A Guide to Proper Blog Comment Posting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Since not all comments on blogs are either appropriate or solid gold, Larry Hurtado weighs in with his list of dictums..... See what you think. ----\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Guide to Proper Blog Comment Posting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Since not all comments on blogs are either appropriate or solid gold, Larry Hurtado weighs in with his list of dictums..... 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{"id":3821,"date":"2012-10-17T01:58:18","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T05:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/?p=3821"},"modified":"2015-03-13T23:05:53","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T03:05:53","slug":"a-guide-to-proper-blog-comment-posting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/2012\/10\/17\/a-guide-to-proper-blog-comment-posting\/","title":{"rendered":"A Guide to Proper Blog Comment Posting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

Since not all comments on blogs are either appropriate or solid gold, Larry Hurtado weighs in with his list of dictums\u2026.. See what you think.
\n\u2014-<\/p>\n

Postings, Comments, and Productive Discussion: Some Groundrules<\/p>\n

by larryhurtado<\/p>\n

When I mentioned to a few fellow scholars who were themselves experienced bloggers a couple of years ago that I was planning on launching a blog site, one of the strongly given pieces of advice was \u201cDon\u2019t allow comments!\u201d I chose otherwise, however, as my aim was to try to bring the results of scholarship on Christian origins to a wider public understanding. Similarly, for example, if I\u2019m asked to give a public lecture, I\u2019d always want to allow time for questions and relevant discussion (and even challenges from anyone who knows what they\u2019re talking about). In the two years since that decision, there have been times when I\u2019ve wondered about it, and in the last week or so since my initial posting on the recent spate of people asserting that Jesus of Nazareth is a fictional figure, that has been the case. But I\u2019m committed to allowing (even inviting) questions and informed comments, so I\u2019m sticking with that decision.<\/p>\n

However, with two years experience at this (and now in excess of 300,000 views, and over 1500 comments), I think I want to set some ground-rules (it\u2019s my site after all!). First, call me old-fashioned (and I\u2019ve been called worse), but it\u2019s simply polite to identify yourself in social conversation, so I ask those who wish their comments to be posted here to identify themselves. You know who I am, and it\u2019s only polite to say who you are. I\u2019ve asked for this repeatedly, but I\u2019m now making it a criterion for posted comments on this site. It\u2019s puzzling, downright puzzling, that people who want their views taken seriously so often use (hide behind?) various monikers. So, hereafter, identify yourself if you want your comment posted here.<\/p>\n

Second, relevance! I\u2019ve declined to post a few comments over the past two years that were simply not on the topic of the posting to which the comment was directed, and I\u2019ve edited down some comments that were wordy, wandering, etc. So, keep the issue clearly in mind before you send in a comment. And if commentors introduce some other topic that isn\u2019t directly relevant, I\u2019ll likely curtail chasing such hares.<\/p>\n

Third, if all you want to do is vent your pet view, and aren\u2019t interested in engaging the data, learning from those with the expertise in the subject (which can certainly involve asking for the reasons for a given view), then I politely invite you to go elsewhere. This isn\u2019t a Hyde Park corner, but a site where interested readers can engage experienced scholarship (from me and others) in the field. By all means, ask any relevant question, and raise a query about anything that seems counter to what you may have read or heard.<\/p>\n

Fourth, conciseness and brevity. Enough said here!<\/p>\n

Finally, but by no means last in importance, let\u2019s all try to avoid insults and slurs. Hard-hitting and direct challenge (if informed) is part of the scholarly \u201cgame\u201d. But let\u2019s keep discussion to the data and arguments.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"