Comments — Our Policy

I don't have a comments policy; in fact, I don't have any policies.

But that's not to say I don't have a philosophy that drives how I deal with comments here.

In fact, I have a philosophy that drives how I deal with every single thing in my life: the trouble is, I often don't know what it is.

But I know it's there.

Isn't it?

Anyway, here's how things are re: comments.

About five a day come in; sometimes twenty, sometimes zero.

Most are on point and not spam.

I've seen where lots of other bloggers have restricted or eliminated comments because of spam or nasty stuff.

So far, so good on that count.

Although perhaps someone will read this and decide to crash the comments section.

Which then leads me to wonder if maybe I should just trash this post and find something else to write about.

I can't go on.

I'll go on.

The thing is that the way I've got it set up every single comment goes right to the sidebar of the blog the moment it's sent.

If I don't happen to be online and have my email turned on I'll never know it's there.

So while I'm sleeping all manner of stuff goes up and I don't know about it until the next morning.

Occasionally when there's a really nasty piece of work one of my readers (yeah, o, that would be you) gives me a heads-up and then I take it down.

But otherwise stuff just goes up and stays up until I get to it and have a look.

I wish I was smart enough to know how to keep certain comments up without deleting all the ones that came before it; that way I could leave Steve Wozniak's comment at the bottom of the comments section and simply have the nine above it (have you noticed that there's room for ten at a time to appear, with the most recent at the top?) rotate through.

But I'm not.

Also, I try to delete duplicate comments and such.

You may also have noticed a preponderance of women's comments.

That is no accident.

I simply like women better than men and I prefer their voices — in person, on the phone, on paper or in pixels — to those of men.

That's why, guys, occasionally your comment goes away sooner than you might have otherwise expected that to happen.

I like the comments section: I've had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of many wonderful people all over the planet through its conduit and bookofjoe still isn't even a mote of dust in the eye of the internet tiger.

Wait a minute — that's not the right metaphor.

Eye of the needle?

A tiger never changes its stripes?

Ah, the heck with it.