After last week's comments troll spat I decided to i) lighten up and ii) take a leaf out of the book of an author and blogger I deeply respect. So, inspired by a post on John Scalzi's Whatever, I offer up a brief decision making flowchart to aid me, in future, in deciding who does and who does not get to act stroppy over comments on this blog.

Why do we blog? It's a gross simplification but I think the reasons are three-fold. Firstly when you write a blog post you have something to say, you need to find the right words and write them down, albeit virtually. Secondly, you want someone to read what you've written. Thirdly, sometimes you want to stimulate or generate a debate on a topic, to provoke discussion and to participate in a dialogue with the people who've read your words. The last of these reasons is why comments are open on my blog by default and why it's not necessary to register on my blog, just to provide a name and an email address.