No comment?

If you spend only half as much time on the interweb as I do, you'll know that many news, gossip and opinion sites offer the opportunity for readers to post their own "replies" through a comment section. Often the comments received can offer a witty or entertaining counterpoint to the original post, but mostly they just provide a forum for ranting and name-calling.

Now then, the eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that the last couple of posts here have offered just such a "Post A Comment" feature, in an effort to keep your, ahem..."witty" observations out of my inbox and up on the site where they belong, for the whole world to critique. [Of course, by "whole world" I mean that infinitesimal fraction of the population who read obscure rugby websites].

But wait, before you begin banging out all the crazy nonsense that pops in to your head and posting it on the site, there a few things you should know. Firstly, you will be required to create a Blogger login before you sound off, so best not to use your real name if you intend to masquerade as someone from the Wolfhounds, Old Gold or as someone's gay lover (or both). This also means you'll be required to remember a password, so be sure to right it down, because, no, we can't help you remember it.

Secondly, all comments are "moderated", which means that none of the comments make it up on the site until they are approved by the censors. Comments that are offensive, seditious, illegal, but most of all unfunny may not make it up on the site. It also means that you need only post your comment about why Andy Nelson loves you the best once, and then you just have to be patient and wait until the censors get around to blessing it. MmmmK Fred?

Please be aware that the censors probably don't keep the same strange hours that you do, are occasionally called upon to get some work done, and may even take a vacation now and then. So please don't be upset if your side-splitting remarks are not posted in as timely a fashion as you think they deserve. Also, the censors decision is final, so there's no crying in comment-land.

Like I said, the censors are not big on stupidity, pointless repetition, bad spelling or grammar, TYPING IN ALL CAPS, illiteracy, gratuitous profanity and most of all criticism of my posts...no matter how constructive you think you are being. Other than that, anything goes, and use of any of the above in an ironic way may be permissable.

Of course, sycophancy will get you a long way, and posts that include something like,
"That was the funniest post ever..."
"I just pee'd myself from laughing so hard..."
"Please be the father of my children..."
...are sure to cloud the censor's vision sufficiently to make it through the net.

Lastly, remember that like, driving, voting and having a TV in your bedroom, posting comments is a privilege that may be taken away from you at any time if you don't behave.

So let the intellectual discourse begin, and don't forget, if you don't have anything nice to say, just make sure to precede it with "I love this site..." and you're in with a good shot of getting it posted.