Sunday, 2 March 2025

Comment moderation on this blog - policies and pitfalls

For a blog that is currently (by the apparently wildly unreliable Google feedback) accumulating some 300K views per month (c 10K per day) - I do not receive or publish many comments. 

This is partly because I am not seeking comments - except from those who have something to contribute to the posts. 


I greatly value comments that have read, and engage with, the post - or blog matters more generally; and (almost) all of those I actually publish are ones I either regard as potentially helpful, or at least harmless! 

I'm very grateful for such commenters (they know who they are!), and owe a good deal to some of the matters they have raised and debated over the years.

Indeed; without them I would probably have stopped blogging years ago.   


I neither read nor publish anonymous comments, and I block (filter-to-delete) all comments from those whom I suspect to be trolls or shills (e.g. from people who appear from nowhere, having just opened a pseudonymous Google account, and suddenly submit at least one comment for every post!) 

Nor do I publish comments from people who seem to want to use the blog for confessional psychotherapy; or to "set me right" on matters concerning which they are ignorant - e.g. by informing me of the official orthodox theology of whatever is their church - as if that was a refutation of my views - views that they have not troubled to discover.  

In fact, one of my own nasty little Schadenfreude tendencies; is when I delete Anonymous comments, or block what I have decided are troll-shill commenters! 

I repent this spiteful glee... But not the acts of deleting and blocking, which is necessary work. 


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