If you haven’t read Da Roolz, please do so

Over the years I’ve developed a set of posting guidelines, affectionately known as “Da Roolz” in Chicagospeak. You can find them on the left sidebar, or by clicking here. If you’re new here, or haven’t yet read them, I urge you to do so, as it will facilitate discussion as well as making my job easier. I’ll just point out three of them that are particularly important these days.

a) f you’re a first-time poster, I have to approve your initial comment. This won’t necessarily be immediate, as it depends on my checking email.  After that, posting is automatic unless you become moderated for some reason.

Sometimes first-time posters assume that their comment was fouled up because it didn’t appear. And that could lead to them trying to make the same comment several times.  Not necessary: first comments need to be approved and thereafter, if you’re not moderated (some people are), your comments should appear automatically. I do appreciate people using their real names, but understand if you have good reasons not to do so.

b) 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.

This guidelines is often violated, and I vary in how much I feel like enforcing it. If there’s a good back and forth going on, I am not strict about it. But some persons feel that they have to respond to every comment, and in that case I will warn people. I almost never remove comments when they’re posted.

c.)  Be judicious about posting videos and very long comments.  I like good discussion, but essays are not on, particularly if you have your own website where you can post it.  Embedded videos are okay, but please think before posting: do they add to the discussion? If your comment is longer than, say, 400 words, it is probably too long. If you want to write stuff longer than that, please get your own website!

This guideline I do try to enforce, either by emailing the person with logorrhea or by adding a “reply” saying that “this comment is over the word limit; please try to post shorter comments”.  Comments are just that—comments and not essays.  Also, please try to keep your comments in line with what the post is about, though sometimes readers can introduce a diversion if it’s timely or important.