November 28, 2005

Comment Philosophy

A lengthy discussion that started with my post on Howard Dean, M.D. not mentioning God in his Thanksgiving statement moved to how I don't actively engage commenters. Here's my response:

Thanks DJ. The family is doing fine.

Here's my approach to comments: I feel the need to respond to every one of them. Usually I stand by what I wrote in the post. I don't see the point of restating it in a comment. If I do develop a new argument I like to write a new post so it doesn't get buried in comments. (This post was just going to be a comment. It's become more deserving.)

I appreciate all serious comments and commenters. When I'm drafting a post I try to envision what the response will be. I think that strengthens my writing. Your responses are not ignored even though I don't respond.

The purpose of this weblog is for me to write. Its my running commentary about the weird, wild, wacky world around me. I allow comments to let others continue the discussion. (I'll hopefully get my Trackback problem fixed so that discussion can more easily be extended to other weblogs.) Like I wrote above, I won't respond to every comment. For me it's about adding value to the discussion. If I think a response is valuable I'll offer it; if not I won't.

I'll try to do a better job, but I make no promises. There's too many things to write about. The world is in constant flux. Something new always grabs my attention. I won't sacrifice good ideas for new posts to make the same point I made in my original post. To me that's a waste of pixels. There will be many points where we will have to agree to disagree.

P.S. Does having to write an almost meta-post like that mean TAM is evolving into a community even if a tiny one? I shudder at the thought.