We do our best to post high-quality material, and we’re grateful to our readers for the generally high level of discussion that takes place in the comments to our posts. If we don’t always respond ourselves, it’s because we’re busy working on the next post.
Recently, however, we’ve had several cases in which readers have inserted as comments entire posts or newspaper articles from their own blogs or publications. This is improper blog etiquette. Such long comments impede rather than encourage discussion, both because they don’t relate directly to the conversation (since they were written for another purpose) and because they are generally very long. If you think a post or article of yours (or a post or article by someone else in some other publication or blog) is relevant to the discussion, please note that and insert a link, perhaps together with a brief quote.
We’re also proud that the comments on South Jerusalem eschew obscenities, invectives, and ad hominem attacks–and we have at times rapped some of you on the knuckles when, in the heat of debate, you’ve violated our rules of decorum.
We welcome all views here, and we are loathe to disallow any comments on our posts. But we do reserve the right to do so if these rules are violated. Please help us keep the discussion at South Jerusalem focused, intelligent, and civil.
Very well said!
agreed. I have moaned and groaned repeatedly about people posting whole articles they find interesting (though often irrelevant to the thread), on Mondo Weiss. It’s infuriat9ing.
“This is improper blog etiquette”
I completely agree. Keep up the good work!
People do manage their blogs in varying ways, of course: I personally delete comments and ban commenters utterly without mercy, which is why Yaron is so mad at me. It’s rather amusing really: I’m 57 years old, and I have the impression that Yaron is even older – but you wouldn’t think it …
provocateur par excellence
Slightly off-topic, but I thought you’d be interested in this:
60 Minutes which, as you may know, is the top-rated TV news magazine in the US, ran a segment “Is Time Running Out for a Two-State Solution?” last Sunday. It’s actually almost a landmark in coverage of the conflict here in the US, in that it is very rare for anyone to bring up what a serious problem the settlements are. Nowhere in the segment did they mention that the settlements are also illegal under international law, but I’ll take what I can get…
Oh yeah, I forgot to add: the segment is available on Youtube.
I’d have to agree with this note as well as Rowan’s observations about Phil’s blog. Ironically, I have actually been blocked from posting comments there (which was a big surprise to myself since that place is rather unmoderated and I was one who was deemed “banworthy”). I do admit that a blog with an out-of-control comments section peeves me but it still should not devalue the blog itself.
Keep up the good work on SoJo.
Josh, you haven’t been blocked. It is that infernal Typepad system.
“If we don’t always respond ourselves, it’s because we’re busy working on the next post.”
My comment, borrowed from your next line:
“This is improper blog etiquette. ”
The most prolific top bloggers (Lisa’s On the Face, for instance) respond now and then to a comment and almost always answer direct questions. This has not been my experience with South Jerusalem, which I return to for the occasional important (to me) post, despite what strikes me as your improper blog etiquette.
Tamar, we do our best to respond when we think we have something to add to the discussion, see for example the back-and-forth on my post https://southjerusalem.com/2008/12/hebrew-as-she-is-spoke/. But please remember that both Gershom and I are freelance writers with no independent income and families to support. Until such time as some genius figures out how to make a buck off a blog, when time presses we have no choice but to prefer paying gigs to talking on the blog. That said, please don’t hesitate to direct questions or comments at us specifically, and we’ll endeavor to respond.