Comments

By now it should be clear to you that my last post was pretty “cathartic”...

Or however you say it. What happened is that I was annoyed by an argument, by two arguments actually, that reached the same ending. Anyway, I’m also partly to blame for never learning the lesson... In short, in the end, to control my anger I followed the advice of one of my favorite philosophers, Emile Cioran:

“Writing is an extraordinary relief. And so is publishing. This will seem ridiculous to you, and yet it is very true.
\[\...\]
You shed everything you love and above all everything you detest about yourself. I’ll go further: if I hadn’t written, I could have become a murderer. Expression is a liberation. I advise you to do the following exercise: when you hate someone and feel like finishing him off, take a piece of paper and write that So-and-so is a pig, a crook, a scoundrel, a monster. You will notice right away that you hate him less. It is precisely what I have done with regard to myself. I have written to insult life and to insult myself. The result? I have put up with myself better, and I have put up with life better.”

So that’s what I did, nothing more. After all, this is my blog and I do what I want on it, and if I want to I can use it as a mechanism for catharsis.

Or whatever.

However, I have to take responsibility for what I say, and also maintain a certain degree of mental hygiene in this virtual environment I’ve built.

The thing is that, although you don’t notice it, this blog gets pretty unpleasant comments from time to time, ones that add nothing to the discussion and are even provocative, and that, if I approved them, would turn this site into a not very pleasant place.

Running a blog forces you to have a policy on the blog’s comments, but I’ve realized that I have never told you what my comment policy is.

So let’s fix that. Here are the moderation rules for this site, or at least the criteria I have applied so far, which may change later on, but consider this the “legislation in force” for now:

This blog uses disqus as its comment platform, so to voice your opinions you have to register with that service. I suggest reading their terms of service.
I don’t accept anonymous comments; it’s good to know who is saying what, and for them to own it. Sometimes I accept the nickname used on some social network, but I handle those cases one by one.
The comment must not promote hatred of people. You can be against my ideas and lay out the reasons why you think I’m wrong, or any other commenter is wrong, but I ask you to give an argument. I don’t accept personal attacks on anyone, much less provocations. Let’s keep this space in harmony.
The idea is for your comment to add to the debate. No problem if you contribute a joke, as long as it’s witty and helps lighten the mood, but if it adds nothing positive, or is just clowning around, it won’t be accepted.
I don’t accept SPAM either, that is, any kind of promotion of products or websites. When comments come with a lot of links they go automatically to the moderation queue, because they could be spam, so it takes a while to review them. Be patient.
I can close comments on a post at any time. In general I try not to, but sometimes it’s necessary because the discussions are in danger of going nowhere, or I simply don’t have the capacity to keep moderating.
The final call on rejecting a comment is mine, and when I make it I don’t owe you any explanation.

Those are the rules about comments on this blog.

If I deleted a comment of yours and you think I had no right to, try contacting me; it’s not that hard. The answer may still be no, or I may never get back to you, and maybe you’ll hate me for it. In that case I suggest applying Cioran’s advice: set up your own blog and write about how much you hate me for not publishing your comment. Doing so might just make the anger go away.