Translated, we assume that means if your opinion differs from the owners of this blog, your comment will be deleted.

That begs the question, why have the comment attached to the bottom of the tread in the first place?

A few notes:

1) I can remember only a handful of comments deleted ever. The most recent set was deleted by Theo wherein one of the commenters called the Bush twins tarts and went on to assert that he had personal and simultaneous knowledge of that 'fact' which was not only in poor taste it was inherently libelous.

Not being predisposed to doing that comment's author any favors I would have let the comment stand for all the world to see, forever, in all of its obvious malice and ridiculousness. With the software that powers this blog, each JW Contributor/Author (as opposed to a commenter) "owns" their posts and has the capability to edit or delete any comments added to their original posts. As Site Admin I can alter or delete any post or comment.

To date, I do not believe that Ospurt, Shepherd, Vaughn, or Walsingham have ever deleted a comment from any of their 'owned' threads, although Walsingham (having Admin Superpowers like me) did alter an Anonymous comment regarding the Bush twins. I have deleted several (most notably from the old "Ralph Wiggum" and "The Eurasian") for the blog crime of Serial (and I do mean serial) Off Topic Commenting.

2) As Site Admin I can see the IP address for all commenters so I know which comments are made by the same 'person' even though they leave the 'Name' space blank or type in Anonymous. And I will bust you for 'Sock puppeting' so 'Anonymous' posters might as well adopt a name so the comment threads read easier. And don't worry about your anonymity because of the IP address thing. It tells me only the internet address of the computer used to make the comment but nothing about where the computer is, who owns it, or who is sitting at it.

So you can assume all that you want that your comment will be deleted if your opinion differs from ours but that doesn't make you correct in that assumption either in the here and now, and certainly not historically on this blog. And that is why we have the Comment attached to the bottom of the thread in the first place.

3) Learn the proper use of the phrase, "Begs the question." It isn't synonymous with "This raises a question."

Learn the proper use of the phrase, "Begs the question." It isn't synonymous with "This raises a question."

By the way, Nat, I still have Stu Pidasso's comments, merely unpublished. You think we should embarrass him? I tend to think not--malicious, yes, but very off-putting.

I have a MD friend who did a psych. rotation. He said that the old shrink who was guiding the department told him to interview a psychotic and after Jan got out, the shrink asked how he felt.

"My skin was crawling. That was the strangest thing I've ever seen." Jan is articulate and perhaps the most intelligent person I've ever known, but he couldn't put a finger on this psychotic's affect. He said that the major ability to diagnose psychosis is the affect, and effect, of the person.

Not really related to anything here, but since you have been getting a lot of anonymous comments lately, have you considered putting them to work, using recaptcha for your captcha? It uses the captcha code to assist OCR programs in digitizing books. Makes a useless pain in the neck a little less useless.

One of the things I have appreciated over the years about the Well is that the posts and comments are considered and discussed civilly, with few or no personal references, much less attacks.

I agree with the Site Admin that censoring does not allow readers to evaluate comments for themselves, and come to their own conclusions about the commentor.

I had read the anonymous rant concerning the Bush twins before Theocritus pulled it down. It was abusive, vulgar, indeed, scatological, and was not in any way civil, or in the interest of furthering a rational discussion.

I agree with SA that it was a personal temper tantrum, and as such could be laughed at, but I must also agree with Theo here, that the rant had no redeeming value and contributed only disgusting locker room strutting to the thread.

You big bad bully Nazis.

http://www2.mywesttexas.com/community/node/2839

I find it fascinating. I pulled his comments, which I saved, and Stu ought to be quaking in his boots knowing that I did.

Here he is, smirking that he was so good at his work that we were forced to pull them out of competition. On this theory it is an insult to taggers to paint over graffiti laced, liberally, with vulgarity. And then the painters, doing housekeeping to avoid offending the public, are told by the hoodlums that they are to blame.

I formally challenge Stu Pidasso to any sort of mano-a-mano battle of wits that he cares for. So far he seems armed with misdirection, sodden pieties, and resentments, none of them well expressed.