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A comment on comments

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2004-12-09 05:19:12 - Graham Ellis

You're very welcome indeed to add comments to this diary; if you're a new commenter, you may find that your message is "quarantined" for approval - a sad neccessity as we get dozens of automated submissions some days which are looking to advertise performance enhancing products, ways to reduce your interest payments, and other products and services which are totally irrelevant to the subject line.

Please don't be put off by the need to get approval - I'll approve and welcome almost any on-topic post even if the views expressed don't agree with mine. I have to say "almost" - it must be legal and decent, and I'm not going to provide a forum for personal attack ... and there may be a few other exclusions ...

At present (and for the foreseeable future) I read all comments. First and foremost because I'm interested, secondly because it's the vey least I can do if you've taken the trouble to contribute, and thirdly because your content is published under my URL and I want to know what's being published under my wing.

Do I answer your comments? SHOULD I answer your comments?

I'm told that commentators on blogs don't expect answers from the original poster to their comments. That's fine with me, in the sense that I shouldn't feel obligated to reply to everything - I make that commitment on Opentalk which is an "ask a question" forum, and I'm not making the same promise here - indeed, I'll often be happy to instigate a discussion / allow for feedback and let that feedback stand as a balance to what I wrote.

But ... I probably will tend to add comments myself, particularly where the commenter has written a long and well thought out follow up; these comments may be as simple as "thank you for adding that", they may be "I hadn't thought of that" or "thank you for correcting me". At times, a discussion may ensue and I'll look to contribute that discussion ... but I hope not take it over. I'm very conscious that I shouldn't always try for "the final word" ... I've seen too many forums / threads go down that line elsewhere ...

Footnote:If you come across this text in the archive, you might like to follow this link to take you to the page where you can contribute to any discussion!