It’s easy for any author to publish on the Web, with whatever purpose and goals. That’s the core thing, and it’s very cool.

Separately, an author *might* decide to take feedback by publishing an email address, or maybe a form-to-email tool. Or not. “Not” is the default.

Or she *might* provide a Web-based commenting tool. She can offer it on any terms she likes: registration-required, queued and moderated, moderated after the fact, moderated within a policy, unmoderated. For any of these, other tools can be overlaid: spam detection, bad-word detection, automated comment closing after X days. There’s a rich palette of tools.

Seems to me that a self-publisher decides for herself which tools to offer commentors, if any, and gets on with publishing. Good prolific writing attracts the loyal, silent 95% audience all by itself; liberal comment policy attracts a small and vocal commentariat. These are *not* connected. Seriously. Obviously.

If you’re valuable, folks will read you, link to you, tweet about you, pay you, whatever. Liberal comment policy isn’t key to social-media advantage for creators.

But comment-porn *does* (for now) still drive somewhat phony metrics that matter a lot to old-skool publishers in painful transition. I wish them well, but I think it’s important to ask whether my ambitions as a content creator truly depend on their need to attach a running food-fight to my work.

Write a book. A play. A movie. Make a photo essay. An audio program. There are lots of good ones made every day. They don’t have a comment widget attached to them, and nobody argues they’d be more successful if they did.

Only in the blog space is this a question of critical concern, and I think that’s delusional. The content here (this blog) is strong — strong enough that, if it were self-published, the author might shade back the comment noise in order to better focus on just making more. I’d like more.

There simply is no universal best comment policy. The publisher, of course, decides. There should be no confusion about that.

LQ

Like Kevin says in a perfect world, there would be no repercussions for voicing opinion but this isn’t a perfect world and haven’t there been enough news stories about violence as a result of being too open on the internet. I use my first name and last initial and that alone worries me at times especially since I am extremely open in my comments.

I do not, however, wish to place myself or my family in physical danger because some view I express on the internet enrages some nutjob out there. They exist in the really real world. I started just using my first name but that proved too common and I use my last initial. I think the bloggers are brave to use their full names and hope no harm comes to them for it. That nothing seems to have has made me braver and less anomyous (I comment on some blogs as simply muggle and often wish I had stuck with it here but now that I’m known here as Donna H, well, I’m stuck with that) and now that I retired am even thinking of starting my own blog soon but, man, no pics of my grandson or daughter are going to be on it and no exact address, etc.

To all those calling anomoyous bloggers cowardly, I call you foolish or refusing to look at the whole picture. Maybe if your name is John Smith you haven’t much to worry about or maybe you think you can kick even Ahnold’s ass. Whatever. But to label people cowardly just because they don’t put their full first and last name out to the public in a medium that has had incidents of cyber-stalking carried over into real life, is, well, just plain cowardly on your part and kind of skunky too.

Yes, it’s a tough dilemma and a good chunk of those anomyous bloggers are just being @$$hats but to stereotype every last one with that is close-minded and narrow.

In the final analysis, nothing will assure the end to free speech on the internet more assuredly than not allowing anomyous commenting and, frankly, it will make the internet far less satisfying. One thing about the internet that makes it something I love is that the give and take I miss from 30 years ago exists on it. It doesn’t face to face any more. Free speech is very repressed face to face these days. Sad but true. You never know who is going to feel free to open a can of whup ass on you because you disagree with them or who will ostracize you for your views. I would hate to see the internet follow suit.

I obviously enjoy the TU blogs and I’m glad I do. Because I’m 52 and have been reading the TU since I was 5 and don’t find it much worth reading any more (sorry, MH) but the blogs still keep me connected to it. And there’s far too little things I’ve been connected with for the five decades of my life these days. However, if I have to post my last name, my real e-mail (yeah, I know, supposedly but they haven’t enforced it and hopefully they won’t because I’ve seen others posted and, yes, I worry about hackers), register or pay, I’ll be gone.

I’ve been holding my breath that the TU won’t do any of those things. I hope they would hate to lose me (and probably other readers/commenters too) as much as I’d hate to lose them. If not, shrug. I can’t control that. I’d hate to lose it but I’d move on. Not sure to what since there’s not much this good in way of local forums.

I would hope my opinion matters. I may not be buying the paper any more but commenting here is helping them generate ad revenue.

I wish you could read all the comments that are submitted, not just those approved and published.

We are not a city on a hill, where enlightened and thoughtful discourse flows from every keyboard. We are bigoted, racist, hateful, mean-spirited and cruel. We are also incredibly kind, compassionate, sympathetic, witty, smart and funny.

Bloggers on timesunion.com moderate each comment before you see it. They approve some and they reject others. They control their discussion based on our guidelines: No hateful speech and no profanity.

Are those guidelines vague? Yup, by necessity. With hundreds of bloggers on hundreds of blogs, making thousands of judgment calls each day, there is bound to be wide, gray line between what one blogger approves and another rejects.

re: anonymous comments. Requiring readers to use their real names won’t end the hate, but it will stifle discussion among readers who have opinions but don’t feel comfortable having their names appear online. I don’t think less of readers who choose to post anonymously.

The optician’s blog you link to is pretty tame. Out of 37 posts there are only about 6 that I would consider negative or off topic and they aren’t even that bad. That’s about par for the course. And those 6 are just comments referencing other parts of the world that need assistance besides Afghanistan.

There’s no “all ______ are terrorists and need to ________, THEY TOOK OUR JOBBBssss rabble rabble rabble…”