I am finishing up a year with Forbes.com this week and I take note that my 319 posts have 1,389 comments associated with them. Forbes.com contributors have immense power over comments. We can “call them out” or delete them. If we don’t call them out, they are actually not that noticeable. One thing that some of my fellow contributors do that drives me a little crazy is respond to comments that they have not called out. Comments by contributors are automatically called out.
At any rate, I call out almost every comment that I don’t delete. The only exception to that rule is the tail ends of a couple of exchanges between commenters that I thought were getting a little tedious. I’m sure there is something that I would delete for some other reason, but so far my only deletions have been obvious spam and duplications. (Occasionally commenters enter their comments multiple times because they don’t think they have registered, because I have not called them out yet.) I particularly appreciate spirited attacks on myself and am apt to not only call them out, but feature them in subsequent posts. Here is one of my favorites:
I just read the blog again just to see if I was missing something. What the H** does this have to do with taxes? Your stream of consciousness proves one thing about you east coast progressives – you are all on drugs. and I am unsure which is worse, your disjointed logic in the blog or Forbes allowing it to be published. I might just take up drugs so I can be published.
Despite relishing insults to me, I do get concerned when my commenters become indecorous with one another and have issued occasional warnings. My most recent was to Alan Collinge, a prolific commenter and guest poster when he referred to “Corporate Welfare Queens/Bottom feeding poverty pimps”. The post went up at 12:05 AM. I am inclined to think that caffeine was implicated in the offense.
Alan is currently in Washington trying to meet up with various players in the student loan debacle. I hope we will hear from him soon.
Rather than putting forth a code of behavior for my commenters, I am more inclined to put forth an aspirational standard. Is it possible to express vigorous disagreement, while maintaining a high level of decorum and politeness ? I believe that it is and have chosen to put forth my favorite historical example of such a written communication. The circumstances that caused it to be issued are fairly well known and I think can be inferred from the content. So here it is my standard for vigorous, yet decorous communication:
Sir,On the evening of December 7th His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom learned that Japanese forces without previous warning either in the form of a declaration of war or of an ultimatum with a conditional declaration of war had attempted a landing on the coast of Malaya and bombed Singapore and Hong Kong.
In view of these wanton acts of unprovoked aggression committed in flagrant violation of International Law and particularly of Article I of the Third Hague Convention relative to the opening of hostilities, to which both Japan and the United Kingdom are parties, His Majesty’s Ambassador at Tokyo has been instructed to inform the Imperial Japanese Government in the name of His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom that a state of war exists between our two countries.
I have the honour to be, with high consideration,
- Sir,
- Your obedient servant,
- Winston S. Churchill
That is the standard of decorous communication that I am urging on my commenters, but please don’t let it discourage you. I love to hear from you regardless.
You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.
Originally published on Forbes.com on June 24th, 2012