When I first started this blog, some of the people I knew at the time were quite offended that I had turned comments off. I did that, however, as I consider comments should be moderated in most situations to weed out hate speech, trolling, abuse, etc - it just seemed obvious to me.
And it was something I didn't - and still don't - have the time and energy to do.
And now, with recent court decisions saying groups are responsible for the content posted in their group pages, I consider myself well vindicated.
It's great - the world has caught up with where I was at 14 years ago 😁
There is a downside of course, much as I've paid a price for avoiding social media platforms that I consider questionable ethically (although I acknowledge that they have got better [less bad?] in recent years). In the case of this blog, enabling comments would possibly enable or contribute to the development of an online community.
It's also possible, based on some of the rubbish emails I've received over the years, that it wouldn't - or would only do so in a flawed way.
I have looked at other options, such as mailing lists, Patreon, and Yahoo groups, but there have been problems with those (in the case of Yahoo, when they were sold to Verizon suddenly I had demands for disclosure of personal information to Verizon that I considered unacceptable, so I left).
If I ever get to retire, and am able to recover from the demands of my day job when I do so, I may revisit all this on the basis that I have time and energy to moderate comments - as the law has now made clear I have to.
Until then, I apologise for the lack of an online community based on this blog: that is certainly something I would like to have one day.
