New blogging policy = old policy

After good some experiences with a blog comments function (at my other blog), I've decided to keep Civil War Bookshelf comment free.

The comments become lost and they tend towards Usenet-like or email-like interactions which makes for dissonance. I've noticed this on my fellow bloggers' sites, where I have left the occasional comment myself recently.

Having decided on no comments for this blog, it seems right to abstain from leaving comments on other people's blogs, which I will henceforth do.

I enjoy the comments on the other blog but if I don't highlight them in a post of their own, they constitute a sort of disturbing murmur. One odd thing I noticed - and these are generally artists, not readers - people there are more likely to leave comments on an old post than a fresh one. That, of course, makes it doubly invisible, because one does not re-read the old posts every time one checks in with the blog.

I really enjoy the yin-yang of co-blogging over there but that is something I wouldn't do here either.

The right way to blog seems to me to put your own views across - and to maintain a community dynamic by playing off the best ideas of other bloggers. On this last point I have been sadly remiss since August '05. My work life changed and I would like to do more of that when I can find just the right routine.

Thanks for reading, by the way.

This is the season for listening to the world's greatest piece of Civil War music yet composed: go hear Hindemith's Requiem for those we Love: "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". I'll post on it soon.