@Karen – Yeah, I think I wasn’t clear that the kind of spammy stuff was more the inappropriately self-promotional kind of thing. Whoops!

Obviously if a friend of mine was trying to sell Viagra on here or something I would dump her immediately.

This is more the subtle stuff that starts being borderline and then crosses some boundaries, whatever they are.

I know that on this blog I’ve deleted a number of comments that have done things like, oh link words like “stress” to their no-more-stress bootcamp.

It’s like, come on! If you read this blog you know how I feel about bootcamps! Plus I think that people who write intelligent comments get click-throughs.

But I don’t usually delete more borderline stuff like people having really long and complicated semi-sales-ey stuff in their name if their comment is relevant and it seems like they actually read the post.

Okay, this is turning into its own post so I’ll stop now. My point was just that different people have differing definitions of what’s cool and what’s overboard and where that line is! :)

The sweet asker of the smart question seems to be a good friend; she’s worried about salvaging what’s left of her pal’s reputation — THAT’S a good friend.

Havi, your suggestion of a non-policy policy is great for any blog, and your idea toward a ‘casual post’ can help far more readers beyond just the offending friend — win-win-wins. Personally, I usually think toward what you called Miller’s Law and what I’ve always thought of as “Sherlock’s Way” (Holmes found motives through factual context and empathy). But I really got a wake-up call when you suggested finding common ground. DUH! I always forget to put myself in other’s emotional shoes; only in their intellectual shoes. I mean, I KNOW to do it; I just forget how different we all are and how we do and don’t process info like each other.

Great question, very helpful answers, and a reminder to model the behaviors we like to see.

@Karen — I read this is a RSS reader too (google) and I just click on the headline to open the original post if I want to read comments. And with Havi’s blog, that’s a given “always.”