Yet another note on comments

So the past few days, the troll factor has definitely dipped. We did have the one incident with the Wolfson thread, but I think that was basically an invasion. Can't do much about that. One thing I'd like to encourage: If you're arguing with someone in a thread and like five posts in you see it's only you and that person, and neither of you are budging, you might consider getting a room. It's not so bad when the argument is at least about the topic at hand, but drawn-out acts of thread-jacking just aren't fun.

I'm getting the feeling--and I believe someone said as much--that I'm inheriting some old holdover beefs from Matt's comments section. I really don't want any part of that. As I've said, I strongly believe that a good community improves a blog tremendously. You can scroll through the threads and find people disagreeing all over the place, but it doesn't have to descend into the personal. Sorry if I'm coming off like a Nanny. I just hate going into blogs and reading a comment section that looks like its been taken over by ten-year olds.

One last thing--I'm not ignoring the request for a specific comment policy. The truth is, I just don't have one yet. I'm learning on the job here--at my old site it was basically just me and a few internet friends. This is, as I've said before, a house party. I'm not exactly sure what, specifically, should be allowed and what shouldn't. I know it when I see it, but not really before. As the weeks go on, I'll get a better handle and then post some guidelines. Meantime, please bear with me.

UPDATE: One thing that will get you deleted is using a fake e-mail. I'm slow, but I have picked up on that one. Do the right thing guys.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2008/08/yet-another-note-on-comments/5642/