It's been pointed out to me once or twice that I don't enable comments on my posts. Today, I read that this is the number one habit of highly annoying bloggers. Oh well, I'm innocent of the other nine.

My rationale is pretty simple: if someone wants to comment on a post I've made, I'd much rather they post the comment in their own blog and link it to me, rather than putting the comment in my blog. Why?

• If I post something interesting enough to pass comment on, a link gives the original post a wider audience.
• A comment will be read only by those people who view the article after the comment is posted.
• If I respond to a comment in the same forum, chances are the original commenter isn't going to read it, because they'll forget to check back.

Essentially, responses in the blogosphere promote conversation, and widen the field of discussion. Responses in comments tend to bury it. That said, it seems that I'm in the minority, and being annoying. I'm going to experimentally start enabling comments for a while, just to see if anyone actually wants to comment on the drivel I produce.

As my inaugural comment-enabled post, I'd like you, dear reader, to introduce yourself! Do you read my weblog, and I don't read yours? Post a comment and tell me where I can find you. Do you read my weblog and don't have one yourself? Post a comment just to say hi. I'm curious. I get about 3,000 hits a day even on days don't post anything at all, so there must be a few of you that I have no clue about.

(Oh, and to anyone reading this syndicated on livejournal, you'll have to click-through to the original post to get at the comments page here: I don't read the ones posted to livejournal)