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Daily link icon Saturday, October 23, 2004

My comment policy

Since I saw Jeremy lay out his comment policy a while ago I've been wanting to lay out my own policy.

The policy is simple. This is not a democracy Smiley I can delete anyone's comment at any time for any reason. Of course, the only reasons I'm likely to delete anyone's comments are for violating any of the rules below:

  • Show respect, be civil, no ad hominems. No swearing please. Golden rule and all that. If you'd like to berate me, feel free to send me an e-mail.
  • If you provide a link to a site in the website field, it had better be your personal web site. If you break this rule, I may choose to leave your comment but clear out your web site field. And of course, there's no reason to leave things like "none" or put fake information in the website and e-mail fields... they're optional.
  • Don't post something that's off-topic.
  • Advertisements are usually unwelcome. This includes spam, but also other advertisements. For example, even if your comment is generally on topic for a post, if you come here with the sole intention of leaving a comment to advertise something, I'll most likely consider your comment to be spam and delete it.
  • Don't copy entire articles into a comment unless you have some compelling reason to (such as that the resource is likely to disappear). Provide a link to the resource if you can. Of course, feel free to excerpt relevant portions of anything you'd like.

Regular commenters get some leeway. So if I know you, I'll be less mad if, for example, you post something that's off-topic. But if you post anonymously (without an e-mail address or a web site) and aren't a regular, I'm not likely to care much about deleting your comment if I feel it's warranted.

Note on anonymous comments: I think it's important that people be able to post anonymously if they choose to. I think anonymity is an important part of freedom. So, I don't require a name or e-mail address for anyone to post a comment. Not that it would matter much if I did, since they're trivial to fake anyway, so all making this information required would do is annoy the commenters for having to provide and me for having to receive fake information.

However, putting your real name and identity behind your words immediately earns you some respect. In addition, people who don't provide their identity when commenting often do so in order to feel free to say things they wouldn't say if they had put their name behind their words. So while I allow anonymous comments, I encourage commenters to put their name behind their words. In addition, along with the added respect I have for someone who posts a comment with their identity comes a much higher threshold for deleting a comment I might otherwise delete had the person been anonymous.

Note on annoying commenters: During the course of running this site I've had some particularly annoying commenters. I have different, increasing levels of response to them. At first, I'm often terse or rude to try to get them to take the hint to be less annoying or to go away. Then I ask or tell them to go away. After they ignore repeated requests to go away, I often start deleting some or all comments they leave. If required (and it hasn't been yet (update: now it has)), I'll ban the commenter's IP address. Also, anonymous comments inherently get a higher initial "annoying" reaction from me just for being anonymous (for the reasons I outlined above), but I have had some excellent anonymous comments so this doesn't apply across the board.

Finally, if you show respect to me I'll show respect in return.

Updated Nov 23, 2004, Jan 16 2005, Apr 25,27 2005

Chain link icon Permalink | 12 Comments | Tags: This website | id 5849
14:28 (utc-4)
edited: 2005-04-27 18:30 (utc-4)
 
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Comments XML gif

Sinalco wrote:

Sounds like common sense.

Sounds also as if something had happened recently that forced you to express your policy explicitely (sp!?) ?

∴ Sinalco | 23-Oct-2004 6:32pm est | #6018

Sinalco wrote:

Off Topic Question:

There are only a very few of your blog entries where one can leave a comment.

Actually, I haven't found any rule to determine why are comments are allowed to one posting and why there is no option to post a comment to others.

Is that "by design" or perhaps is it a bug in your software?

∴ Sinalco | 23-Oct-2004 6:38pm est | #6019

Sinalco wrote:

Regarding the "not able to comment"-Question above:

Now i sense some pattern here:

If you post a "numbered list"-style blog-entry, there is no "add comment" option available. But if you just post a "regular" blog-entry, one can add a comment.

(Just noticed that when you changed the "Rope" entry http://keithdevens.com/weblog/archive/2004/Oct/23/rope from a list entry to a regular entry some minutes ago.)

Still the question: is that "by design" or an "open issue"? Smiley winking

∴ Sinalco | 23-Oct-2004 6:48pm est | #6020

Keith (http://keithdevens.com/) wrote:

Sounds also as if something had happened recently...

