> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://onemanandhisblog.com/llms.txt
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# Why comments matter: conversation
- URL: https://onemanandhisblog.com/2012/04/comments_journalists_trolls/
- Published: 2012-04-18T00:26:52.000Z
- Updated: 2015-04-08T15:34:01.000Z
- Author: Adam Tinworth
- Tags: commenters, comments, community, Journalists

> The purpose of writing on blogs, community sites like Comment is free, and much of social media is to start or further a conversation – not to share a few writerly pearls of wisdom. The great majority of writers on this site (and the New Statesman, for that matter) are paid. It’s a job. Too much of the conversation about comment threads is about how writers – people paid to serve an audience – feel.

— from an excellent defence by James Ball of [the role of comments on websites](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/13/in-defence-of-online-comments?ref=onemanandhisblog.com).