Strange comment on the blog
Wednesday, 19th November, 2008
I received a comment on the blog today which, though I’m not entirely happy with it (for the reasons outlined below) I have approved. I want people to be allowed to say whatever they want here, as long as its relevant and not hateful.
I sent the author a personal email to follow up, which is as follows:
Hi there
Thank you for your comment on my blog. I will be approving this for publication, but feel (out of a sense of responsibility for my blog more than anything) that I will have to also place a note in – under my name – acting as a disclaimer. I have no ‘loyalty’ or official affiliation to BBK per se, but do respect the institution which, in my world, promotes a more than healthy programme of debate around contemporary poetics.
I’m keen for my blog not to become a battleground for people’s personal political concerns, particularly when those concerns have nothing in common with the post content (were you in fact interested in this – your search for “Birkbeck Blog” suggests you were perhaps more interested in a way to vent spleen). I am all for COMMENTS, and would not have written to you about this if you had perhaps weighed in with a constructive comment rather than merely posting a link to a site. You surely realise how close you are to being a comment spammer, so I needn’t force the issue there. However, since I am fairly sure you are not a robot, and have not said anything explicitly hateful, I’ll publish the comment. I would ask that you perhaps revisit the site and elaborate on your experiences and warranted such Googletrawling and link-dropping, though.
Kind regards
John