"I have been giving your new no-comments policy a lot of thought since it was implemented."

Emails a long-time reader:

Like most people, I don't respond well to change, and when I found that my favorite online haunt was no longer the nouveau salon that I had come to love, I was taken aback.

The problem for me, first, is that so many of your posts literally invite comments. You write, presenting an event or a situation, and then you comment, and then you question.  You write to provoke thought, and I love that about your blog. But now that comments are turned off, I am much less inclined to take the time to think, because there is no place for me to respond. I still read every post, but I don't think about them as much.

Second, I miss the opportunity to say thank you for posts like one today with Meade giving advice about the mower. I know, I can send an email, but I think it's nice to be appreciative (and appreciated) publicly, and email is private.

My experience of Althouse blog is sadly diminished.

I still read every post, but I don't think about them as much. Here's something to think about, even though you won't think as much. Why don't you think as much? In the old days, when you read books — imagine the greatest books you ever read — did you say to yourself This is all very thought provoking, but unless I can immediately jot down the thoughts it provokes in me, in a place where the author and other readers can see it, I'm really not inclined to pursue those thoughts?

There is a place for your thoughts. It's really the only place for your thoughts: Your head. Do you think What's the point of that, thoughts just in my head, not immediately strewn under the writings of the author who made me think of something just now?

Human connection is valuable, but why must it come — why is it considered better — in the form of immediate expression in response to whatever provoked a thought? I understand the love of spontaneous interaction (and I maintained the "nouveau salon" for 9 years). But there are other time-lines to relationships. There is slowness and gestation. There is the thought as it exists in the purely intimate space of your own head. There is turning to your own writing, in your own place (not the author's). And there is finding another human being to talk to... perhaps about a blog post you read somewhere this morning.