I’ve had an overwhelming (well, for me anyway) number of comments on the site recently. While I greatly appreciate these comments, I regret that, as a college student and a newlywed, I do not have the time to respond to them individually. While I feel that discussing these issues is vitally important, I also feel I have more important matters to attend to. Consequently, I’ve decided to make some changes in the way I handle comments.
My first inclination was to disable comments entirely, but I don’t want anyone to feel censored, and I appreciate the healthy discussions that have happened here already. I’ve seen some bloggers who disable comments on more trivial articles. I’d like to start doing that, but will keep comments enabled on those articles I feel would benefit from continued discussion.
To make better use of my time, I’ve also decided to stop responding to comments in the comments section of each article. If someone posts a comment that I feel deserves an individual response, I will start a new article in reference to the comment. I may still respond now and again in the comments section, but I will try to keep such comments as short and as to-the-point as possible. I may prefer, however, to email my reply to the commenter so as to keep things more personal. I’m hoping this will free me up to write more articles, keeping fresh content on the front page.
My biggest fear is that, given the sensitive subject nature of some of my articles, the comments will turn into heated debates rather than the civil conversations I intend for them to be. If it seems like I have become heated in any of my comments, please accept my sincere apology. As I have noted here before, I don’t believe debating is very profitable. In most instances, both parties will walk away more stubborn in their respective faiths than before. I would rather work toward open-mindedness — on my part no less than my visitors. There are debate forums all over the internet where Mormons and Evangelicals drive each other into the ground over trivial issues. I’d rather not see this site go in that direction.
Once again, thanks for your comments. Keep them coming.