Sunday, January 10, 2021

As you may have noticed, I did not respond to comments on the previous post

...and I hope that meets with your approval, that it is acceptable. It may even be a good thing, and I may be doing more of it in the future.

Or not.

It depends on how the mood strikes me. It is interesting, though, to see the sort of comments one's posts engender without feeling it necessary to respond to each and every one. It would be rude to respond to some but not others. Perhaps you think it is also rude of me not to respond to any of them. I hope not.

If Snowbrush wants to call that a cop-out, he is free to do so. It's no skin off my nose (as my mother used to say).

Keep 'em guessing, that's my motto.

It's not really, I just said that.

Do you agree or disagree? Are there hard and fast etiquette rules for bloggers? Must it always be a dialogue? Can it be a monologue sometimes? Am I talking to you or just speaking into the air? Am I talking to myself?

So many questions. I hope you can help me with the answers.

Changing subjects, it was 25°F (-3.9°C) here this morning but the temperature is supposed to reach 48°F (8.9°C) this afternoon. Pneumonia weather, Mrs. RWP calls it. When I took Abby out for her morning constitutional the yard was resplendent. The sun made the frost on the dormant Bermuda grass sparkle like diamonds.

Changing subjects again, four of my direct descendants out of nine have tested positive for COVID-19. If you include spouses and currently significant others our family consists of 17 in all and six have come down with the virus, but so far Mrs. RWP and I, like Old Man River, just keep rollin' along. We are unscathed to date and I hope it stays that way. The only place we go is to doctors' appointments (both of us) and grocery stores (me only). So far, as they say, so good.

Just who are "they" anyway?

As this post seems to be going nowhere, I will stop at this point.

I really do want to hear your opinions in the comments.

19 comments:

  1. So glad that you and Mrs RWP are doing ok. Hope your relatives have a quick recovery.
    Are you going to take the vaccine? The vaccine rollout is slow in VA but we will get it when it is our turn.
    Your blog, you decide if you want to reply to comments. I am fine either way. :)

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    Replies
    1. Kathy, we will probably get vaccinated eventually but despite our ages we are in no rush to get to the head of the line. One of my “go to” quotations is from the early 18th century by Alexander Pope: “Be not the first by which the new is tried, nor yet the last to lay the old aside.”

      Thank you for being “fine either way”.

      Delete
  2. Hang on, what do I need an opinion on? That you didn't answer comments? well if you habitually declined to answer I'd get annoyed but every blogger has a right to answer when they please.
    I'm glad you haven't got the plague and I hope the fam recover well. Thats my opinion

    on a couple of things

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    Replies
    1. kylie,

      opinion given, received with much gratitude, life can now proceed.

      Delete
  3. Part of the fun of blogging is the individualism we meet. It's also valuable to stop once in a while and reflect on what we are doing. No hard and fast rules. Give a loosey goosey guy like me some slack. You'll have to put up with me!

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  4. Red, No one who grew up in Esk, Sask could ever be called loosey goosey. If you can put up with me, I will do my best to put up with you.

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  5. As far as responding or not to comments, well that is up to you. Some people do and some don't. I enjoy the back and forth conversation of getting a response but each person has their own style and when I follow a blog I read it with or without a response.

    I am sorry to hear about the covid cases in your family. I do hope they have minor cases and do not require hospitalization. Your life sounds like ours - we go out for medical appointments and the grocery store. That is the extent of our excitement these days.

    For what it's worth I don't blame you for not responding to a couple of the comments on your last post. I will leave it at that. You and the Mrs. take care!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bonnie, thank you for comments. This post is going much better than the last one!

      Delete
  6. Like Kylie, if there was no dialogue at all then I would probably lose interest in visiting. However very often a comment doesn't call for a response so that's okay too.

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    Replies
    1. Graham, I don't want you losing interest so I will try to make my "no reply" posts few and far between.

      Delete
    2. P.S. to Graham, kylie didn't say she would lose interest, she said she would be annoyed. Not the same thing at all. I'm just saying.

      Delete
    3. Bob, firstly I don't do annoyed so I'd just go straight to losing interest. Secondly I cannot believe that Kylie would want to keep being annoyed so I suspect that she would therefore lose interest. Of course only Kylie knows that.

      Anyway your answer makes me happy that your blog is going to remain a pillar of my Blogland society.

      Delete
  7. Two bloggers I follow go even further than not responding to comments. They have comment moderation on but never approve them from anyone. Responses simply disappear. Presumably they see them - I don't know but they have not disabled comments. If that's how they want things it's up to them, but I find it frustrating when I feel I have something sensible and pertinent to add. It's encouaging to be acknowledged at least sometimes.

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  8. Tasker, what you say is very interesting. To be acknowledged at least sometimes is what everyone, I think, longs for.

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  9. Please in due time let us know that all of your family members have recovered completely. In the meantime you and Mrs RWP stay safe.

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    Replies
    1. Emma, will do and will do. That is, (a) I will let you know in due time and (b) we will do our best to stay safe.

      Delete
  10. I'll answer your last question first.
    "They" are knowledgeable bastards, "They" know everything. That piece of information may, or may not, get past the censor...
    Yes, I noticed you had not replied to the comments. As far as I know there is no Google rule that states all comments must be given a response. I could only think about a term used here, known as not rising to the bait. A commendable approach, given the circumstances.
    While many posts and comments are opinions which offer an opportunity to rise to the bait consider this. How many billions of people are there in the world? This is the post/comment response of one person. In that context how important are they?
    I'll leave that for you to decide.
    Alphie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alphie (short for Alphabet?) Soup, 1 out of 8,300,000,000 or whatever the current population of the world is doesn’t amount to much. On the other hand, someone (I forget who) said, “I may be just one, but I am one.”.

      I welcome all comments here although as this blog’s creator and editor I may decide not to publish a comment, or if I do publish a comment I may decide not to reply to it. In other words, you writes your comments and you takes your chances.

      Delete
  11. It's always the perogative of the blog writer to answer or not. As the God of our own small universes in this sense we can moderate comments, not publish them, not answer them, wear them as hats, feed them to the dog and onwards. If someone doesn't answer my comment for whatever reason that may be that is absolutely fine with me. The main thing is they read it. They know what I thought and that's the point of leaving a comment. It will frustrate some people enormously though! Hahahahaha. However it's up to the follower to decide if it's annoying or possibly in their mind insulting enough to stop following. If they do stop following then the blog wasn't really for them after all and that's about the size of it. I find it interesting you didn't reply, but not even slightly suprising and I understand why you might not want to as well. If I went to a blog and my comments were never replied to I'd stop going, but that isn't what you mean and you can't get rid of me that easily *falls about*. There's a saying - “Never discuss politics or religion in polite company.” (popular in my youth, not so much now) which nails it on the head. People can be very good friends as long by not mentioning either, yet still respecting the other person's views (if they already know they disagree on the subjects. If they have no idea it's going to come up one day and that day will also be interesting either way). The easiest way to avoid comments on subjects you don't want to reply to though is to not post about them in the first place hahahaha.

    Stay safe dearie. X

    ReplyDelete

<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

We are bombarded daily by abbreviations in everyday life, abbreviations that are never explained, only assumed to be understood by everyone...