I noticed this afternoon that L.D. is excited about Joan Gunderson's critique of Mark McCall's paper "Is the Episcopal Church Hierarchical?" I wanted to let him know that his enthusiasm might be tempered a bit by the legal analysis of the Anglican Curmudgeon (see below). It turns out that Dr. Gunderson is an historian and is really not up to speed on legal arguments, as the Curmudgeon points out. I wanted to tell Lionel this, but neither of his websites allow for comments.
Lionel has come on here and commented - there's no fear here concerning conversation. I've had to edit an expletive recently, but other than that anyone can say anything here, provided it's in good taste. So, I'm left wondering why Lionel is afraid of conversation. Maybe it's part of the left's obsession with power and control. For example, any number of liberal sites monitor comments and delete ones they don't like. Fr. Jake was about the worst at this, but thankfully, Fr. Terry Martin no longer blogs as Fr. Jake.
Lionel, if you're out there, send me an email, I'd like to hear from you. And who knows, maybe we could have a conversation. I thought that liberals liked conversation.
1 comment:
Let me say that I am not afraid of conversation; I am not even afraid of public conversation. Tony’s complaint seems to be that neither Lionel Deimel’s Farrago nor Lionel Deimel’s Web Log allows visitors to post responses to material I have written. It is easy enough to find my e-mail address or telephone number or to send mail to me from a Web form, however.
When I first created my blog, providing for comments was less common than it is now, and I do not even remember if I considered consciously whether I should allow them. As years passed, it became clear that (1) comments can help create a lively community (as for Father Jake), and (2) comments can be so toxic that their use cannot be sustained (This American Life). Allowing comments unquestionably increases traffic, a fact that certainly got my attention.
Some time ago, I had a long telephone conversation with Terry Martin about comments and whether I should add them as a feature to my blog. I was frankly envious of the 100+ responses that Terry’s posts regularly elicited. On the other hand, I found it hard to understand how Terry ever found time to read, much less moderate all those comments.
In the end, I decided, at least tentatively, not to make the seemingly unlimited commitment of time required to handle comments.
The question of whether I was willing to interact with Web visitors has never been a question for me. Interestingly, my blog seldom elicits e-mail messages—perhaps visitors do indeed read “do not disturb” into the lack of a formal comment facility—but my Web site sometimes attracts complex inquiries about computer science or recreational mathematics. Often, such a message initiates an extended correspondence or sends me off to do hours of work on a matter of mutual interest or in the satisfaction of a visitor inquiry.
Sometimes—I would not say often—I engage in give-and-take in the comment section of a blog such as this one.
All of which is to say that I am happy to discuss anything of mutual interest if I have time to do so. This forum is as good as any.
(By the way, I tried to post this comment a few days ago, but Blogger did not accept it for some reason.)
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