Wednesday, November 23, 2005

One of the things I like most about blogging is the sense of community that’s built around the comments sections. I like feedback from my readers and I like to give feedback to those whom I read. I like the interaction. I like the relationships that I’ve built with other bloggers and non-blogging readers.

I also like the debate that occurs on occasion. I don’t agree with everyone that I read and I know that a lot of my readers don’t always agree with me. So I appreciate when folks post their opposing views and we can have discussion. More often than not, my opinion is not changed, but I value the others’ viewpoints. My own brother-in-law disagrees with me on just about all things political, but we still manage to enjoy the conversations.

I’ve never posted a formal comments policy because the folks who comment here regularly haven’t broken any of my “rules.” Generally speaking, the rules are:

1. No profanity.
2. Keep the comment to the topic of the post.
3. Be pithy.

In the past few days I have gotten a couple of comments that broke all three “rules” above. On the profanity, the built-in EE word censor blocked out the unacceptible words so that’s not a huge deal. However, I really prefer that commenters keep their published comments on topic and I really don’t want your lengthy diatribes eating up my webspace and bandwidth. In the case of the latter, I recommend that you get your own blog. And I do realize that we often go off on tangents in some of the longer threads, but they always start out on topic.

Anyway, this post is in response to a short email exchange I had with a newer commenter. He didn’t like my requests to keep it pithy and on topic or my recommendation that he start his own blog if he didn’t have one already since he has so much to say. What’s a shame is that where I sincerely complimented his writing he fired back with insults. To that I’ll say this: no one forces you to read what I have to say. If you don’t like what I have to say, then move along.