Commenting on a Comment

When someone writes a comment on this blog, it goes into a moderation queue — where, if everything is working right, it gets promptly approved and shows up on the blog. (The moderation process is the Times‘s measure against spam and outrageousness.)

Usually it is our site editor, Melissa Lafsky, who moderates the comments, but occasionally I do it too. When you look at all the comments awaiting moderation in the queue, it is not immediately evident which comment corresponds with which post. You just see them in a stream, and have to roll over a “view post” button to see.

Here’s one comment I saw the other day, from a reader named Eli:

I read the blog occasionally. It’s clear there are some common themes: parental betrayal, career failure, extramarital affairs, suicide, gender identity, etc. Do you ever get bored of seeing the same stuff over and over?

Within the space of about 1.5 seconds, I had three thoughts:

1. I guess not.
2. You left out “cheating.”
3. What a grump you are, Eli.

Then I looked to see what post Eli was responding to. It was this one, fielding questions for Frank Warren about his PostSecret blog and other projects.

Eli, you’re not a grump after all — just observant.