Comment policy

Something about anonymity seems to encourage nastiness and abusive sarcasm in comments that make them very unpleasant to read. (This is true for all blogs with comment functions, not just this one.) If there is some intellectual content to the comment I don't want to censor it, but please note that I am more likely to do so if you remain anonymous. Attaching your name to your comment has, I think, a civilizing influence. And why not take some responsibility for what you write, unless you have genuine grounds for believing it will get you arrested or something like that? In general, I would ask commenters to re-read their comment after finishing it and ask themselves, "Would I want to have this person at my dinner party?"