Comments Off

I get asked all the time one question in particular:

“Why do you have the comments turned off on your website? I’d love to throw my two-cents in!”

Do I not want the feedback? Do I not want to foster discussion? The answer is simple: I don’t have the time to manage it. When I have allowed comments in the past I was bombarded with spam posts. This required constant attention to weed out the crap. I have a full-time patient load, manage two clinics, provide continuing education, volunteer extensively for the APTA, and review articles for journals. Not to mention being a husband and father. I enjoy doing the podcasts but this project is not a top priority in my life. It’s something that I do for fun during my “free” time.

The other problem is trolls. Most comments are either blind emphatic agreement or blind emphatic disagreement. Then you get into name calling and weird irrelevant attacks. No thanks.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Look here, here, and here for some much more thought out reasons for not allowing comments on blogs.

Don’t hesitate to send us some feedback via our contact page or through social media. Better yet, why don’t you use content from this blog to facilitate dialogue between you and your friends, peers, and colleagues? Remember when we used to discuss things face to face to make a real connection?

I do.