An Administrative Note

Earlier this week, I composed an entry on blogging that was inspired by some of the anger and (I thought) misplaced blame that I was seeing from blog writers who were leaving the scene. My intent was not to single out any one blogger; indeed, I had four primary blogs in mind as I wrote the post, and made an effort to indicate when I was speaking about different sites.

I didn't name names, because pointing fingers wasn't the point. I didn't call names, because I wasn't trying to insult anyone. I even discouraged commenters from attempting to treat the entry as if it were some huge blind item. Again, that wasn't the point.

One blogger, however, read the entry—or parts of it—and decided it was a massive attack on him alone. Very late last night, within the space of a little over an hour, he bombarded several of my latest entries with close to two dozen vicious comments attacking my blog, my writing, my family, and my credibility.

I've deleted the comments because I don't tolerate that kind of behavior on my own site.

Because of this little tantrum, I'm moderating all comments until further notice. It's a pain for you, and a bigger pain for me, but I'd rather not let one person's hissy fit spoil the comments section, where there's  generally a civil and interesting sharing of experiences and thoughts.

My policy for the last year and a half has been to accept all comments—unmoderated—and to clean up what tiny bits of ugliness there've been, as needed. The fact that I stated in the post in question that I've only had to delete less than fifty of over seven thousand comments over the journal's life (though as of last night, it's closer to sixty-five) tells me that most of my readers are indeed reasonable, rational people.

So it's a shame when a couple of bad apples try to make spoilage. I'm more than a bit sorry to have to come down like this, but I appreciate you guys understanding the reasons why.