On Comments

When I check this nifty little Haloscan site for any new comments on my blog I always read the warning that heads the list of comments: "If you delete a comment, it can never be recovered." This strikes me as so poignant, never to be recovered, gone for ever, dead. I immediately want to delete everything, just to see if I would actually feel that bad. I haven't done that yet, of course, because I treasure all the comments, even the ones that don't call me wonderful.

The funny thing about the comments is that they are always better than my post. This did come as a surprise to me, as I thought my role would be to educate and gently guide my naive readers (!), whereas the reality is that the readers send me back to check my data and learn new things. A humbling experience, but fun.

Of course, I have not yet had a real troll visit. That might make me feel differently about the comments, and maybe I could even use the ban button. It could be interesting, but so far I have been saved from testing this theory. The trick for troll avoidance is to use really long words in the posts. That and writing sort of mushy.

Anyway, the point of this post is to thank all of you who read this valuable blog (never forget to self-promote), even if it costs equally valuable minutes of your lives, never to be recovered. As the alternative is probably something even more tedious than reading me, I hope you will persevere.