Summer schedule

Every summer I'm going on holidays for a large chunk of the July/August period, and during that time I have limited internet access. Besides from not being able to post much during that time, I also can't do comment moderation. Unfortunately Blogger's heuristic spam filter just plain sucks, having a long history of blocking real comments and letting through spam. So I was looking at my comments, and I didn't really like what I saw.

My blog is 8 years old, and has over 3,600 posts. As I'm not changing my beliefs all that often, my opinions on certain key issues have become well known: I believe that MMORPGs are just games that shouldn't be taken too serious. I believe that achievements in video games aren't real and certainly not a good reason to flout one's superiority over other players. I believe games should be entertaining for the majority of players and not cater to the small minority spending the most time on them. I believe game developers deserve a salary and people should pay for their games whatever the business model.

These opinions are contentious by their very nature. There are a lot of people out there who disagree. And some of these people are angered by my opinions, and are even more angry that I am able to express them in a coherent form on a popular blog. Thus over the time I have attracted a lot of commenters who systematically disagree with EVERY SINGLE POST they comment on. There is no discussion, no give and take, just pure antagonism. It's like a bunch of Republicans commenting on a Democrat blog.

I believe that this antagonism hurts my blog. And I fully admit that my own reaction to the antagonism is part of the problem. But I am not at all willing to cave in and change my core beliefs just because these beliefs upset a bunch of hardcore gamers.

Thus I decided that this year I will shut down commenting on my blog on July 1st at the very least for 2 months. I am considering leaving commenting turned off permanently. During the summer period there will also be significantly less posts while I enjoy life on the beach.