On disabling comments

As I'm sure many of you may have noticed by now, I made the decision earlier this week to disable comments on the reviews. It was a difficult decision on my part, because I always love hearing from readers, but I think that, for the time being, it will be better for the review to leave them off. This is a design choice that I've been struggling with for some time now, and a recent turn of events has made that decision somewhat easier on my conscious.

While I don't necessarily feel the need to defend my decisions about how I run the blog, I do feel that those who were not involved deserve an explanation. The short version of the story is that a discussion about artificial sweeteners and their positive and negative attributes was started recently in the comments of one of my posts. As per usual during an internet argument, some of the later comments turned a bit sour and condescending, and I decided once and for all just to disable the feature.

I don't particularly believe in internet censorship (within reason, of course), but I also don't feel that the comments section of my reviews are the best place for that sort of discussion, especially if the companies that I endorse are going to end up being insulted and accused of malevolence. I am not here to change anybody's mind about specific ingredients that are used in modern beverages. My primary intention with this blog is to inform readers of what sorts of beverages are available on the market and simply if I feel that they are worth your money. As a result, I feel that the reviews themselves are not necessarily up for debate, and having a big, long discussion about the benefits and detriments of a single element of the beverage in question directly under the post itself muddles the original intention of the review.

Now, all of that being said, I do sincerely enjoy the discussion. I am still in the process of moving the site over to its dedicated URL, but due to the heavy load from my curriculum this semester, that is not likely to happen until this summer. When I do get the site moved, however, I am hoping to implement a forum for those who are interested to discuss whatever sorts of things that they want to discuss about the beverage industry. Until then, communication between readers will unfortunately be more limited, but I am greatly looking forward to finally getting the new site together and hopefully being a part of these sorts of discussions in the future.

I thank all of you for your patience while I wait for a chance to get the site moved over to its new home, and I hope that each of you continues to enjoy and find useful the reviews to be posted in the coming months. If anyone has any questions, grievances, or comments, or if you simply want to talk about beverage news or experiences, I welcome you to send me an email at the address listed in the sidebar.

Again, thank you all again for reading, and I look forward to seeing you back here for next week's reviews. Hopefully I'll be able to recommend one of them this time.

-Hayden