For Better Commenting, Avoid PONDS
"All around the bog still sprawls, from out the drear lake come soulless thoughts and drift into the hearts of the people, and they are one with their surroundings."— Alan Garner, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. If our blogging is to be more than shouting into the void, we have to write good comments. But that's hard to do. Too much perfectionism, enforced positivity, criticism, status smackdowns, or vagueness in our commenting standards can all be problematic. I'm using a framework that I think has been helpful. It's simple enough. Avoid PONDS. * P = Prickly * O = Opaque * N = Nitpicky * D = Disengaged * S = Shallow Let me define each term. > Prickly means that your comment has a chilly, disapproving, mean, or unappreciative tone. It could hurt feelings, and make somebody feel dumb for opening their virtual mouth. > > Opaque means that your comment makes assertions without backing them up. You're saying stuff without giving any reason at all for it. This can also include some types of lazy "questions" that are really meant as cheap shots. Even giving a partial reason or motivation for your comment or question means that it is not opaque. > > Nitpicky means that your comment is expressing criticism of one particular part of an argument, without stating whether or how this local disagreement informs your view of the original argument as a whole. Even saying "this is just a local nitpick; I don't know if it means much for the argument as a whole" is enough to make your comment not a nitpick. > > Disengaged means that your comment doesn't give the impression that you'd be likely to carry the conversation further if you received a response. It's a "drive-by commenting." > > Shallow means that you didn't read the entire original post or comment thread to which you're responding. Each category is meant to be a very low bar. Express even mild warmth, underlying reasoning, attempt at synthesis, display of engagement, or depth of consideration -- not even all f
By experiment, I guess? I don't have a well worked out philosophy on this specific issue. But in general, I think that when you have a plausible idea like this, it's good to just budget some time for a few tests to learn how onerous it is (or isn't), and see if it catches anything that make it seem worthwhile. You'll probably figure out intuitively when the amount of inventorying and investigation is starting to seem excessive. And probably the level you should be at is not zero. So then it's just about figuring out the highest priority areas and working your way down the list gradually over time.
I'll bet you could figure out a solid plan (especially now with AI) for inventorying potential safety issues in your house in an afternoon and execute in a few hours, especially with housemates to help.