afford that without bringing in advertisers. Besides, once I begin accepting advertisements for the companies which I may criticize, well, you can see the problem there.
For $150 a year I get a small piece of real-estate (ad free) on the Internet which is free of trolls, thugs and those who know it all and are more than willing to post anywhere they can to prove it. It’s a small price to pay not to have to deal with those folks on my own website. It’s bad enough we have to deal with them in forums. Do you really think I want them here?
Now you know why comments are turned off.
Happy New Year Everyone!