Why email is better than comments

Whenever I share one of my articles on Reddit or Hacker News, people:

1. Upvote and move on.
2. Downvote and move on.
3. Downvote and leave angry comments without explaining why they’re angry.
4. Downvote and explain why they did it without being angry.
5. Upvote and explain why and share their own experience.

Only the last 2 are interesting. The first 3 actions don’t contribute anything.

Upvoting and downvoting don’t mean anything and angry comments don’t help anyone.

Unfortunately, the last 2 actions are the most rare. People don’t like taking the time to share what they truly believe.

However, I regularly receive emails from readers who share their own perspectives with me without acting like mass murderers.

That’s why I think comments suck and that emails are a better way for readers to communicate with authors.

I think it has something to do with the anonymity provided by social platforms as well as the amount of effort required to post stupid things. Anyone can easly fill the little textbox and hit send. But with email, they have to open their email client, think about what they’re going to wrte, type it out, and finally hit send. Some people might even proof read their email before sending. Who actually proof reads their comments though?

When I started this website, I was looking forward to integrating comment systems like Disqus and such but I’m glad I didn’t. Email is much better for my peace of mind.