comments on commenting

11 THINGS: Comments on commenting

Thursday, August 16, 2007

1. Too few: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? - Bishop George Berkeley

Comment: It does.

Comment on comment: Doesn't it?

2. Too many: "A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding." - Marshall McLuhan

Comment: Then again, there's really no such thing as too many ...

Comment on comment: unless they're all coming from the same person.

3. Anonymous: "The lowest form of cowardly behavior is the negative anonymous commenter. Even Hitler put his name next to his f--up beliefs." - Tony Pierce, blogger, editor of LAist.

Comment: Perhaps ...

Comment on comment: but we still think chicken hawks are lower.

4. Repeat: "If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play and Z keeping your mouth shut." - Albert Einstein

Comment: "Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." - Jimi Hendrix

Comment on comment: Wisdom listens to Hendrix.

5. Love: "I know there's a place you walked/ Where love falls from the trees/ My heart is like a broken cup/ I only feel right on my knees."

Comment: "Who Are You?"

Comment on comment: The Who.

6. Hate: "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." - Hermann Hesse

Comment: "Hell is other people." - Sartre

Comment on comment: "If you don't have anything nice to say ..." - Mom

7. Invisible: "No man ever steps in the same river twice." - Heraclitus

Comment: Be patient.

Comment on comment: Duplicate comments are more annoying than none.

8. Deleted: "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." - Xenocrates

Comment: I've often regretted both.

Comment on comment: Think before you type.

9. ALL CAPS: "What about ALL CAPS? People tell me to stop doing that, but I talk in ALL CAPS. Why wouldn't I type in ALL CAPS, because it looks more like it's chiseled in stone that way?" - Stephen Colbert (chatting with author Will Schwalbe)

Comment: CAPS are like honking ...

Comment on comment: and about as useful.

10. Allowing links: "A Mission Statement is a dense slab of words that a large organization produces when it needs to establish that its workers are not just sitting around downloading Internet porn." - Dave Barry

Comment: "A widespread taste for pornography means that nature is alerting us to some threat of extinction." - J.G. Ballard

Comment on comment: We prefer to not go extinct.

11. Comment on Comments on Commenting: "Hi."

Comment: Please feel free to.

Comment on comment: Please feel free to do that too.

-Tim Sullivan, tsullivan@sfchronicle.com

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/15/NSAORI9RO.DTL

This article appeared on page G - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle