Other

(Another) brief note about comments

Since this issue has come up in the comment threads of more than one post, I’ll briefly mention it here. There is no way to prevent a determined individual from posting comments here, regardless of what you think of them. Thanks to anonymizing servers, people can comment without leaving any trace of where they actually came from, thus making any blocking attempts futile. Short of moderating all comments (which would significantly restrict the flow of discussion, not to mention put a huge burden on me on top of all my other work) or simply turning off comments all together, the best approach I can recommend to objectionable comments is the lesson I learned in school many years ago when dealing with bullies: ignore them, and soon enough they’ll direct their attention elsewhere. After all, it’s not like they’re going to be receptive to your arguments and logic…

If you have specific technical recommendations on measures that can improve the quality of comments here, of course, feel free to email me.

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