Apparently, a brief word about comments is necessary based on some of the private messages I’ve been receiving. First, a few reminders:
- First and foremost, stay on topic.
- Keep comments brief. I genuinely appreciate the thoughtfulness and depth of research provided by our commenters. That said, the comment section isn’t the place for essays. If you can’t make the point in a paragraph or so, a link to your own blog is the way to go.
- About links; putting more than one link in any given post will probably result in it being filtered (automatically) by the spam filter.
Lastly, as I’ve said many more times than I can count, I’m not interested in policing the combox and don’t have the luxury of time for that anyway.
From time to time I get messages calling my attention to things in the comment section that really do need my attention and I appreciate it. I also get messages from commenters who are just weary of other commenters; sometimes urging me to censure them, other times urging me just to remove the comment section altogether.
I appreciate the passion, folks, but if a certain commenter is causing you distress, unless that person is blatantly abusing the very few rules I’ve put in place, ignore them. The comment section here is a lot like the Church in general; we should expect some disagreement, and even the presence of persons we find irritating. If it was any other way, it would be useless.
All in all, I think we have as informative and lively a comment section as any Catholic blog, and for that, I want to thank all of you.
Blessed month of May to all. Our Lady of Fatima – ora pro nobis!
Louie, I’ve come to really appreciate your blog comment section because really and truly it is a place where people can speak their minds. Personally I have really had it with heavily moderated comboxes. Whatever has happened to open discourse? Certainly there are going to be thing said you may not like, but that is exactly what makes it an interesting place to be. I am concerned that our society is becoming one where anyone who disagrees with me must be silenced. I never feel “Oh I’ve read that before and that person ought to be controlled and limited”. I mean, don’t read it if you don’t want to! Who is FORCING people to read their comment?
And the blogs where, if you say anything against our “rules” we will censor you, well, I’ve lost interest in those blogs. They’re too controlling.
So keep AKA a place of free exchange of ideas and opinions. Throw your thought-provoking articles out there and let the discussions begin!
We’ll see how long that lasts, Louie. Seems to me you wrote pretty much this same kind of request not all that long ago. I’m thinking of your request to stay on topic but especially to not write ESSAYS.
Good grief, I completely quit even trying to read the Comment section here because of both of those problems here at AKA Catholic.