The comments feature of this blog is still relatively new. From the beginning, the intent was to drive it around the block a few times and see what falls off. On the whole I have been very pleased with a number of things. The tenor of comments has been generally good, and the anticipated flamers did not show up. This meant that I have not had to use my little skull and bones icon to ban any posters, which, when you come to think about it, is a darn shame.
At the same time, some remaining problems do need to be addressed. We are now in the process of setting a word limit for posts — which will probably be around 250 words. It will probably be a few days before we get it operative, so until then — just guess. This is in response to numerous comments and concerns I have received about the direction things might be going, as well as my own observations as blog traffic cop. And if I said nothing about it you all would have the right to conclude that this is what I wanted, and was trying to encourage. But no — I would really like the comments feature to facilitate conversation, dialogue, interaction, and response, and not to become a place for blog-squatting, or any other forms of verbal glut. As traffic cop, I would like things to flow, and to have all my guests and friends zipping by in their Hondas and SUVs, not lumbering through with gravel trucks. It is really just a matter of etiquette, and this limit is simply designed to help with that.
Because it is an etiquette thing, I still want to leave certain things up to you all, in a spirit of the law kind of thing. If you post a comment and notice an error in your post, feel free to post again. Or if you get cut off in mid-sentence, feel free to post again to finish the thought. This limit is not designed to shut anybody up, and so if a good conversation is in progress, feel free to post multiple times in the process of that conversation. But keep in mind, as guests in my cyber coffee house, that I have set up the open mike night because I want to hear everybody sing.