I’ve noticed it gone on occasion, and then it reappears. That’s one reason why I prefer to use the commenting system which is integrated into my blog software.

Blogging is also a great background activity for junk TV, favorite radio shows, and waiting at the airport–none of this conducive to what I think of as serious deep-sea writing.

I estimate I spent 11 hours today on personal non-blog writing (no lie; yesterday about the same), 45 minutes on blogging (I monitored my time–after 30 minutes I began editing), and 5 minutes during the CBS Evening News writing this comment.

The stuff that appears here doesn’t matter as much to me (or, I think, to anyone else) as the stuff that appears in the journal.

So maybe my nervousness about commenting is also a nervousness about timesinks. I’m aiming for four posts a week and spending no more than 15-20 minutes a day related to w.a.r. So far, I’m falling short of the aim (just as I keep falling short of the 16-page/12x-year aim for C&I). It may seem like “exceeding the target” from some perspectives, but from here it’s falling short of a sustainable balance.

Of course, if I give up the blog or it becomes semi-inactive after a month or two, I’ll be right in the mainstream (for a change).

Haloscan is a decent third-party commenting tool. I very rarely notice it being down and I’ve been able to customise it fairly well. I haven’t had one single instance of comment spam like I do with WordPress.

And for those of us who probably suffer from an internet addiction: blogging is mainlining!

For a more precise count, you could ask Blake to go thorugh the logs. Might be interesting. But beware the referer-spammers.

Note I started Infothought before Bloglines was so popular, so that’s one factor to consider (but so few people read me then, maybe it doesn’t matter …). Though the estimate of a few hundred seems right.

Writing a blog sucks … time. I’ve come pretty close to abandoning mine on occasion (ore or another event intervened), and even now consider it marginal.

William Gibson started a blog and I saw him at a reading once. Someone in the audience asked if he would keep it up. He said something to the effect that focusing on blogging took up time in the vast expanses of space that he needed free for writing, so if he was working on another book, then no.

I reconsider this choice often, and if I get my personal blog up and running using some sort of CMS instead of doing it by hand, I plan to exnable comments. It’s a failing of librarian.net, no question, but not having to keep an eye on comments and comment spam has freed me up to do more posting, reading, writing and living so I’m okay with it for now.

Today, they’re there, and there are obviously comments.

I think this has happened before at blogs with third-party comment systems (like the RateYourMusic thing at Shifted Librarian): the comments just disappear and reappear at times.

Or I’m going crazy, which is also possible.

I certainly agree that comment spam would be a terrible reason not to use WordPress. My spam problem (such as it was) was on a Blogger blog. WordPress has a great range of available add-ons/plug-ins, and the native comment handling is reasonably good.

Steven C’s is another case where comments are spotty–sometimes, I can’t get to them; sometimes, attempting to post a comment results in an error message. Most of the time, it works just fine.

But I don’t think you can worry about what an “A-list blogger” (however you define that) might or might not do; it’s a matter of preference–sometimes, preference per post. Scobleizer, for example, is all about the comments, as is JoHo and BuzzMachine. ResourceShelf is newsier, hence no comments.

Based on what I think of as the function of C&I Updates, I don’t think comments are any big loss. But just to be clear for folks who are new to blogging, on blogs such as WordPress and Movable Type (I almost wrote Multiple Type!), commenting is managed with spam-prevention tools and various levels of comment moderation. I’d be pounded with spam if I left comments fully open. Moderation adds a layer of work, but Typepad users are appproved automatically.

A good plugin is [not] hard to find.