To Allow Comments or Not To Allow Comments

I've been playing with the idea of allowing comments on my site. Technically, this is as easy as flicking a switch, but that's not the point I'm thinking about. The question is: would it actually improve the site? High quality comments can surely add value, but low quality ones can distract from the actual contents. Of course, on my own site I can police the comments however I want, but I would not want to do that (apart from removing actual spam and abuse). I feel that you either allow people to give their opinion or you don't.

From my own point of view, there seem to be two aspects that matter. On one hand, allowing comments would allow me to get direct feedback, and to better understand what people want from a site like mine. On the other hand, it would be more work for me, if only in fighting spam. This would take time away from the little time that I have to work on the site.

Enabling comments might also result in an eerie silence if there are no comments at all‪… ☺

Anyway, I've decided to give it a try. I've enabled comments on the technical articles. To avoid spam comments, I do use a moderation queue, so you should expect a certain delay before your comment appears…