There are a few issues I’d like to bring up, most dealing with people who haven’t read the website posting protocol, otherwise known as “Da Roolz” (h/t: Mike Ditka). You can find them on the left sidebar, or at this link. If you are a new commenter, please read them.
Two posting matters and an addition:
A) I’ve had a spate of new commenters who come onto the site and begin firing a fusillade of comments, taking over threads, engaging in arguments, and in general not adhering to the civility standards that I consider vital. If you are new here, please take a bit of time to read the posts and, especially, the comments before you start contributing. A lot of new commenters tend to be fractious and rude towards either the host or other commenters. While I try to either temper these by warnings or remove the miscreants, I don’t always see every comment. I remind you of these three comments from Da Roolz:
- Please do not tell me how to run my site. That is, comments about “too many cats,” “too many boots,” “not enough biology,” “too much religion,” etc., are not welcome. I provide content free of charge, and if you don’t like the mix of posts, you’re free to go elsewhere. By all means take issue with what I say, but don’t argue about the balance of topics.
- Do not insult your host. Pretend that you’re speaking to me in my living room which is, in a sense, what this website is.
- Most important, please try to refrain from insulting other posters, no matter how misguided you think they are. I don’t like name-calling, for it lessens whatever class this site has and certainly doesn’t foster discussion. I will often warn people about this behavior either on the site, or in a private email. About 70% of those who are warned respond with truculence, either insulting me or saying that their behavior is fully justified. That’s a good way to get blacklisted—almost as good as telling me to stop posting on cats or cowboy boots. If I ask you to apologize to a commenter whom you insulted, please do so.
B) I sometimes see commenters (and often they’re newbies, see above) trying to dominate a thread, answering every comment and in general hijacking the discussion. These guidelines from the Roolz still apply, though I don’t count comments:
9. Try not to dominate threads, particularly in a one-on-one argument. I’ve found that those are rarely informative, and the participants never reach agreement. A good guideline is that if your comments constitute over 10% of the comments on a thread, you’re posting too much.
Finally, a copyright lawyer told me that I should add a copyright notice to the page so that people wouldn’t steal more than “fair use” quotations without my permission. That notice is now on the sidebar, looking like the image right below, and when you click on it you go to this notice.
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Thanks for your cooperation. 
Talking of posts about cowboy boots, I was just thinking a couple of weeks ago that we haven’t seen any lately…
As a general tip: for people who are irritated at a web site (any web site, not just this one) posting too many articles on subjects you don’t want to read about, instead of complaining, simply don’t read them.
I had the same thought. I think I remember reading that we have seen the last boot post. But we remain hopeful!
Oh, I clearly missed that, sorry.
I haven’t bought any new boots in ages, so I have nothing new to post. I have a lot of old boots that I never showed, but I’m not sure about the value of posting the collection, which is over 100.
It might be interesting to see how such a collection is stored. The only thing that comes to mind by comparison is the closet of Imelda Marcos.
Sorry, I hadn’t seen your post before I posted my comment re IM.
I remember years ago we speculated about this and I think it’s probably a whole room, climate controlled, devoted to cowboy boots. 😀
Long ago Jerry did post a pic of shelves in his apartment lined with boots. I don’t know if it was his entire collection, but it was at least part of it.
Some of us are so old that we forgot we saw this picture. 🙂
lol.
It was burned into my mind because of how envious it made me.
Yes! Good idea! 🙂
If you were to consult the ghost of Imelda Marcos, she would encourage you to display all your boots all the time.
Compared to Imelda Marcos’ collection, Jerry is still a beginner.
I was just going to comment about the dearh of boots. Hmmm, I just did, didn’t I?
“dearth” (I wish we could edit posts.)
Well at least it didn’t come out as “death”.
Da Roolz seem like rational easy-to-follow rules.
I approve of the “I approve of this post” picture. 😂
For any damn furriners out there who might not know who the Ditka gettin’ the hat tip is:
Having grown up near Cleveland, Ohio. Bear Fan ™ sure reminded me alot of Browns Fan ™
Here’s a classic one:
Ah, yes! One of my favorites from this series of sketches.
They sure knew how to eat. That’s a damn dream meal.
I remember when Ditka played tight-end for George Halas’s old Monsters of the Midway teams in the mid-Sixties. Christ, I’m feelin’ old; my baby brother up there in Chitown turns 60 tomorrow. Seems like no more than a couple years ago, he was coming to visit me at college for “little brothers” weekends.
Tempus fugit, man.
Keep in mind that the original Monsters of the Midway were the University of Chicago Maroons. The Midway Plaisance runs right through campus. Halas took the nickname and logo (wishbone C) from UofC and the colors (orange and blue) from the University of Illinois. The NFL was not very popular back then and Halas was trying to get some of the popularity of college football to rub off on his team.
Some people, like William McNeill author of Hutchins University, thought that rather than dropping football, UofC should have made the Bears the University’s team. May sound ridiculous today but back then, Halas would probably have gone for it.
Halas also got the T formation from UofC’s last football coach Clark Shaughnessy. UofC dropped football in 1939. It restarted in 1969 and plays in Division III.
UofC was also responsible for the name of the now Arizona Cardinals. They were originally the Racine Cardinals – named after a street in Chicago, not the town in Wisconsin. They bought a set of used UofC jerseys which had faded and were no longer maroon but now cardinal red.
Haven’t seen a boot post for ages. A year? Two? Always welcome.
I don’t understand Prof. Coyne’s obsession with cats and ducks. I just skip those posts.
Thank you for your enlightening comment about my obsession. I suggest that you just skip the entire website.
+1
Jerry, I protest! I haven’t seen any cowboy boots in a LONG TIME! 🙂
I was about to say that. Have you added any to your collection lately, PCC(E)?
-Ryan
I grew up in Decatur, “Soybean Capitol of the World”, and the home of the Staley Bears, who moved to the big city to the north before I was born.
More interested in baseball than football, I could pull in the night-time radio broadcasts of the St. Louis Cardinals and the more distant Chicago Cubbies.
What’s wrong with those posts on cats, ducks and boots? Wouldn’t it be easier to ignore than to complain about them? I happen to also like those make-me-smile and easy and (usually) comforting reads. So people, please don’t be selfish, and stop complaining.
Boots utterly uninterested. Cats and Ducks, more please.
But what I really would like to see more of are the food posts. Restaurants do not necessarily have to be outside Chicago, I’m guessing Jerry could do a Chicago food review? One hopes!
“Too many cats”! There is no such a thing!!! I love the mixed content of this blog. We get to feel friends with Jerry!
You know, it’s Da Rules that make this site such a pleasure. Name calling and idiotic diversions not being allowed generally makes for excellent comments on interesting posts.
There is one commenter on WEIT who comments on virtually every post, and oftentimes comments multiple times. The most I’ve seen from them(*) comprised 28% of all comments made, with total words exceeding Jerry’s words in the post itself. Of course I’m not Da Cops here, so I’ve never called them(*) out, but I will agree it detracts from the overall quality of experience.
(*)Gender-neutral ungrammatical pronoun used on purpose.