Friday, February 27, 2015

Lots of comments

I just noticed that the number of comments posted on the Director's Desk cracked 15,000 this week. That's quite a dialog that has gone on since I started this blog back in April, 2007, and one I have enjoyed. I hope it's been as interesting for readers as it has for me.

In recognition of the milestone, I added a gadget to my blog that displays the most commented posts. You'll find it over in the right sidebar, if you scroll down a bit. It not entirely accurate, though, because it missed my post Share the road, which had 86 comments and Whadda ya think, which had 50. Maybe it only goes back a certain number of years or posts.

2 comments:

Steve said...

I've enjoyed reading and commenting here for some time now, and I appreciate that for the most part, it is a civil dialogue whether serious or humorous, as opposed to many other open forums for public discussion. I'm wondering how many comments you have to reject in order to keep it that way. We still see an occasional snarky comment, and I've posted my share of those, as have you. Still, I find it refreshing to find that most of the comments are true expressions of feelings or ideas as opposed to the name calling and mud slinging common to the LJS website and others.

Tom Casady said...

Steve,

I've always moderated the comments on this blog, meaning they don't get posted until have had a chance to read them. You really have to do that, or else your blog is bombarded with ads for porn, weight loss, Viagra, and so forth.

Other than the robots and commercial stuff, I've probably nixed considerably less than 5% of the total "real" comments: usually because they were not only snarky, but were snarky about someone else: my mean supervisor, the President, and such. I don't want my blog to be a forum for people to attack other, named coworkers or public officials.

The rules, such as they are, are at the bottom of the sidebar. I think the number of comments posted that are critical of me personally will testify that I'm not using my status as the owner and moderator of this blog to stifle criticism. It's a good dialog, and I appreciate all comments--even those I disagree with, or make me wince. If it's something I feel strongly enough about (and have the time for,) I'll respond. Often, though, someone else will respond just as effectively, and even more often, it is a point well taken that helps shape my future actions.