I made a decision today about something I’ve been thinking about for a few months. It wasn’t easy, but I decided to cut off comments on this blog, for now. The result of this tough decision flies in the face of everything I believe about social media as a way to engage with people and build relationships.

Unfortunately, this blog now generates about 150 spam comments each week. Since late Aug. 2009, approximately 9,000 spam comments were left on Write for Wine. Five spams arrived in the brief time it took to write this post!

This is not a new trend. As far back as Feb. 2009, I wrote about how this blog received more than 50,000 spams in its first 1.5 years. I thought the amount would decrease if I moderated the comments, which I started doing in mid-2010, but it didn’t help, unfortunately.

On the bright side, many people leave legitimate comments about my blog posts when they appear on Facebook and on Twitter.

So, for now, I’ve decided to turn off comments on this blog. But I’d still love to hear your ideas and feedback about my blog posts, so please also follow Write for Wine on its Facebook page or follow me on Twitter.

Cheers!