Why I Don't Have Comments, Revisited

A visitor e-mailed me asking again why I don't have comments on this site. I have two main concerns that led me to this decision. One is that the popular Anglo-Catholic blogs, by Chadwick, Smuts, and Gyapong, have a lot of regular commenters who, if they aren't strictly speaking trolls (a troll, by the definitions I've seen, posts pseudonymously), tend to be people who are either ignorant or deliberately obtuse, and they make opinionated posts at length. I simply don't see the use of giving them a platform: I'd have to spend a lot of time repeating myself and refuting them. My purpose here is to get information and informed opinion out, not to host a playground for juveniles.

The second issue is that members of the St Mary's angry core do in fact post as psuedonymous trolls, especially on the Smuts blog, where they apparently feel "Father" Smuts is simpatico, and since he often posts announcements from the TAC without question, I'm pretty sure he is. I have what I think is a realistic expectation that these people would flood a comment section here with counterfactual assertions, calling anything I say into question. It's a free country, if they want to disagree with what they see here, they can start their own blog.

Those who've had corrections, clarifications, additional information, new leads, and so forth know that I make factual corrections as soon as they're brought to my attention, and I do not publish information provided in confidence. In general, this system seems to be working; I have a gut feeling that I'm making little bits of progress now and then by publishing information here that needs to get out, and the low stress level I have without the need to babysit comments allows me to continue with this effort.