Yes, a regular commenter, who'd always disagreed strongly with me (which is fine) but until recently had been civil, responded with a fairly strong ad hominem against me, so I deleted his comment and felt compelled to assert this policy.

There are only a very few of your blog entries where one can leave a comment.

Just about all of my posts allow comments, except for a rare few for which I've disabled comments for one reason or another.

You may be referring to the "linkblog"-style posts where it may not be clear how to get to the comments. Each linkblog-style post has a “¶” and a “(0)” (if there are no comments) next to it. The '¶' is the permalink for the post, and the “(0)” links to the comments section for the post. Try clicking on those and let me know if that does what you want. If you still can't post comments on certain posts, please let me know about it and I'll see if there is some bug in my software.

∴ Keith | 23-Oct-2004 6:49pm est | http://keithdevens.com/ | #6021

Sinalco wrote:

Thanks for your prompt reply! Smiley winking

I almost feared that I was the reason for you to post your "comment policy" ... eheh Smiley winking

Well, ok, I can click on the “¶” and would be able to post a comment there - indeed. Thanks for clarifying that to me.

But to be honest: that is not really obvious to me (ok, i may be a "blogging newbie", but still ...). I would suggest, you make the option to comment those entries a bit more obvious. Just for the sake of "usability" Smiley winking

∴ Sinalco | 23-Oct-2004 6:57pm est | #6022

Keith (http://keithdevens.com/) wrote:

I hadn't even thought about the usability, honestly. I considered the “¶ (0)” combination (although some have them in a different order) to be standard blogging practice so I didn't think it would miss anybody. It's always interesting to get a different perspective.

I'll go put a title on the links, at least, so people get a tooltip indicating what they are.

∴ Keith | 23-Oct-2004 7:16pm est | http://keithdevens.com/ | #6024

Sinalco wrote:

For me, as an "computer dinosaur", the "¶"-symbol just represents "End Of Paragraph". This was the symbol used by many text processing programs in ancient times (i.e. "WordStar" ... etc. hehe)

"End of Paragraph" still does apply in this context as well, true, but I think, it is not neccessarily obvious that it is a) a link ... to b) the "post comment"-feature!

I would suggest something like:

blah blah blah. (0 comment(s))

where the word "comments" is underlined and as such identifiable (sp?) as a link.

Smiley

∴ Sinalco | 23-Oct-2004 7:25pm est | #6025

Keith (http://keithdevens.com/) wrote:

Well, the '¶' is the Permalink to the post. The “(0)” is the comment count that is also the link to the comments.

∴ Keith | 23-Oct-2004 7:41pm est | http://keithdevens.com/ | #6027

Keith (http://keithdevens.com/) wrote:

It turns out I did already give those things titles. I've just expanded the titles to contain the title of the post. I'm not going to write the word "comments" in there because, given how small those links posts usually are, the links to the comments start to overwhelm the content itself.

In any case, those links show up in blue, have tooltip titles, the mouse cursor turns into a hand when you go over them because they're links, and they use what's a pretty standard convention for linkblog links. I'm playing around with making them be in a larger font or be bolded, but that's as far as I'll go for now.

∴ Keith | 23-Oct-2004 7:52pm est | http://keithdevens.com/ | #6028

Sinalco wrote:

Well, it's YOUR Blog! Smiley winking

But thanks for taking your time considering it!

∴ Sinalco | 23-Oct-2004 7:57pm est | #6029

Keith (http://keithdevens.com/) wrote:

It's all good. Thanks for the suggestions. Like I said, it's good to get a different perspective.

∴ Keith | 24-Oct-2004 12:55am est | http://keithdevens.com/ | #6032

Revence 27 wrote:

Why don't you use some simple grahics instead? Like a small, snazzy exclamation mark, or a megaphone icon, or one of those dumb things in the Wingdings font or the Webdings font?
I mean, then, it would get some of the meaning across better than paranthesed numbers, I think, and would not be a space-eating monster.
And, you could tell us how to identify the stuff in your colophon.
But, still, for me it came off as obvious, but your blog is some sort of resource (yes, I'm trying to compliment you), and you wouldn't want to lose a single guy along the road. Smiley (big smile)

∴ Revence 27 | 7-Nov-2004 10:08am est | #6277

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