more on moderating comments

I really don't like posting on something so uninteresting as moderating comments, but I need to periodically remind us all that when a comment is not approved, there is some reason. That reason is never ideological. I approve comments from comps as well as egals. What disqualifies a comment from being approved for posting are things such as sarcasm toward someone else's position or claiming to know what someone else's motives for their beliefs is.

I am a feeling (Myers-Briggs) person and I hate to not approve any comment. This is especially difficult for me when an entire comment is appropriate for posting except maybe one final sentence. For many of you I do not have an email address for communicating with you about your comments, for instance to ask you to remove a final sentence before re-submitting a post.

I realize that some of you may feel that my moderation is unfair, but please try to believe me that I am attempting to be totally fair. Fairness has been a very high priority for me ever since I was a child. Some of you may have noticed that I even approve comments questioning the fairness of my moderation. :-)

One alternative is for us to return this blog to its previous status of having no comments moderated. But most of us can remember the chaos that results. For some reason--which I hope can be discussed sometime here--the topic of gender roles engenders deep feelings and public comments, often with feelings getting hurt on all sides. I happen to believe that even with such a difficult topic we can discipline ourselves to speak more objectively and graciously. Many of you (from both the comp and egal sides) already do that and I thank you. It makes my job as moderator easier.

I have tried to respond to comments which ask if a previous comment has not been approved. But the Blogger system bounces my replies back to me. Unlike some discussion systems, Blogger does not attach the commenter's email address to their comments. I'm sorry. I wish the software could serve our purposes better, but there are security reasons the Blogger system is configured as it is. The system is designed this way to try to keep you all from getting spammed by those who harvest email addresses from Internet blogs, websites, discussion lists, etc.

If you wish to ask me anything about a comment which has not been posted to this blog, please feel free to email me:

wayne-leman at netzero dot com

I have to be upfront and say that my time is very limited for exchanging messages about comments. I have posted previously that it is likely that I will not interact with anyone about a rejected comment because of my time limitations. Instead, I have tried to make the ground rules for acceptable comments as clear as possible in the guidelines in the upper right of the blog margin and in several blog posts. I have a day job which does not allow me much time for non-business email. And I like to spend much of my evenings in the presence of my lovely wife (I don't have any unlovely wife!).

If anyone feels that the complementarian position is not adequately represented on this blog, I always have the door open for anyone else who is willing to be a co-blogger here. It takes work to be a blogger and it takes personal discipline for a blogger to stay within the blog commenting guidelines. I always have an interview with anyone who emails me about being a blogger, to try to find out if they can interact graciously with those with whom they agree.