Like you, I'm over this whole commenting, what it says about you, what it says about me and our Internet society at large thing. But there's a Wall Street Journal article on the subject, and it's my beat. Atlantic writer Andrew Sullivan, whose website does not have commenting, recently ran a poll about allowing them. The results will shock you. (How's that for an incentive to click the jump?)

Readers voted 60-40 against comments. Their reasoning? It's distracting. As one potential commenter put it:

In truth we would rarely opt not to read them. ... Blog comments have the power to hammerlock one's attention. ... We'd be impotent to resist looking over the rantings and counter-rantings. ... Not only would comments be an incredible drain on one's time (especially if we check your blog several times a day from work), but it also exposes readers to the nasty underbelly of blogging.


As Drugman pointed out yesterday, every blog has its own commenting culture. But I suppose reiterations of "Premature shift key lifters for Obama!!1" could get distracting.