Experimenting with Comments

I am quickly coming up on my 1,000 blog posting (today is #934). I am toying with the idea once I hit 1,000 blog entries to do something I have never done since I started my blog and that is to allow comments from my readers. The main reason I have not opened the comments option previously is because the purpose I started my blog was simply to allow those who attend Grace Church here in Lititz to learn a little more about me as their Senior Pastor.

When I started my blog back on March 31, 2005, I never imagined that in just three and a half years I would have had over 75,000 people visit “Folks Listen.”. Obviously my blog is read by far more than just the 1500-2000 people who are associated with Grace Church and so I thought maybe it would be fun to hear where some of these readers are from and to hear what their thoughts might be. However, I don’t want to lose total control of my blog either so I am going to go by the following guidelines when it comes to comments posted on “Folks Listen.”

I will personally moderate all comments so any comment that is submitted will not appear automatically. I will do my best to keep up so that comments that are submitted are posted in a somewhat timely manner.

Just because a comment is submitted does not mean that it will be posted. I have readily discovered that there are many out in the blogging world, even those in the Christian blogging world, who seem to only desire to tear down rather than edify. Any comment that I deem to be destructive in nature or that I believe may cause damage to the cause of Christ or to the ministry of Grace Church will be rejected.

Any comment that is simply a “cut and paste” of other people’s works will be rejected. The reason I am experimenting with opening comments is to hear the original thoughts of readers not to read volumes of other works that have simply been reprinted. I am amazed at how many people who comment on blogs simply cut and paste volumes of second hand information.

Because I do not have the time to check out hundreds of other websites to make sure that they are appropriate, I will not allow any other websites to be advertised in comments.

I do reserve the right to edit any comment submitted for the purpose of length. I would ask that comments be kept to a simple paragraph. Comments are in no way enjoyable to read when they seemingly go on and on and on and on and on and on.

So, I’m not sure how long I will conduct this experiment but starting today I will be opening comments on “Folks Listen.” So feel free to take a moment, even if it is simply to say “hello.” This experiment will help me decide if this will become a permanent thing once I hit the milestone of my 1,000 blog entry.