Comments policy
15
February
Never had one, don’t really want to have one, but we’re getting enough comments now to discuss it. Preferences:
- Put at least a nickname in if you want to be anonymous
- Keep it civil, discuss the position, not the person putting it
- Direct insults because you disagree with the post/commenter will probably get deleted
- Moderate “colourful” language is fine, I swear a bit, but moderation in all things is good
A fair few of the recent posts have had long comment threads; this is great, but I hate having to say things Anon@19.05 you’re wrong, Anon@20.50 agree completely. Much better to say Nosemonkey, agree, Bondwoman, disagree, Snoo, you’re nuts. All completely anonymous titles, but at least it gives me something to talk to, and means I don’t have to check the logs to see if you’ve commented before.
Doesn’t mean a thing, of course. But if you’re both anonymous and insulting, likelihood is I’ll consider deleting the comment. Doesn’t mean I will; being called a “statist anti-English twat” amused me so much I let it stand; statist? Anti-English? Right, decentralist and very English, I obviously hate myself and don’t know my own opinions…
Lengthy comments: I’d prefer, if you want to really critique something, to do so on a blog of your own, and either trackback or comment to link. Comments are very welcome, but cross-blog conversations are good for all of us; building blogging as a form of dialogue is a good thing. Especially when you start getting comments from your local MP.
Still enjoying this blogging lark a lot though.
1. BondWoman | February 15th, 2006 at 11:37 pm
MatGB obviously I like your blog and you like my comments so much that you changed your colour scheme to keep me happy (and reading), but I wonder about a policy/practice on commenting on commenting. I think the dialogue thing is great, but I shy away from a situation in which people think they need to have the last word about everything. These things can evolve over the longer duration, as we all write posts which reflect, I hope, what we’ve learned through our blogging. My only other comment, which you should of course consider deleting, is that you have given obscene prominence to the cross of st george over that of st andrew (and the welsh dragon is only in the background and barely visible…) in your blog header.
2. MatGB | February 15th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
Well, the colourscheme change was partially because others said it would be a good thing, but you suggested it, so…
And agree absolutely on evolving views, that’s why I sometimes link to stuff I wrote or read months ago, etc.
The logo design is still the beta version, it was designed by a good friend who can actually do design stuff. The Dragon I want to bring forward, I love the Welsh Dragon, always have, guess it comes from living in “west wales” (I have a map that shows Devon and Cornwall marked as such, it’s old…)
St Andrew could be stronger, I agree, but the whole slanty thing would be lost then. At some point I’ll get it done as a proper flag…
3. Martin Keegan | February 16th, 2006 at 12:13 am
I’m not going to enable comments/trackbacks on my own blog any time soon, so your request that we favour trackbacks to direct comments is one I’ll just take as a request to stop commenting (not least as when I do attempt to break new ground, e.g., on the England question, the comments get ignored)
4. MatGB | February 16th, 2006 at 12:21 am
No no no. Comment with a link to a full post if’n you don’t want to trackback. Alternately, use haloscan to ’send’ pings but don’t display them; I’ve found you can use it to ping to/from anywehre, very abusable.
Don’t recall deliberately ignoring anything; may have been one of the many ‘must get back tot hat’ comments.
Or, indeed, one of the many I bookmarked and then lost when the PC crashed. I’ll reword that one; I want comments, but if the comment is 3+ paragraphs long, and you have a blog on the topic, why not write an entry? It’s more aimed at certain other commenters TBH.
Always welcome comments; what did I ignore/not reply to? I’ll try and get to it; I keep putting off the ‘England’ thing, mental/writers block has struck a bit, the one big post I did do got eaten :-(
5. Martin Keegan | February 16th, 2006 at 10:07 am
I just don’t get this.
I’m not going to set up a special blog just for commenting on your blog and others with the same policies, and I’m not going to clutter up the front page of my blog with the same material. That would mean my infrequent blog posts getting mixed up with replies to your blog.
If you really want, I’ll set up specific HTML pages on my site (into which my blog is well-integrated) for comments, but that strikes me as very weird, and in any case is only something I’d do for really important stuff (luckily there’s a lot of that on your blog). The problem is that the main reason one wants to do this is to capture discussions like the one I had with Ken, but you blog-only / trackback / ping / blogger types never disclose email addresses, so it’s hard to get copyright clearance.
6. Nosemonkey | February 16th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Moderate the swearing? Fuck off.
(Agree entirely on the tedious Anonymous thing though. Bunch of wilfully confusing bastards…)
7. MatGB | February 16th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
@ Martin, I hope my re-write and email has cleared things up a bit more, definately not trying to discourage commenting, but am trying to encourage more blogging generally.
@ NM. I got your comment notification at work. Burst out lauging, had to show my deputy your google top scores when she asked. She’s not impressed y’know.
I can’t seem to find a blogger option to allow ‘other’ but not anonymous. Ah well.