The Hermeneutic of Continuity

I received this message today from a reader. I have registered a Google account, but having posted once the next time I try to do so the wretched system refuses to recognise my password. I then reset it, make one post, then the whole sorry business starts again (invalid password, reset, post; attempted post, invalid password, reset...) Can anyone help here? My "workaround" suggestion was to get an Open ID which might in any case be useful for other things. I see that some people do in fact use Open ID to comment.

As of writing, I have received 129 comments on the "Responding to the Tablet" post. They have all been kind and encouraging. I have also received many emails in the same vein. Your support is very much appreciated. Sir Dan "blog reader extraordinaire" has just left me a phone message listing all the blogs that he has read with supportive posts and so I will now have a look through those.

The other day I requested help for those who want to comment but have found it difficult to negotiate the process of getting a blogger ID. The Little Church Mouse has started a new blog called Tuts4Blogs which is dedicated to providing tutorials for bloggers. The second post on the blog has a YouTube tutorial of how to sign up for a google/blogger ID. Many thanks indeed to the Little Church Mouse.

A couple of people have written asking for simple instructions on how to set up an ID to comment on the blog. I'm not much good at technical support so I'd be very grateful if someone could pop some simple instructions in the comment box - or indeed on your own blog if you would like the hits. If you put instructions in the combox and include links, please put them in as hyperlinks (Cf. How to put links in the combox .)

At the bottom of the sidebar I have put a link to my post " Putting links in the combox ." This saves a little time if you want me to go to a link that you have posted in the combox; and time is soooo precious ;-) If you have not got round to learning how to do this, you know that the link is always there tucked away when for you have a moment. It's not that difficult and will make you look a net-savvy commenter :-)

Blogger now allows people to use something called " Open ID ". This means that you can log in to comment using any open ID, including Typekey and Wordpress. The Blogger website has more information . I have now turned on the option that means you have to use an ID when commenting. You can still make one up, of course, but you have to give yourself a name and not just anonymous. It was always annoying to have four different anonymouses commenting on the same post.

The number of comments to this blog has increased quite a lot in recent months and I am very grateful to you for your interest and for your contributions. These comments have given me (and perhaps you) wisdom, knowledge, correction, and often some good laughs. I rarely delete comments. Thankfully it is not often necessary. However, just to remind you, here are two posts that are permanently linked at the bottom of the sidebar: Comments on blogs in general Comments on this blog Another thing that I would urge you is to avoid posting comments that are simply "anonymous". You have the option to post a comment with your blogger name if you have one, or anonymously or - and this is the important one - "OTHER". Please use "other" in preference to anonymous. You can remain anonymous by calling yourself Mr M. Mouse, Mr D. Duck, the Reverend Pantaloon Trouserpress or whatever. But by doing so, you will enable other commenters to refer to your comment without trying...

There was a sackload of comments today. On the last lot (on the Caritas Social Action book), after reading them all, I selected all and pressed ... reject. Sorry about that - just a slip of the mouse. Feel free to repost them if you are not too annoyed with me! Incidentally, regarding "course of action", first of all I intend to read the book carefully (should come from Amazon within a day or two). Then I'll do a review here. Any of you who have the stamina for this might do the same. This is a case of "unleash the power of the blog." And yes, send letters to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Lots of them.

I am getting a little edgy about comments where an individual is named and then subjected to strong criticism. I know people have strong views but by and large, I would prefer not to have personal attacks on the blog unless there is a very clear public interest. We have to avoid detraction as well as calumny.

I don't normally do tech support but this problem has caused incovenience to some readers. Therefore... THE PROBLEM If someone pastes in a long URL into the combox (e.g. from a newspaper story) it may go beyond the end of the line. (There are no spaces for the line to break at.) The text is all there but you can't see it. If you try to select to the end of the line, you do not get all the URL. THE WORKAROUND If people do this, you can solve the problem as follows: Select from the beginning of the URL to a line below the URL. Paste this text into Windows notepad. There you can see the whole of the URL, you can select it, copy it to the clipboard and then paste it into the link box of the browser. HOW TO AVOID CREATING THIS PROBLEM FOR OTHERS When you want to direct people to a web page, do not just paste the URL text into the combox. Do a link instead using the html anchor tag. Here's what you do: 1. Type in the following: <a href= 2. Type or paste the URL in double quote...

I will moderate comments if I can get to a live internet connection at Ampleforth. If not, you'll have to wait until Thursday evening or possible Friday afternoon (I have an important funeral in the morning.)

The number of comments to this blog has increased quite a bit over recent weeks. Thank you all very much for your interest. I'm pleased to say also that I don't often have to reject comments. (For my policy, see the two links at the bottom of the sidebar.) However, I feel that I should say that I am going to find it increasingly difficult to spend time replying to comments. There is snail-mail, email, and voice-mail as well and I don't keep up with those very well. So please don't be offended if I don't reply to a question or supply information that you ask for. There is only a limited time at my disposal - I have to run a parish and teach as well. My first priority here will be to post regularly with a variety of items.

First an introductory remark or two on what a blog is and is not. A blog is where an author posts items that may be of interest to others. If nobody read the blog, it would be rather pointless and it would be better to write a diary or something. The author takes time to write the stuff and therefore “owns” the blog. It is a great medium for free and democratic publishing and is becoming more influential. Some popular blogs can be subversive of vested interests and powerful institutions. A blog is not a discussion forum or a message board. Blogs can be used for those purposes just as a knife can be used as a screwdriver but it is better to use the correct tool. Comments on a blog may be unmoderated, or moderated in various ways. Most people do not allow abusive or spam comments. On a blog with comment moderation, these will be rejected before they are posted. On a blog without moderation, they will be deleted as soon as they are found. Some blogs have lively discussions in the comment ...