When it comes to comments on articles and blogs, I am tied between two answers. On one hand, I think you should have comments on your blog/article because there are some people whose opinion is said in a helpful, constructive way that may help the company/blog/article grow. For example, Reddit and New York Times is usually pretty civil in their comment section. Reddit has a voting system voting on whether or not they think your comment is valid to the article or not. The New York Times moderates their comments. If they see an abusive or off topic comment, The New York Times will remove it.
But on the other hand, there are internet trolls who comment on sites such as Facebook and Yahoo saying rude and unhelpful things anonymously. There are also people who are paid by the government to try and argue against someone’s article/blog. Sometimes the comments go off topic and the original focus of the article is lost. Then people get more focused on what people are commenting rather than what the article is about.
On sites such as Yelp, there are people getting paid to write good reviews for certain companies. Yelp is trying to catch these fake ‘reviewers’ by putting an alert on their page. Because of the fake reviewers, consumers have been misled by Yelp. There have been advertisements on Craigslist soliciting people to write good fake reviews. For example, an appliance repair business said, “I’m willing to pay you $50 if you can write and post a review for my business.”
The method of using your personal Facebook account may not necessarily be the solution to the trolls commentary but it certainly will help. If someone comments an off topic comment or a rude, abusive comment on an article using their personal Facebook account, anyone who sees that comment can report and/or flag that person so they will no longer be able to comment on that site. Trolls comment mean and nasty things on blogs/articles because they are anonymous and think they can get away with it. Trolls would never say what they type in person. Trolls feel a sense of power when they get a reaction from their negative comment. We as a community should act like grown adults and ignore these negative comments.
Overall, my personal opinion is that we should have comments on articles/blogs because we can learn new things from the constructive comments and we can be adults and ignore/block the trolls and nasty comments. Hearing a readers constructive feedback about your article/blog can help you learn new ways of making your blog/article stronger and a better read.
talliwyler 