Ok.. So its become very clear lately that a lot of you have trouble reading the basic rules about what kind of  comments are accepted, and what kind of comments are not accepted. Due to this. For the time being all new secrets submitted will have their comments turned OFF
We are very sorry that it has come to this. This is NOT the outcome we wanted at all. Sadly we have been given no other choice for the time being.

When we have decided that everything has died down a bit, and people stop spoiling it for everyone else.

~MelchiahAlex While I agree it's a sad thing indeed that we've all lost the ability to comment on DAS submissions, let us not be too grandiose about it.

None of us have lost any of our "rights," posting on DAS or any other part of dA is a privilege at best, not a right.

Hopefully it wont take too long for the select few who act like children to run along elsewhere and the commenting can be restored for the rest of us.
Nicely put, couldnt have said it better if we wanted to.

~ImmaculateReprobate alternate accounts, "hidden comment" minefield is not appealing to anyone, and makes navigating annoying and difficult. Hiding all comments would be a task in 20+ pages of comments.

DA needs a delete comment button, so shitty comments don't make your deviation look off-putting to people wanting to leave constructive comments.
That would be really helpful, although it still means having to sort though all the comments to delete them. But as you said, at lest it doesnt look bad with all the hidden comments


~Camera-wielding-fool If this is due to the "love is sex and hate" secret, well...that's a bit much to be turning off comments.
If this was the case the comments would just be turned off on that one secret.  
But it isnt the case, there has been a great increase of comments all over the club. Not just in one place. If it was just in one place, it would not have been such a problem.

=Peanut-Medley This is why we can't have nice things.
We can still have nice things, just restricted a little at the moment

~LurkingShadow How do you determine that things have "died down" if you can't read comments? Is this simply a "We'll wait a few weeks and hopefully they'll be gone by then?" type of thing? Because.. I don't see how that can work. They'll obviously come back.
True, they very well come back, but have you never heard of the "ignore them and they will get bored" ? Same goes, if they cant leave comments, they will get sick of coming in all the time and not being able to leave comments, so will go away.  At lest in most cases.

I feel bad for the secrets that have been submitted before this and have yet to be posted, as comments are usually helpful. I'm sure there will be a huge lull in the amount of secrets coming in until comments are turned back on.
Turning comments off if not something we wanted to do, it really was a last resort. We agree with you, a LOT of ST send secrets in because they want and need help and advise.  But trust me, its not going to stop the secrets being sent in. If anything there has been a HUGE in-cress of secrets sent in.

~Pokeapache I come to DAS to see how I can help people.
As do many others, you will be able to again too

~dusty-llama I don't think it'd be beneficial to turn comments off. If there are inappropriate things being said, I would trust the community and moderators to point them out/deal with them.
One would think so wouldnt they.
Thankfully we do have some wonderful members of the community who contact us letting us know about different comments. But this isnt always the case. We do not catch a lot of them ( most of them) to which people just comment back to those comments telling them "off" which in return only adds fuel to the fire

Much of the reason DAS is different from Post Secret is that comments (helpful and hurtful, I'll admit) are able to be left on submissions. I think that's why a lot of people send theirs in at all.
Agreed.  It will be back to this again too. Comments off is NOT a permanent thing Its only part time

If a specific ST asks for comments to be turned off, because they're uncomfortable with the idea, that should be preserved. But to do it to all secrets is, I think, unfair to those that could truly use the advice.
This has been an option  for a long time now, but the thing is, 99% of people do want comments on, but do not want the "bad" comments. They will say they understand this, and want comments on. as soon as those "bad" comments appear. the "shit hits the fan" and no-one likes it.  No matter what happens, we cant please everyone.

~odezia Why not just remove undesirable comments? A lot of people use DAS for to give and recieve advice, you've completely ostracized a large portion of your audience by doing this.
Because this would take hours and hours and hours each and every day.

~Snorkelhead ugh seriously? sixbillionsecrets has good secrets but the commenters are all really rude people, that'd why I prefer here, the commenters are usually more supportive :/
It will be back to normal before you know it, this isnt for good

~ashnjohncomics That seems like the very wrong thing to do. Punishing others for the actions of idiots is never the best idea, in my opinion. If you ask me, you should handle this problem with a more diligent and involved staff. Keep a closer eye on the comments and use the "delete" button to your advantage. Some people send their secrets in specifically for the advice they might receive from people commenting. It was the one thing your site offered that PostSecret did not. Have to say, I'm more than a little disappointed.
Noone is being punished. Its just how it is. Involve staff? As in dA staff? they dont care about things like this. All they say is "hide" or "block" Which is not something that can be done in these cases. Not easy to go though over 1000 comments a day, and read them all. hide those that need to be hidden.  An account can only block so many people at once. So that will not work either. There is no "delete" option. Only hide, and report. Only a Staff member on dA can delete a comment.
If you feel the need to be disappointed, then be disappointed at those who spoilt it for everyone else. We do what we need / must do to keep things running in here. It doesnt mean we like what we have to do

~Mithrethor As others have said, it's understandable why this came about. However, some people really do need responses to what they post--it's why they submit secrets in the first place.
Agree 110%

Maybe there could be an option when submitting to allow comments, like "I understand the risks. Please enable comments on this submission." I'd think that would appease most parties involved.
That is how DAS is at the moment, everyone has the option of having their secrets comments on or off. They all know there are the risks of people leaving "bad" comments. But as mentioned in one of the above remarks, 99.9% of the ST ask to have the comments turned on. Its not always the ST who complains about the comments. More then often its members of DAS. But never the less, people ( most) do not like the "bad" comments, they want/need the replies to their secrets. But they dont want/need the bad ones. So when it happens, they complain.
If it was as easy as that, there would be no problem at all. Sadly we have no control over the comments people leave. Which makes it sad that we had to get to this point.

~tiger200188 Is there a chance you can just disable comments on secrets that could cause problems?
That is how it was

~gracie-is-a-pie I think it's only a problem now because recently, a lot of secrets have made it to the front page, so people who aren't familiar with DAS are commenting on them without knowing the rules.. It sucks that these people are spoiling all of these, though. Maybe instead of closing comments altogether, you should just add a link to the rules in the description.
We tried that. Look a few journals back you will see we reminded people about reading the clubs rules