Would we be better bloggers without comments?

An up-coming shared topic on Blog Azeroth really got me thinking about this thing called blogging. Rather than try to summarize the topic bellow, I'll copy and past what Anea of Oh look, an alt! wrote.

One of the things that can make us happiest as bloggers is seeing e-mails notifying us of comments on our blogs. However, if we took that away - and the influence it may have over our writing - would we become better bloggers?

Would writing what it really is you want to write make you truer to the purpose that you started the blog for? To write exactly whatever is in your head, rather than worrying about whether or not anyone will find it "interesting" or "good enough" to comment on? For the joy of writing?

Or are comments integral to your blogging experience and if you don't have them, you don't write?

While I won't go so far as to say that I won't write if my posts aren't commented on (I did just that for fives months, after all), I see comments as a very integral part of the blogging experience. After all, comments are the only thing that differentiates a blog and a private or read-only Livejournal. Still, the question was really about whether writing without keeping our audience in mind would make us better writers, and speaking personally, writing with my audience in mind does makes me a better writer.

I have experienced first-hand the difference between writing for oneself and writing for an audience, and it a pretty big difference. When I wrote for myself, I was my only critic. I didn't have to refine or justify my ideas any more than I wanted to because only I would see them. When people starting commenting on my post on how the new emblem system ruined heroics, I realized immediately what effect writing for myself had had on my writing. I had let my quality slip, and I felt it in the comments that directly targeted the weaknesses of my post.

That experience left a big impression on me, an impression that deeply affected the way I approached my post on whether WoW's addictive elements make it a sub-par or unethical game. I knew the claim I was making with that post was equally significant as the claim made by my post on how the emblem system ruined heroics, so I knew my claims and reasoning needed to be much more sound. Because of this, I was much more critical and discerning about what I did and didn't include in that post. It did have its flaws when it was published, but it is still a much higher quality post than it would have been had I not kept my commenters in mind.

As I said, keeping my audience in mind improves the quality of my writing. When I know people will be reading my posts, I am more mindful of the quality of my writing. When I know people may actually benefit from my advice posts, I am more considerate of which topics may actually be worth writing about. When I know people will be critiquing my philosophy posts, I am more diligent about making sure my reasoning and logic are sound. In short, comments put the fact that people are reading my posts in the forefront of my mind, and that awareness makes me a better writer.

Still, the question remains: would blogging without minding the comments I get be truer to the purpose that I started the blog for? Well, I started blogging as an excuse to write frequently and at length, as well as hobby. While writing with my readers in mind doesn't further either of these purposes, it doesn't hinder them either. More importantly, the fact that writing with my audience in mind makes me more mindful* of the quality of my writing means that blogging affords me an opportunity to practice making my writing better, and good writing is really an invaluable skill.

*In unrelated news, this may be the longest alliteration to ever appear on my blog.