And…especially after having met you in person this evening (which was lovely, btw, if oh-so-brief. Damn you, lack of babysitters!), I can honestly say you could pull off that sweater.

Yes, as one who is, um, heavy with child, I wistfully wished I could’ve rocked that frock you wore to the reading. I must say you are as stylish in person as you are on paper! Sigh…as for me, three more months ’til I can savor a deep goblet of merlot and the faint hope of a waistline…

FJ, you guys are great moderators. You’re one of the few blogs where I regularly read comments. I like your point about regular posters earning the occasional “LOL!”

I’m debating whether or not I want to write about the implosion over at Shakesville. I’m sorry, an eight-point, theory-laden commenting policy that reads like something out of a re-education camp is just bizarre. Whether or not I write about it will, of course, be settled not by any internal debate, but by whether or not I get around to doing so before it’s utterly yesterday’s news. Yet I debate it. Because I have to do something to take my mind of that damn sweater.

I also love when you do the occasional wrist-slapping, if need be. It gently tells your devoted followers what you expect from the comments section — a sort of “real time policy” in action.

PS — Don’t buy that sweater. For the love of God. It screams “impulse buy.” (Though those can sometimes be good for us.) It just looks as if Carmen Miranda took up knitting. ;-) Ay, carumba!

OH yeah. Substitute any combination of attributes (parenthetically) and you have a perpetual etiquette device.

Not to worry, though – I think your readers are here because of your unique attitude,expertise, writing ability, and DISCERNMENT.

That’s what is needed in your moderation of comments – sure, a policy, but reserve the right to say Begone! unapologetically.

I do admire the moderating at kateharding.net because they are merciless towards trolls. Shapelings also demonstrate that thoughtful posts usually generate thoughtful commentary – which bodes well for your own unpaid moderating here.

I loathe pile-on, snarky blog comments…even if the subject up for discussion is snark-worthy.

But I like censoring stuff far less than I like snarkiness, especially having been on the “censored” side of things. I can’t think of many comments that I would have done away with on the MC blog. Every comment’s a learning opportunity if you use it right. Anything that becomes multi-post personal, or starts in with name-calling I would toss. Mostly, whatever policy encourages evolution of the blog and of the community, encourages more participation rather than less, encourages lurkers to come out and say something (discourages any in-clubbiness on the part of regulars)…is all good. (I can always hope that someday people will be less mean to other less visible humans.)

I don’t mind that all threads aren’t open for comment (though I appreciate when they are open). When you’ve kept a post closed I often think “Yeah, I would NOT want to moderate that discussion!” I do like blogger participation. Boring is easy to scroll by, and in the mind of the beholder. Drift is natural. Someone will eventually chime in and say “Hey, but we were talking about giant pink ponies, not the economic crisis!” (some community policing works just fine.)

Boingboing is moderated very, very well, I think. I like “disemvowelling” for lots of reasons. And their moderation policy is a fun read. The best comment on the BoingBoing comments policy:

“BB comments are like a cocktail party. Sometimes we engage in serious discussions. Sometimes we engage in light-hearted banter. We’re always drunk.”

My favorite blog for comments is babynamewizard.com. I do think that is an exception as the posters tend to be a self-selecting group who are particularly interested in the topic of names. It really feels like a community (unfortunately you can’t force communities to evolve quickly). However what I like that Laura (the blogger) does is:

The comments are easy to see and read through.

It’s easy to post a comment and you can edit it if you make a mistake.

Laura chimes in occasionally, but also often follows up a discussion with a full length post as her topic for the day. That shows she is listening, but we also get a full post out of it.

I am trying to decide how I feel about getting off topic… I guess I’m sort of a content snob– is the new topic interesting? I also think if someone needs help quickly I can understand sending a shout-out to the group in the middle of a conversation.

As for short comments (LOL!) I don’t know how the technology works but maybe you could have something like FB does when you can just put a like or dislike thumbs up under someone’s status (hopefully that makes sense). Other than that as long as the comments are easy to read past they don’t bother me much.

I rather like it when the blogger comments in the thread. It shows they are still listening and have more to say.

Opening up comments? Well, sometimes I’d like to comment on posts that aren’t open and I’m too lazy to send email. But it’s not too common.

Threadjacking does bother me, if threads are easy to follow. If it’s just chronological order, I don’t really care one way or the other.

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents. :)