Paid Subscriptions and Comment Hoarding

A Poll - Is Hiding Comments An Own Goal for Writers?

For the second time this week, I clicked away from an article before I’d read even one sentence.

Because the first thing I do, before I read an article, is click to the comments. I do this to ensure that comments are allowed.

You see, there was a brief fashion on Medium for closing comment sections entirely, in a desperate effort to make sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting “Lalalala!” fashionable and chic, and so that the skinless contenders for the Fauxpression Games never had to hear a single word of dissent.

Some sites are filled with vile and intensely ignorant comments, The Daily Mail, YouTube and Newsbreak being but three.

I no longer write for Newsbreak, since they changed their TOS to avoid paying writers from overseas - but boy, their commenters take the biscuit. They take the whole damn tin.

222 comments on this piece, and most of them inane, ridiculous and downright wrong. Some of them pissed me off, some of them made me chuckle. Not one did I remove or block - or even reply to.

The Exception

So, if you don’t have the cajones to allow any disagreement or discussion on your article, you don’t deserve eyes on your work. As with every other area of life, we reward those we like or admire - and it’s the opposite of admirable to be determined to silence dissent. It’s a cowardly act.

And before I offer that most valuable of gifts - my time - I check to see if you’re worth it.

I do I understand that some articles are behind paywalls. That’s fine - we must each choose our own path to making money out of this gig.

But if you allow people to read your article for free, while hiding the comments - that seems petulant, petty - and maybe desperate to hide any possible criticism from public view.

Holding Back the Tide

However, when it comes to genuine trolls, blocking swiftly and often is a fair response.

On some sites, such as Newsbreak or Youtube, blocking trolls would take up most of your spare time, your time would be spent like King Canute trying to hold back a sea of sewage.

But on places like Medium and Substack and the like, it’s not only your right to block trolls, I consider it your duty. 

True trolls — those who post inflammatory, aggressive, threatening messages or repetitively spam normal, decent people for the sole purpose of gaining attention and causing a reaction — offer no value at all to any discussion.

By allowing them to derail, by offering them your attention, you degrade the user experience and lower the site’s value. 

You do an injustice to real commenters by treating them as though they had something to add, because trolls post solely to suck resilience and air out of conversations, drain people emotionally, repeat falsehoods and sabotage discussions.

Tolerating trolls - and by extension forcing others to tolerate them, does not make you appear reasonable - it makes you appear weak. 

At best they are useless and time consuming, and often make effective communication difficult. 

However, that is quite a different thing to absolutely not allowing anyone the chance to disagree with you in good faith. Demanding no dissent at all is the mark of a coward.

And I won’t reward cowardice with my attention.

The Comment Hoarder

Which brings us to a rather different type of control that some writers exercise over their work here on Substack - and that is comment hoarding.

Comment hoarding means altering your settings so only those who pay you can even read your comments.

I can understand why you might consider only allowing paid subscribers to make comments, it seems a reasonable option to drive subscriptions. If your work is famous, controversial or interesting enough to tempt people to pay to comment, good luck to you.

But actually physically hiding all comments from those who don’t pay? Ensuring that unless you cough up cold hard cash you cannot even read what other people have to say?

That strikes me as elitist as well as petty, punitive and controlling. And I won’t reward those traits with my time either.

Strong Opinions

To recap - I vehemently disagree with hiding comments from readers. If it’s not behind a paywall, I expect to be able to read the comments as well as the piece, whether I am a paid or free reader.

But what do you think?

Do you agree, disagree, or find yourself somewhere in the middle?

To be clear, I’m not changing my mind on this - if you hide your comments from my view, I’m not reading your article. And good riddance to bad rubbish, I hear you retort.

But I know I’m a little peculiar, and occasionally obstreperous, and what appears clear to me is not always viewed in the same way by others.

And if I ever decide to hide the ability to add a comment behind a paywall, I’d like to know that’s not going to put absolutely everyone offside.

I’m truly interested to see which way the wind blows on this topic.

So what do you think? Answer above, or below. Unless you’re a cast iron troll, I won’t hide your comments from anyone.