On Blogging and Commenting

Generally speaking I operate a very light-touch approach to comments on the blog, on the basis that almost everybody is generally decent and sensible. In the main I have been encouraged that over the 11 years of writing this blog this suspicion - that people can be trusted not to act like idiots when you leave them to their own devices - has been confirmed in 99.999% of cases.

I would like to apologise to that 99.999% of my readership for having to make this post: sorry. It doesn't apply to you.

However, there are some outliers, as I'm sure you are aware if you read this blog with any regularity. These are people who seem to think that because somebody is keeping a public blog, it means that readers are entitled to say whatever they like in the comments and expect a) to be humoured in doing so; and b) to get a reply. 

Let me disabuse those of you in the 0.001%. The only reason this blog exists is because I write it. The forum which it provides, in the form of the comments, to have your own say is only there because of me. If you want to write your own blog, you are free to do so and I rightfully have absolutely no say in the matter; but if you want to comment here, you are able to do that only because I have gone to the trouble of writing an entry and for that reason alone. 

This means that a) you should do it politely; and b) that you shouldn't expect me to humour you if you are being deliberately offensive, annoying, or obtuse, to either me or others. In general I lean towards being tolerant on the basis that I think pity is generally the appropriate emotion in response to trolling - imagine having such a miserable life that you gain solace from trying to make the lives of other people miserable as well - but my tolerance has its limits.

Comments will be moderated for the foreseeable future. In almost all cases I will wave them through but frankly I just cannot be bothered providing a public forum for all and sundry when it causes me to lose the enjoyment of interacting with people reading the blog - which in 99.999% of the time I like doing.