Let me say a few words about comments so everyone knows what to expect.

I want comments to be a key part of the identity of this site. Comments are the easiest way for me as a writer to see what readers are thinking about my writing. Comments can also serve to kill dialogue if people resort to name calling. If you want to see the worst case scenario for comments just go to your local newspaper website. There may be one comment in 25 that is worth reading, if you’re lucky. If this is all I can get comments to be, I will turn them off. There is no reason to get to that point though. If you want to see how a rich, diverse comment community can work, just go to http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/. This is the best case scenario, and it takes work by the moderator and buy-in from the commenters.

I have set up the comments so that a reader has to at least fill out a name and email before they can post a comment. My hope is this will weed out the people who just want to post spam or insults. This also allows the community to get to know each other by having a record for each commenter’s contribution. Hopefully this will let each commenter’s personality and expertise come out. I also have set up the comments so I have to approve the first comment for each new person. This seems like the best compromise between letting anybody post anything, having control over comments, and having a dynamic community. I will still read through comments and delete any that aren’t appropriate. So what is appropriate? It’s pretty simple. Write what you think articulately, without calling people names, being vulgar or adding spam. If I delete a comment I will try to send you an email (using the email you used to register) telling you why and giving you a chance to rewrite it.

On a side note, If you send me an email (unevengroundblog@gmail.com) with either a question or comment I will try to respond to you. If it’s good enough I will post it, with your permission, so that others can benefit.

This is all open to change as needed, but I’m willing to do the work, and I hope you are too.