Jihad Watch Comments

For several days now, the comments feature on Jihad Watch has been incapacitated.  This new situation -- not due to hacking, as Robert Spencer tells the reader, but just due to a glitch in refining his burgeoning ad industry -- comes on the heels of a hacking situation a couple or few weeks ago, which for a few days also crippled the ability of readers to participate.

Update:

Spencer's latest update now indicates that what he thought was not a hack attack, is in fact one -- the second major one in recent months.

Spencer may not fully realize or appreciate how vital the comments fields are to the very life of his site.  They constitute not merely an appendage to each article there, but form a vibrant community of their own, where readers can come together to share their thoughts, provide sometimes important additional information on or off topic, vent their frustrations, and feel not so alone as they may well feel out in the mainstream where most of their fellow Westerners (including, all too often, neighbors, friends and even family) remain pleasantly myopic to the dangers of Islam -- if not positively bending over backwards to defend Muslims and thus add insult to our injury.

Not only do the comments fields of such a major website as Jihad Watch form such a community, they also may well serve to engage readers more than they otherwise would be wont to, thus providing a subtle, but perhaps not insignificant added incentive to linger a little longer, and read a little more -- not only enhancing their knowledge and participation, but also making it more likely that the ads with which Spencer has festooned his site of late will be noticed more.

I find myself reading the articles less closely than I used to.  When I knew I could impulsively, or perhaps after a little reflection upon my second or third swig of coffee, leap into the comments field and deposit my two cents, I felt more involved, and this in turn often induced me to re-read the article, or comb through it for passages pertinent to what I wanted to say.  And, of course, it was often a treat (and sometimes an aggravation!) to see what others were thinking.  Then the interactive participation began to carom as we Jihad Watchers sometimes commented not only on the article at hand, but also bounced off each other, even at times developing parallel discussions and/or debates -- which, by the way, would increase the traffic to the site that much more.

I.e., at the very least (if we must sink to the bottom line), Spencer may find that his readership dips whenever comments are incapacitated.  And is that not a lose/lose?