[Weblog comments] are a part of the problem, not the solution. You don’t have a right to post your thoughts at the bottom of someone else’s thoughts. That’s not freedom of expression, that’s an infringement on their freedom of expression. Get your own space, write compelling things, and if your ideas are smart, they’ll be linked to, and Google will notice, and you’ll move up in PageRank, and you’ll have influence and your ideas will have power.
This is very convincing in principle. I have to say, though, that the (relatively few) comments I get here on this blog are truly worth reading — check out the comment feed.
I do like principles, but the developer promoting the practicality in me wins out in this case. My gut feeling is forcing people to post on their blog goes against how people “work”. The perceived mental barrier for posting a blog entry is too high. Also, many people don’t have blogs and the comments might not be relevant to the topic of their blog.