blogging

This blog is not that active, and I didn't think it would be a problem for me to switch off the comment moderation as I have a good spam filter but ...

Having done so, I got one comment that read, "Japs are weird." I regard this as pretty offensive, and will delete any comments that contain racial slurs from now on.

Another commenter said under my post about aimai: "I would say that most Japanese are incredibly thin-skinned,... that they have a low opinion of humanity, and that the main aim of life is to not make mistakes, rather than to succeed."

You know what? People actually say things like that. When I talk with other foreigners in Japan I've heard those who talk like this. So does that mean that I will accept it in this blog as a comment? No. This comment will be deleted along with any similar comments in the future. Comments like this are too broad to be very useful, and could easily cause harm. People need to attempt to talk in specifics when saying things like this.

I was rereading my post on aimai, and it occurred to me that potentially its intent could have been misinterpreted. I have put a small message into the post to explain my intent, and will update that entry when I have time. I will also be more careful from now on.

Also, I have put up some temporary rules for posting comments here. I regret I had not put up any rules prior to this.

I will consider putting moderation back on if I continue getting comments like this. I will delete any comments from now on that I consider inappropriate. I will also look into other options for this blog. I really do want to encourage discussion here ... so I will be thinking about this.

All this hassle for a blog that isn't even updated that often ...

Recently, Elizabeth van Kampen commented on a post in this blog. She provided a link to her site, and I checked it out. It is a wonderful site and I strongly urge anyone reading this to check it out. Spend some time there and learn some real history.

While nobody was watching, an interim report drafted by a study group under the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has set down guidelines for regulation of the Internet in Japan which, according to one blogger, would extend as far as personal blogs and homepages.

This sounds serious; here is the link.

According to a recent article in the WSJ blogs are more popular in Japan than they are in America. The article states that as of March, America has an estimated 12 million blogs, Japan 8.7 million. Also noted was the phenomena of blogs that are so popular they invade other media outlets ranging from comics to books to movies. Some of the examples presented in the article were entertaining. Here's one: "Six years ago, a Japanese businessman went online to vent about his domineering wife.