A comment on comments

*

I am not a huge fan of comments on blogs.

Indeed, when I first began looking at blogs and for quite a while, I was put-off reading several blogs (despite enjoying the postings) because of the comments.

The postings might be good, but the world of the comments that followed them was horrific.

*

So, in general I heartily dislike most comment sections on most blogs - especially popular blogs.

I find it hard to resist looking at the comments, but almost always wish that I had not.

I often leave a blog having had the good effects of the posting removed, and sometimes reversed, by the bad effects of the comment section.

*

Comments are best on small blogs with a keen readership; and I most enjoy the style of heavily-controlled commenting which is used by (for example) Lawrence Auster at View from the Right and Laura Wood at Thinking Housewife.

The blog and the edited comments combine to make a final product.

(Victims of my policy will be amused to know that Auster never prints my comments! I still read his blog daily. My attitude is that Auster knows best what works for his blog.) 

On the other hand there are some commenters whose stuff I always look forward to reading - and some of these favourites have become active on this blog, I'm delighted to say!

*

It is clear that just as some people blog in order to develop their thoughts, so the same applies to some commenters.

I used to do this myself, before I became a regular blogger. I have one or two commenters here who are clearly developing their own ideas in interaction with this blog, whose ideas interest me, and I am usually happy for this to be done in the comments section.

Yet the commenting should be complementary to my purpose in each blog posting; or at least should not diminish or sabotage it.

*

This is why I am so ruthless about filtering comments - generally rejecting as many or more than I publish.

I don't print angry comments, or hostile ones, or ones which do not share my basic premises, or ones which are (for me) just a re-hash of opinions which I myself used to hold but have since changed.

I don't print comments which tend to create the kind of atmosphere that I dislike. 

And a comment may be fine in and of itself - but may (in my opinion) detract in some way from the post; may indeed undermine what I conceive to be the purpose of the post.

*

Being so fussy, I am lucky that people can be bothered to comment at all! - because I have certainly benefited from many of the published comments, as well as some of the unpublished ones.

But anyway, this is a partial explanation for those commenters - including regulars - who have submitted a comment which seemed innocuous but which never appeared.

*