12/04/2014
Sometimes a comment thread is too good to consign immediately to oblivion - hence me reproducing this extract from the
Hannan blog (slight visual changes made). In general terms, one must avoid the use of
ad hom, but one must nevertheless observe that the political insult is a much under-rated art form.
Speaking of comments and forums, incidentally, we have made some changes to the forum. Despite the offers of moderation help to deal with the spam applications, they are getting to such a level that we have decided to close the forum to new applications, except by prior appointment. All you need to do is ping me an e-mail and we can open a window to let you in, at a mutually convenient time.
With that, and because we have the open Disqus comments, we also decided to make it a closed forum. In practice, that makes very little difference. Only forum members tend to read the threads anyway. Our traffic figures show that public (non-member) participation is very low.
The effect of this is that you can afford to be more candid with your comments (although obeying all the rules of decency, etc), and matters can be discussed which you would not necessarily want to broach on a fully public forum. As of now, therefore, you will have to log in in order to read the forum comments.
That does, of course, leave Disqus, which is turning out to be something of a success. Our many regular ex-readers seem to be enjoying the opportunity of the easy access, and we enjoy having them here, not reading the blog.
FORUM THREAD
