You may contact me at my gmail account, madmusiciansgirl.
The development of a comment policy is born solely out of not wanting my readers to get annoyed, hurt or angry if I end up deleting one of their comments, so here goes.
Please don't consider this blog, although it is in fact on the interweb, to be a public street. It's rather more like a shopping mall: private property for the use of the public, as long as they behave. You can say what you want, but if you yell "Fire," you might be asked to leave. If you prefer, the talk show analogy works even better. I'm the host, you're the caller, and the Edit-comments control panel is my call-screener.
I make no claims to greatness, but I work hard not to stink up the blogosphere, as it were. Reserving the right to edit, delete, and sometimes close comments helps this blog to not be stinky.
I know how embarrassing it is to go back to a blog and find your comment has been pulled, so I don't pull comments frivolously. Here are some random tips.
If your very first comment on my blog is a shameless linky-plug for your own blog, I'll probably pull your comment. You have the option of leaving your URL when you comment. That should be enough for anyone. If your comment is proof-read and essentially on-topic, I'll probably hop over and take a look at your corner of this 'ere intraweb. (I don't get bent out of shape over normal typos. I make them, too. If your comment, however, reads like this:
Hello, yes what you have stated there is the fruitage of the Spirit, let's take a look to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 corinthian 12), speaking in tongs, gift of miracles, gift of healing, and many more. Jesus walked through cities and healed people, cast out demons. Remember the storie in Luke 4 v 31.
Well, if you sound like that, I may just make fun of you. That was from YouTube, by the way.)
If you are needlessly rude or or if you use profanity, I'll probably pull your comment.
If you find yourself outraged by something I've written, may I suggest coming back a few hours later to comment? Drive-by commenting usually gets you in trouble. (I speak from personal experience!) You'll forget to proof-read, making yourself look illiterate (see above); you'll make faults of logic which another commenter will drive dump trucks through. You may even inadvertently speak in tongs.
So, please, do go ahead and comment. Kindly use the shift key and the punctuation marks provided on your keyboard. For the sake of all readers over the age of 13, please don't use moronic shorthand. The comment field is not the screen of your cell phone. Smileys, however, are perfectly ok. In this odd realm of written word pressed into service to depict spoken word without body language and voice inflection available, sometimes stage directions and emoticons are necessary.
If you're new to commenting on blogs, welcome! Lurk around for a few days, get a feel for the mood of my blog, browse some archives, read what other readers have said in their comments. Then, jump in!
This blog has been up for a little over two years as of this writing, with only a few random, strange incidents so far. Obviously, 99.99 percent of my readers know how to behave themselves. Thank you!
Again, if you'd like to contact me, you can use my gmail account, madmusiciansgirl. I politely reserve the right to ignore you, but I probably won't, unless you seem to be a troll. (What's a troll?)
May your blogging and commenting bear much fruitage!
