I often fail to engage with people who post comments on my blog

One of the things I like best about this blog is the fact that there is no shortage of comments. Many are excellent but others are quite simply infuriatingly bad. Yet, all of them form important contributions to the attractiveness of the blog.

So, thanks to everyone who has contributed.

And, please, keep up the good work.

Despite their importance, I often do not reply to the comments. Some readers might thus be puzzled by my seemingly paradoxical stance. There are several reasons for it; please let me explain.

You probably noticed that I publish a new post (almost) every day. That means I am quite busy – often too busy to post any replies to your comments. You might have also noticed that there are not just one or two comments from readers. In total, my readers posted well over 60000 comments on my blog. And again, I have to admit that I do often lack the time to formulate my own comments. Rather, I hope that other readers pick up the points someone has made and that, in this way, a constructive debate emerges even without my contribution. To be honest, sometimes the comments are also beyond my area of expertise and, in these instances, I prefer to remain silent.

And then there are the comments that, as mentioned above, are infuriatingly bad. Sometimes they annoy me so much that I spontaneously write a response. More often than I wish, I then come across as rude and unhelpful (for which I apologize). And more often than I want, this error entangles me in an argument that is both futile and unwinnable.

Instead of writing things that I later regret, I should really try to heed the bon mot that is often attributed to Mark Twain: