Comment Moderation

I have enabled comment moderation to avoid feeling forced to reply to ad hominem, or personal, attacks. These are not replies about content, but about me--they exist merely to disparage me as an individual.

My previous policy was to try to show these for what they are in an attempt to discourage their usage in general. Such attempts might seem unkind in a narrow context, one that doesn't consider the larger context, the intent, the predicament it places me in, and most importantly, the nature of that to which I was responding.

Such situations are never pleasant for me, it is not the level of conversation and interaction that I seek to have. I no longer want to feel forced into it, and frankly, of late I have felt like I have been a dupe of being baited into responding to a personal attack, only to have that response characterized as a personal attack.

Also, as I am in the process of making standards an expected part of our discussions and work, and taking this work to the next level, I find taking time to respond in any way to such attacks is counter-productive, even attempts to do so in an instructive manner. They end up being a denial-of-service attack on the discussion.

And so, personal attacks to which I would feel forced to respond are all I will be rejecting in the way of comments. Hopefully, stating this policy clearly will make future rejections unnecessary. So, if you must attack, at least put your attacks separately from your other comments, so I can still post those.