The Universe aligns to tell Joel what he wants to hear

Joel Spolsky doesn't think comments belong in blogs. "You don't have a right to post your thoughts at the bottom of someone else's thoughts. That's not freedom of expression, that's an infringement on their freedom of expression." To back this up, he cites some offensive comments that were written in response to a post on a real estate blog. There are so many things wrong with Joel's position that I'm not sure where to begin.

First of all, if the blog allows comments, then yes, you do have the right to post your thoughts at the bottom. If the writer didn't want feedback, they would turn that feature off. There is an implied social contract that commenters will be courteous and civil, which was obviously violated in Joel's real estate example. No big deal, that's what the delete key is for. Joel obviously feels that forum moderation is acceptable in other situations, and goes so far to liken it to picking up trash in the park. This solution may not be perfect, but that Joel doesn't even mention is it interesting.

So why doesn't he mention it? My guess is because of how he thinks about blogging. He doesn't see it as a dialog in the traditional sense, he sees it more like pamphleteering. You write your essay, distribute it, and anyone who cares to respond can write their own pamphlet. Indexing services (bloglines, technorati, etc) make it so that you can find others essays that claim to respond to yours. Perfect.

Perfect, that is, if that's the model you wish to use. A more effective model (in my opinion) is the "presentation with question and answer" model that most blogs use. Short questions that ask about an unclear point and the author's response make the post better when they appear with the original post. Discussion is more focused when it takes place in a single thread (another thing Joel knows); the best place for that is alongside the original.

In the end, I think it's partly a matter of scale. People like Joel can get away with the pamphleteering style of blogging. There are n+1 people responding to his posts, and he certainly doesn't have time to even read them all, so why should he host them. For most of the long tail, there are much fewer readers, and just a handful of replies. For them, accepting (civil!) comments and posting them at the bottom is the way to go.