Oh, I had my little share of moronic commentators (just one actually) who a while ago depressed me so much that I had to close down the blog. Actually that wasn't the real reason why I did it. Anyway the commentator really disturbed me and made me sad, so I can understand how Babsi can be frustrated by her commentators now and then. For example, I am frustrated that I don't get that many comments. Aside of the two or three sweet souls that drop their lines not dreading the void that surrounds them, usually it is pretty silent around here. I have no idea how certain bloggers must feel when they open their blogs in the morning to find tens and tens of new comments, all giving a new life to the recent posts. Must be great. Or not.

Babsi maintains that the comments she receives are often "off-topic, empty", and have no purpose ("they are an end in itself"). She wonders if her blog "really deserves the commentators it has." "I can't have a blog with comments that make me happy when I read them", she says. Then, quite incoherently, she mentions a number of commentators who write good comments that make her happy.
(So, Babsi, what's the deal?)

It is none of my business, but honestly, from the way she presents it, I don't really see what trouble Babsi has with her commentators. You're not and you can't be in control of what people comment on your blog. End of story. Is it really useful to inhibit your commentators by pointing out your discontent?

I think that when it comes to commentators you must appreciate what you are happy to have and don't bother with what you'd rather do without (or, like in my case, what you don't have). There is no other decent way around this: complaining out loud for "off-topic" comments is... well, what a teacher would do. A bad teacher at that. Sure, by doing so, that teacher could obtain more coherent papers from the pupils: but (I think we all remember this from school) certainly less spontaneous and original and authentic ones.
Anyway, the teacher can be excused for this choice because of the supposed pedagogic purposes. But a blog isn't school, right? What good all the rules can do here? Besides, what you write and what is commented are two very different things. I am not saying one can't be disappointed, or offended by a comment or another: and you can close everything down if you need it. But to what authority exactly can you complain for the "bad" comments? And what would be the charge? People not being what I expected them to be?

I don't know, maybe it is even unfair --or inelegant -- to put your commentators down, to demolish them, in such a general way from a post of your blog: since your commentators are there for you and for what you write and all they can do is to say what they think, while you get to decide and give the directions and make things happen.

Supposedly we all enjoy the freedom of the net (although, alas, it is pretty frequent in the italian blogland to find people complaining about it): well, these are its inconveniences. But they can't seriously harm you, because freedom works both ways. It sets you free, too.

To put an end to this post, I'll say that this story reminded me of that scene in a Milan Kundera's novel (I think it was Immortality) where a good looking girl in a salon in Paris gives her indignant speech about how dreadful it is to be an "object" of the attention of the men, and how horrible it is for a woman who walks down the streets to be whistled at, etc. Everyone in the salon agrees with the girl's indignant speech, because she is obviously right. Then someone, not an adept of social rules apparently, notes how not being an object of the attentions of anyone can also be terrible: maybe even ten times worse. Because not being desirable it is one of the outposts of solitude, and as such it should be kept in mind as a possibility (or better, as a probability), when we dismiss as wrong the attentions we receive.
I guess this is even truer when we talk about fame and respect and readership than when we talk about good looks, since nothing, not even immortality, lasts forever.