Welcome

Dennis Jones is a Jamaican-born international economist, who has lived most of the time in the UK and USA, and latterly in Guinea, west Africa. He moved back to the Caribbean in 2007. This blog contains his observations on life on this small eastern Caribbean island, as well as views on life and issues on a broader landscape, especially the Caribbean and Africa.

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Tuesday, January 08, 2008

A slight procedural change

I am a great believer in transparency and accountability. I want to follow the same principles with my blog. After a lot of thought I have decided to hold my commentators to a similar standard. In future, I will not take "anonymous" comments, so commentators will have to assume an identity. That should not stop anyone from remaining anonymous because the identities do not have to be real. This may help if comments become very numerous and everyone can see "who" is commenting within a thread. As the blog administrator I moderate all comments anyway and I can see the IP addresses associated with comments, so if someone wants to change identities that will not disguise from where the comments are coming, and if someone wants to play that game good if they have the time. I am not concerned about the content and tone of comments, which have been excellent. I just believe that we should be able to stand firmly by what we are prepared to say. Some blogs just have a lot of blasting and irresponsible vitriol because commentators can "hide" behind anonymity, which seems to be like literate sniping. Comments to this blog have been very well thought out and presented in a respectful manner. Please keep the comments coming; they are all appreciated.

4 comments:

Jdid said...

happy new year and yes sometimes the anonymous comments can be a bit disturbing.

Anonymous said...

I agree totally with the procedural change vis-a vis anonymous comments.RESPECT!!

Mama C said...

So sorry if my previous habit of posting as anonymous offended anyone... Honestly the plain truth is, with so many passwords in my brain, I couldn't remember this one, lol~ I enjoy your blog so much that your policy change has made me dig deep and figure it out, a good brain excercise...Thanks!!

Dennis Jones said...

I certainly was not offended by anonymous comments. My decision is really in the spirit of building a community amongst commentators on my blog, which means displaying a degree of confidence in being able to at least be identified.

I take Jdid's remarks in the context of anonymous comments in general, not specifically those that have appeared on this blog.