UPDATED! Your right of reply has gone bye bye (for now)

UPDATE 1st March 2016: The hiatus is over. Reader comments are once again fully functional across the site.

An increase in visitor traffic has seen DAR outgrow its current home and during the past 24 hours the site has been relocated to a new web host. Already in the bag is a significant increase in page load times. Lost along the way though were a handful of reader comments.

And with DAR in for a service, I thought it as good a time as any for further overhaul. An oil change will come first (which should be invisible to readers). After that, a tyre change before an all new body and engine are fitted.

Behind the scenes, a copy of the entire website will be made, changes applied to that copy and then re-uploaded. This will happen more than once in the coming weeks. Any posts published by yours truly between each copy and upload are easily replicated but reader comments are not.

I’ve therefore opted to suspend all further reader comments for 3 – 4 weeks. The upshot? Readers won’t be able to ask follow up questions on reviews or offer exceedingly useful additional information. It also means that a vocal minority will be denied their opportunity to bitch about manufacturer A’s new direction, to espouse on how a new file format is never gonna work done that way or proclaim that the company maintaining silence on a controversial issue point to their guilt.

Opining on sound and tech is very different game to actually knowing a company’s (or industry’s) inner workings.

Doug Stanhope says it best:

I wouldn’t have it any other way though – well, mostly. Reader engagement – whether I agree with commenters or not – is what makes this place tick and I’m happy to play along as long as conversations are kept civil.

Let this comment-free window serve as time for contemplation on life without the right of reply. (The urge to comment even on this post is strong, no?).

For those of you who really, really want need to kick this ball along the road, DAR can also be found on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Enjoy the holiday and see y’all in few weeks. DAR’s news, reviews, show posts and op-eds will continue as normal.

But the final word here goes to reader Andrew P: “Good on you! Im sick of reading reviews where readers comments either complain about the product or review (which they didn’t have to pay for)…or it turns into a slagging match between posters. People love to use the Internet as a personal soap box rather than a source of information. Thank you, and keep up the good work. Andrew.”

UPDATE: Despite this comment deep freeze being only temporary, reader Wasaki writes with a combination of annoyance and self-entitlement: “we can’t comment any more , this is ridiculous . I’ll never come here again I think dac all sound the same just a little bit diff. I have 901,hugo they sound the same. bye”