Xark!: Why I shut down comments

While blogs still exist as convenient ways for authors to compile and archive their writing over time, commenting has long been driven (by spammers) into other social media, like Twitter and Facebook. What follows is an interesting snapshot of the Cyberculture change, as it was happening.

What really changed between 2005 and 2009 was that regular people left blogging for social media platforms that far better suited their purposes. Blogs, once known for short blurbs and links that fit the emerging TLDNR attention span of modern readers, became the place where actual writers went to compose longer thoughts.

In that context, Xark stopped being a community of readers and writers between 2007 and 2008. Instead of fighting that, I embraced it. One of the things that came out of writing about that openlywas that it revealed what I already expected: The last truly engaged members of the original Xark communities were its trolls, and I blocked them. They howled elsewhere, and then were silent.

Xark!.