The Hype of Hyperlinks

While I owe no explanation, I offer one.  No doubt a week, or a month, or a year from now, I’ll be hearing the same crap that I hear now, “I think I should be allowed to put a link to my blog in your comments,” which is one of the systemic problems with this format, but as a courtesy to those who complain unmercifully to me now, here’s the deal.

My general policy is not to allow links in the body of comments.  I also ban commenters who include commercial links to their names, but that’s because they are only doing so to gain backlink benefit on Google, and they bring nothing to the conversation as far as I’m concerned.  Disagree?  I don’t care.  This isn’t a democracy.

There are times when a link in a comment makes greater sense, or is less objectionable to me, than others.  These tend to have a couple common factors.  First, they come from someone I like, a regular commenter who has contributed regularly to the conversation.  They get greater latitude than others.  First time commenters get no latitude.  Unfair?  Tough.

Sometimes links are to news reports that add to the information that forms the subject of the post.  This is the sort of link that I’m most inclined to allow, but only when it goes to a news source, not a blog post about a new source.  Sometimes the links are to a study that supports a commenter’s position, which I’m also inclined to allow provided that it’s on topic (note that many comments go off on a tangent that the commenter finds “fascinating”, or the study is conducted by some fringe group that comports with the commenters belief in imminent alien invasion).  

More often, links are to blogs or websites of others who are trying to either trade off Google juice or skim some eyeballs.  This is not the way to get people to take a look at your budding blog, but it is a really quick way to get me to embarrass you publicly.  Yes, I know that marketers tell you that this is the magic secret to blogging success, but the marketers are morons.  It’s not my fault that you chose to heed the biggest idiot in the room.

Sometimes, commenters post links to their posts on the same/similar topic because they think their views are so fascinating.  If that’s the case (and it may be), then let people go to your blog and read to their heart’s content.  But unless I think your views are fascinating, you don’t get to plug yourself.  That’s my choice, and I reserve it exclusively to myself.  You disagree?  So what?  And by the way, you’re not that fascinating.

The inclusion of links can also kill, rather than enhance, a conversation.  In a comment to my Blawging 101 post, Jon Katz’s comment consisted of links to two old posts of his.  While Jon’s a friend, he only comments to defend one of his sacred cows or to try to grab some readers for himself.  If he wanted to engage in the conversation, he could have written any advice he wanted. Instead, he wanted to pull people away from here to his blawg, which is primarily intended to market himself (which is why he rarely links to anyone else in his blawg).  This defeats the purpose of having a conversation.  If he had something worth saying, say it.  In contrast, Carolyn Elefant , who has written far more (and far better) on the subject commented, and included in the comment her thoughts so that it could be part of the conversation here.  That’s how comments should be.

And as long as I’m on the subject, another commenter noting my deletion of links decided that it was a good idea to include in a comment of his own that he wants links and that I should change my policy to make him happy.  I banned him.  He responded in an email that he thought I had more class.  I don’t, and told him he was an asshole.  That’s that.  Nobody has a right to comment, and I have no obligation to tolerate anyone I don’t like.  I feel no qualms about banning people who annoy me.

An overarching issue with allowing links in comments is that whenever I allow one, more invariably follow.  There are a lot of people who want to get their link into my comments, for a variety of reasons.  This creates far more work in cleaning up comments than I care to do, and so I am quick to delete links to avoid instilling the belief that everyone is entitled to do as they please in the comments.  Many readers think that they have some sort of right to have things their way. They don’t. And if that displeases you, go elsewhere.

This is pretty much the way I view hyperlinks in comments.  My reaction changes from time to time, and I may not apply my rules fairly or consistently. but that’s my choice and right.  If you want to vote on how I run this place, do it with your mouse.  There are plenty of other blawgs on the internet.  Feel free to go elsewhere.

6 thoughts on “The Hype of Hyperlinks

  1. Windypundit

    When I’m thinking of putting an unsolicited link to my blog in someone else’s comments, my general rule is that the linked post should bring in something more than just my opinion. So I’ll link to myself if I have original factual content — photographs, an interview, an account of a relevant personal experience — or maybe if I gathered a large collection of links to other useful sites.

  2. SHG

    I could be wrong, but I don’t believe I’ve ever included a link in a comment. 

  3. Jdog

    Because I’ve hung around with lawyers [too much | enough] I tend to include links to preemptively answer And what would be your factual basis for that assertion?. I kinda figure that if I’m going to claim that pigs can fly, I should default to pointing to a non-photoshopped picture of the airborne swine. [link deleted by author; as it turns out, pigs can’t fly.]

    That said, I’m not sure what the point is of including links to opinions, including my own brilliant ones (you’ll find a paper towel to wipe the coffee off your monitor somewhere around). If folks want to read them, there’s always Google.

    Besides, well, natch: your site, your rules. That said, they seem to be working; a fair number of eyes seem to find SJ worth the viewing.

  4. SHG

    If there’s an opinion to be expressed, the comment should be the expression of the opinion, not a link to an expression elsewhere.  But that’s not really why people put in links to themselves.  The real reason is to scream

    “LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, COME OVER TO MY PLACE AND LOOK AT HOW BRILLIANT I AM. HEY EVERYBODY, COME LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE”
     
    or some variation thereon.  As for support for the pigs fly argument, that usually goes to one of those sources I’m more likely inclined to allow, but more often than not, it’s either a non-controversial assertion (thus requiring no support) or tangential (thus not being on topic). 

    Then there are always the commenters who demand that I allow them to hijack the comments because what they think about some tangential issue is really, really important, far more so than the subject of my post.  These are also the ones who like to tell me what an asshole I am for not allowing the world to revolve around them.

    The irony, by the way, of the my blog/my rules axiom is that various commenters think that I am the only thing preventing their genuis from shining.  It never occurs to them that no one else cares what they think and that everyone reading SJ didn’t come to hear the commenters (usually bizarre) thoughs.  After all, if I comment under the name John David Galt, everyone must want to know what I think, no?

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