From time to time, somebody commenting here will say something so weird, that I feel that I must have slipped into another dimension or parallel universe. This happened yesterday, when the remark was made, apropos of this blog, that, ‘your kudos is less than your ego suggests’. This was pretty bizarre, but actually sums up the apparent attitude of quite a few of those who comment here. Perhaps it might be a good time to make one or two things clear.
First, this is a purely personal blog, visited at most by a few hundred people each day. It does not represent anything other than my own musings on a subject which is dear to me; that is to say home education. Quite a few of those commenting here get irritable if they feel that comments have been deleted or altered; even my own comments on posts that I have myself made! This happened only the other day. The impression I get is that some of those who come on here regard this in the way that they would a blog run by an organisation or company; that is to say that I abide by certain conventions or rules. I do not. It is a personal blog and although I do not operate any moderation, if I should take it into my head to delete anything, then I shall go right ahead and do so. Many blogs on home education in this country do not allow unmoderated comments to appear; I am under no sort of obligation to allow anybody to say anything here. It is, as I said, a personal blog. I might mention that soon after I started this blog, I tried to turn it into a team effort, allowing anybody who wished to do so to contribute posts. See;
http://homeeducationheretic.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/turning-this-into-team-blog.html
Despite the huge number of angry people who were at that time commenting here, not one wished to put his or her own point of view forward in the form of a post here. I even contacted all the more well known people in the home education scene and invited them to contribute. Nobody wished to do so, probably because it would have meant putting their names to their opinions.
I shall not have as much time to spend on this blog in the next few months as I might wish and that brings me neatly to another point. I do not have unlimited time to spend here and sometimes, when the debate seems to me to becoming fruitless, I stop visiting the comments on some threads. This is not discourtesy on my part; still less is it the case that by failing to respond, I am tacitly admitting defeat on the point under discussion. I simply do not have the time. I am currently turning out six to eight books a year and in addition to that I am writing for various magazines and newspapers. There really is not time to answer every comment here.
Finally, I must respond to the person yesterday who felt that I had less kudos than is in fact the case. I am assuming that whoever said this knows what kudos actually is; that is to say praise and acclaim. I can truthfully say that I have never received any praise and acclaim for the opinions that I share on here! Once in a while, somebody will rather grudgingly concede that I might have a point, but that is about as far as it goes. Can anybody point out to me any kudos at all that I might have received here? This is a genuine enquiry, because it is always possible that on some of those threads to which I have stopped responding, there is much kudos to be found. I could, I will freely confess, do with some!