Comments on this blog

Having made some remarks on Comments on blogs in general, I want to give some information on how I deal with comments on this blog. Given the nature of a blog, as outlined, I do not have to do so. I could zap all comments, pick only the ones that do not contain grammatical errors, reject any that begin with the letter R or whatever.

I choose to share a few thoughts on the subject because I think it is a nice thing to do.

Comments are moderated on this blog. That means I see them before they are posted and I can publish them or reject them. I started doing this because some inflammatory and/or slanderous comments appeared and were on the internet for a while before I saw them and deleted them.

I don’t yet use “Word Verification” but if I start getting spam comments, I will have to turn it on. (If you don’t know what “Word Verification” is, you can look it up on Blogger.)

I will usually reject
  • Comments that insult or slander other people.
  • Comments that include vulgarity, blasphemy etc.
  • Comments that discuss some personal or professional matter that it is not appropriate to share with the more than a billion people who currently access the internet.
  • Comments that attempt to solicit information that would reveal the identity of a person who has chosen to post anonymously or under a pseudonym. Particularly in the case of young people, there are safety issues about revealing your identity on the internet and I respect that.
  • Troll comments – i.e. comments that randomly attack a post, or question why I have written something. If you want to disagree with me in total freedom, why not start your own blog? If you don’t want to read what I write, why not go and do a Sudoku puzzle or something instead?
I will usually publish
  • Comments not falling under any of the above (though I don’t claim the list is exhaustive – who knows what other unsuitable things might arise?)
  • Comments that raise a sensible point of discussion or rational debate – whether I agree with them or not.
  • Comments that generally help along the blogging community.

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